Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 November 2020
Practices of denunciation are at once ubiquitous and marginalised in literature on the Guatemalan armed conflict. Meanwhile, ordinary Guatemalans who spontaneously denounced neighbours, former friends and fellow villagers have largely escaped scrutiny in scholarly work on low-level perpetrators. Departing from untapped confidential documents in the Historical Archive of the National Police, this article provides the first archival study of denunciatory behaviour during the Guatemalan Civil War, specifically at the height of the conflict (1970–85). This contribution reveals both the strategic considerations that spurred state intelligence apparatuses to elicit civilian information as well as the broad range of personal, opportunistic and strategic motives that drove civilians to denounce. The case study questions scholarly consensus on the spontaneous and voluntary character of denunciation by arguing that besides providing novel pathways for opportunistic action, denunciations also opened up new strategies for survival in the face of a civil war that structured available choices.
Las denuncias durante el conflicto armado guatemalteco están en todas partes y al mismo tiempo marginadas en lo escrito sobre el tema. Guatemaltecos comunes que acusaron de forma espontánea a vecinos, antiguos amigos y gente de sus comunidades, han escapado en gran medida al escrutinio académico sobre perpetradores de bajo nivel. A partir de documentos confidenciales hasta ahora ignorados del Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional, este artículo ofrece el primer estudio de archivo del comportamiento de denunciantes durante la guerra civil guatemalteca, específicamente durante el pico del conflicto armado (1970–85). Este trabajo revela tanto las consideraciones estratégicas que estimularon los aparatos de inteligencia estatales para obtener información civil, como el gran abanico de motivos personales, oportunistas y estratégicos que llevaron a los civiles a denunciar. El caso de estudio cuestiona el consenso académico sobre el carácter espontáneo y voluntario de la denuncia al indicar que más allá de proveer nuevas veredas para la acción oportunista, las acusaciones también abrieron nuevas estrategias de sobrevivencia frente a una guerra civil que estructuró la disponibilidad de opciones.
Práticas de denúncia são ao mesmo tempo onipresentes e negligenciadas na literatura sobre o conflito armado da Guatemala. Em particular, cidadãos comuns da Guatemala que, espontaneamente, denunciavam vizinhos, antigos amigos e membros de suas próprias comunidades, são pouco analisados em trabalhos acadêmicos que lidam com perpetradores de ofensas menores. Utilizando-se de documentos oficiais inexplorados do Arquivo Histórico da Polícia Nacional, este artigo viabiliza o primeiro estudo de arquivo do comportamento denunciatório durante a Guerra Civil da Guatemala (1970–85). Esta contribuição revela as considerações estratégicas que incitaram os serviços de inteligência do Estado a obter informação de civis e também a vasta gama de motivos pessoais, oportunísticos e estratégicos que levaram civis ao ato de denunciar. O estudo de caso coloca em questão o consenso acadêmico ao redor desta ideia do caráter espontâneo e voluntário da denúncia. O artigo argumenta que essas denúncias forneciam não apenas novos caminhos para ações oportunistas, mas também abriram novas estratégias de sobrevivência diante de uma guerra civil que moldava as escolhas dos cidadãos.
1 Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH), Guatemala, memoria del silencio, vol. 3 (Guatemala City: CEH, 1999), p. 174.
2 For testimonies, see CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, 12 vols.; Proyecto Interdiocesano de Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (REMHI), Guatemala: Nunca más, 4 vols. (Guatemala City: ODHAG, 1998). For ethnographic accounts, see Carmack, Robert M. (ed.), Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians and the Guatemalan Crisis (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Green, Linda, Fear as a Way of Life: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala (New York: Colombia University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Manz, Beatriz, Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror and Hope (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Stoll, David, Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala (New York: Colombia University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Zur, Judith, Violent Memories: Mayan War Widows in Guatemala (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998)Google Scholar.
3 Nelson, Diane M., ‘Anthropologist Discovers Legendary Two-Faced Indian! Margins, the State and Duplicity in Postwar Guatemala’, in Poole, Deborah (ed.), Anthropology in the Margins of the State (Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2004), p. 121Google Scholar.
4 Esparza, Marcia, Silenced Communities: Legacies of Militarization and Militarism in a Rural Guatemalan Town (New York: Berghahn, 2017), p. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On civil defence patrols, see Kobrak, Paul, ‘The Long War in Colotenango: Guerrillas, Army and Civil Patrols’, in McAllister, Carlota and Nelson, Diane M. (eds.), War by Other Means: Aftermath in Post-Genocide Guatemala (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013), pp. 218–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simone Remijnse, ‘Memories of Violence: Civil Patrols and the Legacy of Conflict in Joyabaj, Guatemala’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Utrecht, 2003.
5 CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, vol. 3, p. 278.
6 See, for example, Dicósimo, Daniel, ‘La delgada línea roja: Conflicto y consentimiento en las relaciones laborales (1976–83), Historia Regional, 25: 3 (2012), pp. 35–49Google Scholar; Lazzara, Michael J., Civil Obedience: Complicity and Complacency in Chile since Pinochet (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2018)Google Scholar; Mignone, Emilio Fermín, Iglesia y dictadura: El papel de la iglesia a la luz de sus relaciones con el régimen militar (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Colihue, 2006)Google Scholar; Rebolledo, Javier, A la sombra de los cuervos: Los cómplices civiles de la dictadura (Santiago: Ceibo Ediciones, 2015)Google Scholar.
7 Victoria Basualdo, ‘Nuevas aproximaciones al estudio de la última dictadura militar: Sus aportes y limitaciones para la historia de la clase trabajadora’, IV Seminario Internacional sobre Políticas de la Memoria, Buenos Aires, 2011, p. 1.
8 Lvovich, Daniel, ‘Sospechar, delatar, incriminar: Las denuncias contra el enemigo político en la última dictadura militar argentina’, Ayer, 107: 3 (2017), pp. 73–98Google Scholar.
9 Gellately, Robert, ‘Denunciation as a Subject of Historical Research’, Historical Social Research, 26: 2 (2001), pp. 20–1Google Scholar.
10 Letter, M. C. H. to Government Ministry, 30 Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773420.
11 For recent research, drawing on the AHPN records, on the role of the PN during the armed conflict, see Sullivan, Christopher, ‘Political Repression and the Destruction of Dissident Organizations: Evidence from the Archives of the Guatemalan National Police’, World Politics, 68: 4 (2016), pp. 645–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Manolo Vela Castañeda, ‘El Diario Militar, los ciudadanos y la Policía Nacional de Guatemala’, in Fundación Myrna Mack (ed.), El Diario Militar: Rastros de la verdad (Guatemala City: Fundación Myrna Mack, 2013), pp. 83–145; Kirsten Weld, Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014).
12 Weld, Paper Cadavers, pp. 127–8.
13 Ibid., p. 6.
14 David H. Bayley, Patterns of Policing: A Comparative International Analysis (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990), pp. 195–6.
15 Benjamin Bowling, Robert Reiner and James W. E. Sheptycki, The Politics of the Police (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 105.
16 Bowling et al., The Politics of the Police, p. 15.
17 Denunciations were mainly collected from the archival (sub)fonds pertaining to some of the major internal structures of the PN: the collection of ‘received confidential information’ of the Dirección General (General Directorate); the Cuerpo de Detectives (Detective Corps); the Departamento de Investigaciones Criminológicas (Department of Criminological Investigations); the collection of ‘common crime denunciations’ of the Secretaria General de la Dirección General (General Secretariat of the General Directorate); and the collection of ‘sent and received confidential correspondence’ of the Centro de Operaciones Conjuntas de la Policía (Police Joint Operations Centre, COCP).
18 AHPN, Del silencio a la memoria: Revelaciones del Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (Guatemala City: AHPN, 2011), p. 315.
19 Jennifer Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), p. 157; Weld, Paper Cadavers, p. 48.
20 Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 158; CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, vol. 2, pp. 83–6.
21 Weld, Paper Cadavers, pp. 72, 106.
22 Anonymous to PN, June 1980, AHPN, file 7299193.
23 Index card J. C. V., 3 June 1981, AHPN, file 471474.
24 Fitzpatrick, Sheila and Gellately, Robert, ‘Introduction to the Practices of Denunciation in Modern European History’, The Journal of Modern History, 68: 4 (1996), p. 751CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Peter, ‘Singling out Victims: Denunciation and Collusion in the Post-Civil War Francoist Repression in Spain, 1939–1945’, European History Quarterly, 39: 1 (2009), p. 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Stoll, Between Two Armies, p. 98.
26 Fitzpatrick and Gellately, ‘Introduction to the Practices of Denunciation’, p. 747.
27 AHPN, Del silencio a la memoria, pp. 354–61.
28 Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 383.
29 Patrick Bergemann, ‘Denunciation and Social Control’, American Sociological Review, 82: 2 (2017), p. 388.
30 Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, pp. 350–89.
31 Ibid., pp. 352–8.
32 Letter from Anonymous to Government Ministry, 31 May 1984, AHPN, file 5122345.
33 Mallmann, Klaus-Michael, ‘Social Penetration and Police Action: Collaboration Structures in the Repertory of Gestapo Activities’, International Review of Social History, 42: 1 (1997), p. 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 Gellately, Robert, ‘Denunciations in Twentieth-Century Germany: Aspects of Self-Policing in the Third Reich and the German Democratic Republic’, The Journal of Modern History, 68: 4 (1996), p. 967CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 Gellately, Robert, ‘The Gestapo and German Society: Political Denunciation in the Gestapo Case Files’, The Journal of Modern History, 60: 4 (1988), p. 664CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Claudio Hernández Burgos, ‘Más allá del consenso y la oposición: Las actitudes de la “gente corriente” en regímenes dictatoriales. Una propuesta de análisis desde el régimen franquista’, Revista de Estudios Sociales, 50 (Sept. 2014), p. 90.
37 Policía Nacional de Guatemala, La Investigación criminal y las fuentes de información, police manual, n.d., AHPN, file 4792448.
38 Guatemala, Ejército de, Manual de guerra contrasubversiva elaborado por la Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor del CEM (Guatemala City: Centro de Estudios Militares, 1978), p. 70Google Scholar.
39 Policía Nacional de Guatemala, Ensayo sobre inteligencia policial, police manual, 16 Jan. 1980, AHPN, file 27826.
40 Wisler, Dominique and Onwudiwe, Ihekwoaba D., Community Policing: International Patterns and Comparative Perspectives (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2009), pp. 2–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 Ejército de Guatemala, Manual de guerra contrasubversiva, p. 110.
42 Mallmann, ‘Social Penetration’, p. 31.
43 Letter from Anonymous to Government Ministry, 31 May 1984, AHPN, file 5122345.
44 Weld, Paper Cadavers, p. 1.
45 Stoll, Between Two Armies, p. 102.
46 Gellately, ‘The Gestapo and German Society’, p. 660.
47 Gutiérrez, Marta, Sindicalistas y aparatos de control estatal. Elementos para una historia del movimiento sindical (Guatemala City: Secretaría de la Paz, 2011), p. 105Google Scholar.
48 Kozlov, Vladimir, ‘Denunciation and Its Functions in Soviet Governance: A Study of Denunciations and Their Bureaucratic Handling from Soviet Police Archives, 1944–1953’, The Journal of Modern History, 68: 4 (1996), p. 875CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
49 Levenson-Estrada, Deborah, Trade Unionists against Terror: Guatemala City, 1954–85 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), pp. 46–7Google Scholar.
50 Gellately, ‘Denunciations in Twentieth-Century Germany’, pp. 951–2.
51 Ejército de Guatemala, Manual de guerra contrasubversiva, p. 43.
52 Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists against Terror, p. 26.
53 Ibarra, Carlos Figueroa, ‘Partido, poder, masas y revolución (la izquierda en Guatemala, 1954–1996)’, Revista Latinoamericana de Sociología de la Guerra, 1: 1 (2010), p. 34Google Scholar.
54 CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, vol. 2, pp. 108–9.
55 Weld, Paper Cadavers, p. 9.
56 Gellately, ‘Denunciations in Twentieth-Century Germany’, p. 948.
57 Ejército de Guatemala, Manual de guerra contrasubversiva, p. 57.
58 CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, vol. 1, p. 40.
59 Weld, Paper Cadavers, p. 128.
60 Posocco, Silvia, Secrecy and Insurgency: Socialities and Knowledge Practices in Guatemala (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2014), p. 119Google Scholar.
61 Esparza, Silenced Communities, p. 80.
62 ‘Lucas enuncia principios básicos de gobierno al asumir mando supremo’, El Imparcial, 1 July 1978.
63 Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 110.
64 Ejército de Guatemala, Manual de guerra contrasubversiva, p. 4.
65 Figueroa Ibarra, ‘Partido, poder, masas y revolución’, p. 61.
66 Ejército de Guatemala, Manual de guerra contrasubversiva, p. 2.
67 Bayley, Patterns of Policing, p. 208.
68 ‘Consejo específico, proliferan violencia y criminalidad’, El Imparcial, 29 July 1978.
69 CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, vol. 2, p. 82.
70 Letter from M. C. H. to Government Ministry, 30 Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773420.
71 ‘Criminalidad y violencia’, El Imparcial, 17 July 1978; ‘Consejo específico, proliferan violencia y criminalidad’, El Imparcial, 29 July 1978.
72 CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, vol. 4, p. 258.
73 Posocco, Secrecy and Insurgency, p. 121.
74 Besnier, Niko, Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2009), p. 12Google Scholar.
75 Stewart, Pamela J. and Strathern, Andrew, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, and Gossip (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 29–55Google Scholar.
76 Report from monthly meeting of police chiefs of the Republic, n.d., AHPN, file 2799721.
77 ‘Confidential information on anonymous phone call’, police report, 5 Oct. 1981, AHPN, file 2770599.
78 Report from Radio Patrol to Director-General, 29 July 1981, AHPN, file 5122226; Letter from C. L. to Director-General, n.d., AHPN, file 5122315.
79 Letter from G. D. M. to Director-General, Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773490, emphasis added.
80 Letter from M. A. O. to Presidency, 30 May 1984, AHPN, file 4891547, emphasis added.
81 Letter from C. V. C. to Director-General, 20 March 1979, AHPN, file 7301423.
82 Walker, Louise E., ‘Spying at the Drycleaners: Anonymous Gossip in 1973 Mexico City’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 19: 1 (2013), pp. 52–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
83 Policía Nacional de Guatemala, ‘Ensayo sobre inteligencia policial’.
84 Letter from C. A. R. to Director-General, 15 Jan. 1980, AHPN, file 7301923.
85 Gellately, ‘Denunciation as a Subject of Historical Research’, p. 17.
86 Bayley, Patterns of Policing, pp. 137–55.
87 Gellately, ‘The Gestapo and German Society’, p. 677.
88 Bowling et al., The Politics of the Police, p. 8.
89 Gellately, ‘Denunciation as a Subject of Historical Research’, p. 23.
90 Kozlov, ‘Denunciation and Its Functions in Soviet Governance’, p. 883; Fitzpatrick, Sheila, ‘Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s’, The Journal of Modern History, 68: 4 (1996), p. 832CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
91 Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, pp. 338–9.
92 Gellately, ‘Denunciation as a Subject of Historical Research’, p. 24.
93 ‘Files related to flight of M. E. P.’, police dossier, Oct. 1970, AHPN, file 4273915.
94 Letter from V. S. to Presidency, 23 April 1986, AHPN, file 7303088.
95 Letter from R. G. to Government Ministry, April 1984, AHPN, file 4888194.
96 Letter from various teachers to Government Ministry, 24 Aug. 1978, AHPN, file 7301473.
97 Letter from F. J. T. to Director-General, 26 Feb. 1980, AHPN, file 7300944.
98 Telegram from H. D. N. to Director-General, 25 Nov. 1978, AHPN, file 7304415.
99 Letter from B. A. to Presidency, 26 June 1985, AHPN, file 7302491.
100 Letter from R. C. C. to Director-General, 25 Oct. 1979, AHPN, file 7302016.
101 Letter from G. D. M. to Director-General, Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773490.
102 Letter from Z. C. to Government Ministry, 23 Feb. 1980, AHPN, file 7300931, emphasis added.
103 McAllister, Carlota, ‘A Headlong Rush into the Future: Violence and Revolution in a Guatemalan Indigenous Village’, in Grandin, Greg and Joseph, Gilbert M. (eds.), A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America's Long Cold War (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), pp. 267–309Google Scholar.
104 ‘Confidential information on complaint by J. L. M. and M. J. F. ', police report, 25 Aug. 1978, AHPN, file 6803199.
105 ‘Files on complaint by R. R. T. M.’, police dossier, Oct. 1975, AHPN, file 3398832.
106 Letter from Anonymous to Director-General, 28 Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773341.
107 Letter from G. D. M. to Director-General, Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773490; Letter from Anonymous to Government Ministry, 21 Sept. 1981, file 2770425.
108 Letter from Anonymous to Director-General, Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773372.
109 Letter from M. C. to Government Ministry, 30 Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773420; Letter from Anonymous to Director-General, 21 Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773509.
110 Letter from M. to Director-General, 15 Sept. 1980, AHPN, file 7301251.
111 Letter from G. A. V. to Government Ministry, 29 Feb. 1979, AHPN, file 7301497.
112 Letter from P. M. G. to PN, n.d., AHPN, file 5122170.
113 Michaels, Jonathan, McCarthyism: The Realities, Delusions and Politics behind the 1950s Red Scare (New York: Routledge, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
114 Letter from Anonymous to Director-General, n.d., AHPN, file 5122351.
115 Letter from Anonymous to Government Ministry, Oct. 1978, AHPN, file 6803421.
116 Letter from O. F. O. to Director-General, 11 Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773688.
117 Letter from Anonymous to Director-General, 21 Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773509.
118 Letter from Anonymous to Director-General, Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773372; Letter from Anonymous to Director-General, 2 Feb. 1982, AHPN, file 2695.
119 Letter from W. M. to Director-General, Feb. 1982, AHPN, file 2773417.
120 Letter from G. B. to Director-General, 20 Feb. 1982, AHPN, file 1924225.
121 Letter from Anonymous to Director-General, 4 Sept. 1970, AHPN, file 4263136.
122 Letter from E. G. G. to Director-General, 21 June 1980, AHPN, file 7299793.
123 Letter from P. C. H. to Director-General, 26 June 1980, AHPN, file 7301970.
124 Letter from M. C. H. to Government Ministry, 30 Jan. 1982, AHPN, file 2773420.
125 Letter from M. F. to Presidency, 29 April 1981, AHPN, file 5122209.
126 Letter from M. E. D. to Presidency, 28 June 1986, AHPN, file 7303200.
127 Kozlov, ‘Denunciation and Its Functions in Soviet Governance’, p. 882.
128 Wisler and Onwudiwe, Community Policing, p. 2.
129 Letter from A. G. to Director-General, 10 Feb. 1982, AHPN, file 7300942.
130 Mallmann, ‘Social Penetration’, p. 32.
131 Gellately, ‘Denunciations in Twentieth-Century Germany’, p. 952.
132 Weld, Paper Cadavers, p. 132.
133 Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists against Terror, p. 45.
134 Ball, Patrick, Kobrak, Paul and Spirer, Herbert F., State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–96: A Quantitative Reflection (Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1999), p. 24Google Scholar.
135 CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, vol. 2, p. 361.
136 Weld, Paper Cadavers, p. 132.
137 Gutiérrez, Sindicalistas y aparatos de control estatal, p. 8.
138 Lvovich, ‘Sospechar, delatar, incriminar’, p. 98.
139 O'Donnell, Guillermo, ‘Democracia en la Argentina: Micro y macro’, in Oszlak, Oscar, Proceso, crisis y transición democrática (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1987), p. 17Google Scholar.
140 Fitzpatrick, ‘Signals from Below’, p. 865.
141 Chiara Lepora and Robert Goodin, On Complicity and Compromise (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 3.
142 Lazzara, Civil Obedience, p. 3.
143 Greg Grandin, ‘Living in Revolutionary Time: Coming to Terms with the Violence of Latin America's Long Cold War’, in Grandin and Joseph (eds.), A Century of Revolution, pp. 15–18.
144 Stoll, Between Two Armies, p. 305.
145 Esparza, Silenced Communities, pp. 68–79.
146 Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, p. 117.
147 Fitzpatrick, ‘Signals from Below’, p. 866.
148 Seigel, Micol, Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of the Police (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018), pp. 9–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.