Historical Clarification Commission

In 1994 Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification - La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH) - was created as a response to the thousands of atrocities and human rights violations committed during the decades long civil war that began in 1962 and ended in the late 1990s with United Nations-facilitated peace accords.^[1] The commission operated under a two-year mandate, from 1997 to 1999, and employed three commissioners: one Guatemalan man, one male non-national, and one Mayan woman.^[2] The mandate of the commission was not to judge but to clarify the past with "objectivity, equity and impartiality."^[3]

Among other things, the commission revealed that over 200,000 people were killed or disappeared during the conflict and attributed 93% of the violations to state forces and related paramilitary groups.^[4] The commission noted that during the conflict the distinction between combatant and non-combatant was not respected and as a result many children, priests, indigenous leaders, and innocent women and men were killed.^[5] The CEH aimed to instill national harmony, promote peace, foster a culture of mutual respect regarding human rights, and preserve the memory of the conflict's victims.^[6]