Genocide, Memory, and Testimony: Challenges in Guatemala and Commemorations in Chile
09.12.2013| 4:00 – 5:30 PM | 691 Barrows Hall
Prof. Beatriz Manz, Ethnic Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies
Respondent: Prof. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Ethnic Studies, Gender Women’s Studies
This year marked a history-making trial when former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt was found guilty of the genocide of more than 1,700 indigenous Ixil Mayans by his own country’s judicial system. Prof. Beatriz Manz testified at the trial as an expert eyewitness, sharing critical evidence that she gathered in 1982 when she went into the Lacandon jungle in Mexico to take testimonies of refugees and document the military atrocities taking place. Her research focused specifically on the Ixil area in the highlands of Guatemala in March 1983 — the site of the charge of genocide committed on the Ixil Maya population.
Prof. Manz will discuss those testimonies, her experience at the trial, and the implications of Rios Montt’s conviction which was overturned and continues to be contested. She will also reflect on the 40th anniversary of “the other 9/11,” the date marking the US-backed coup by General Augusto Pinochet in Chile which resulted in the arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution of tens of thousands of people.