"It's not gossip, it's true!" The Practice of Political Denunciations During the Armed Conflict in Guatemala (1975-1985)

• In Event: Political Repression, Disappearance and Impunity in Mexico and Guatemala

Abstract

Did the Guatemalan citizenry constitute a regimented society that patrolled and sanctioned itself during the period of the armed conflict? From a military point of view, civilians provided the bulk of informants that fed information to military intelligence.
Guatemalan historiography has given little importance to the network of denouncers, informants, collaborators and confidential agents who exercised this social control. Other Latin American countries, especially Argentina, lived through decades of intense public debates on the social support military dictatorships enjoyed. Studies indicate that the brutality and effectiveness of the Argentine regime would have been unfathomable without the commitment and adhesion of considerable sectors within the civilian population.
This paper seeks to expose the role played by this broad network of citizens who reported on alleged subversive activities through the traces this practice left in the National Police Historical Archive (AHPN). By combining analyses of self-constructed databases on political denouncements and confidential agents with a study of police and military manuals, this paper will provide quantitative and qualitative insights into both the ideological and material motivations of these informants as well as the mechanisms that the intelligence services designed to promote the participation of the population in systems of domination. Rethinking the armed conflict from the perspective of civil complicity will allow us to reconceptualize the relations between society and the state, not only as a product of coercion but as a political dominance based on overlapping and interdependent interests and benefits.

Author

• Joren Janssens, KU Leuven