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.
[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.
[15] As a result, the state magnified the military threat posed by the insurgency and launched attacks that lead to civilian massacres and violations of human rights of any suspected "supporters" of the guerrilla.
[18] Aside from pressure from the UN Secretary General to work towards truth and reconciliation, the road to the CEH was influenced by the Catholic Church — specifically when it created the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala (ODHA) in the mid 1990s.
[19] With a belief that uncovering the truth would make national reconciliation a possibility and authentic democracy a reality, the CEH aimed not to judge but to clarify the past with "objectivity, equity and impartiality.
There is awareness with regards to the systematic violation of human rights during the civil war, but the acts committed and their consequences have yet to become entrenched in the national consciousness and historical memory of Guatemalans.
The U.S. provided declassified documents crucial to the commission, and the UN Secretary General promoted the project and facilitated the contribution of monetary resources and expert knowledge through various UN bodies.
They concluded that the four main causes of the conflict were as follows: Structural injustice, closing of free, public spaces, anti-democracy trajectory, Cold War context and international influence.
They concluded that the structure and nature of economic, cultural and social relations in Guatemala are marked by profound exclusion, antagonism and conflict — a reflection of its colonial history.
[35] Among the victims of arbitrary execution, forced disappearance, torture, rape and other violations of fundamental rights were children, priests, indigenous leaders as well as non-combatant women and men with no ties to insurgency groups.
In 2002 it ratified the Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, regarding the participation of children in armed conflicts and the recognition of the competence of the Committee Against Torture to receive individual complaints in 2003.
[47] In the several years following the release of the CEH's report, scholars have analysed its effectiveness in preventing conflict and creating national harmony as highlighted in the commission's mandate.
[48][49] In addition, Rachel Sieder has investigated judicial reform and violence in postwar Guatemala and states that homicide rates in fact were higher in 2011 than during the height of the armed conflict.
[50] The effectiveness of the CEH is highly contested, however it has seen successes — particularly with the opening of spaces like 'La casa de la memoria' which exist to preserve the memory of the conflict's victims.