Organizing and Repression in the University of San Carlos, Guatemala, 1944 to 1996, presents a history of the deliberate and sustained violence committed by state forces against students and intellectuals during Guatemala's armed conflict. In addition to providing detailed proof of the State's abuses, the report also hopes to serve future generations of San Carlos students as a popular history of their university.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in Washington, DC, and the International Center for Human Rights Research (CIIDH) and the Group for Mutual Support (GAM), in Guatemala, supported this research as a way to recognize the contribution of San Carlos students in the creation of the large-scale CIIDH database on state violence (whose results are presented in CIIDH and GAM 1996 and Ball, Kobrak and Spirer 1999).

The AAAS Science and Human Rights Program works to protect the human rights of scientists and technical professionals. During a wave of violence against the Guatemalan university community between 1983 and 1985, AAAS documented 201 individual cases of killings, disappearances and arbitrary detentions of the country's professionals. Subsequently, AAAS sponsored training for forensic anthropologists conducting scientific exhumations. This volume is the most recent product of AAAS's long concern with human rights in Guatemala.

Paul Kobrak researched and wrote the report. He would like to thank those members of the San Carlos community, listed in the bibliography, who generously gave their time and insight in interviews. Other thanks are due: Patrick Ball created the graphs and provided feedback; Louise Spirer provided editorial assistance in the English version; Idalia Monroy Lemus and Ricardo Miranda Castillo did the same for the Spanish; Matthew Zimmerman did the book design and page layout. The team at the CIIDH provided valuable research support.

The AAAS is grateful to the donors that have made this work possible, including the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the General Service Foundation, and an anonymous donor. The CIIDH thanks their donors, including Oxfam UK-Ireland, Centro Canadiense de Estudios y Cooperación Internacional (CECI), NCOS-Belgium, and an anonymous donor.