Antípoda: Revista de Antropología y Arqueología (Jun 2013)

La relevancia local de procesos de justicia transicional. Voces de sobrevivientes indígenas sobre justicia y reconciliación en Guatemala posconflicto

  • Lieselotte Viaene

DOI
https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda16.2013.05
Journal volume & issue
no. 16
pp. 85 – 112

Abstract

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A well- established assumption among human rights defenders is that all victims of massive human rights violations want to see the perpetrators brought to court. This article, based upon multi-sited ethnographic field research among Maya Q'eqchi' victims and perpetrators in post-conflict Guatemala, analyzes the local and cultural understanding that indigenous survivors' have of the armed conflict as well as their concepts of justice and reconciliation. It is argued that at the vernacular of indigenous communities' visions exists -embedded in their indigenous normative order and cosmovision- that challenge and problematize the dominant paradigm of transitional justice. In fact, from Q'eqchi' point of view, impunity -as defined by international law- is not the end of accountability, nor truth, reparation or reconciliation.

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