while traveling through the countryside. She had been involved in prosecuting the case of guerrilla leader Efran Bmaca who disappeared after being taken into military custody in 1992. This case was also to be the subject of examination by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Herrera was also handling various criminal cases that officials may have been involved with. (Amnesty International, 1999)Celso Baln, who works for the Legal Action Center for Human Rights, has been traveling to remote villages to help people find the remains of their friends and family who were among the two hundred thousand killed during Guatemala’s thirty-six year war. Last August he was abducted by two men who interrogated and beat him, then drugged him and dumped him in a cemetery. Baln thinks that someone in the Guatemalan military ordered his abduction to intimidate him. (Gonzalez, 2000).These are just a few examples of how the government tries to intimidate or murder people who seek judicial investigations. Amnesty International has pages, upon pages of articles, which contain human rights violations in Guatemala. I question why someone would knowingly risk their life trying to get questions answered by government officials that turn a deaf ear upon their people. A quote by philosopher Jorge Santayana answers this question, “Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it.” Amnesty International’s comment toward that statement is as follows: “That is precisely what has happened in Guatemala where cyclical violence and state-sponsored human rights violations have occurred over and over again. That is why Amnesty International firmly believes that burying the past does not pave the way to a future of peace an reconciliation.”I believe in order to establish a peace between government and society, the human rights abusers have to be taken from their authoritative standing. Also they should be sentenced ...
