Genocide and the “Grey Zone” of Justice

Abstract

On October 13, 1999, a local Guatemalan court convicted three civil patrollers of murder for their participation in the 1982 army-orchestrated Rio Negro massacre. While at first glance the sentence of death by lethal injection might suggest that Guatemala’s newly reconstructed legal system is finally functioning, the verdict raises more questions than it answers—among them, the chilling effect this conviction will have on the collection of evidence for future prosecutions of military officials as well as the propensity of the Guatemalan state to exterminate Maya peasants for political expediency. Additionally, it further complicates the already complex and sometimes perplexing international debates about human rights, truth commissions, amnesty, justice, prosecution, rule of law, and democratization.