This week's Crossing Continents radio programme on BBC Radio 4 with reporter Nick Caistor looks at the discovery of the national police archives (photo: left - BBC) in July 2005. The report explores the significance of these files and the evidence they represent in building and prosecuting cases against those who have been behind human rights abuses in Guatemala in the past.

You can read the report on the BBC accompanying the programme and listen to the programme online (for the next week at least). It will also be repeated on Monday 31st July at 8.30pm. You can post your comments on the report on the BBC website here.


UPDATE: 28-08-2006 NPR (US National Public Radio) has an interesting article on the archives find with interviews of many others involved in the work to process and salvage the information in the Guatemalan police archives. You can listen to John Burnett's piece that was broadcast on the radio and read his story of how he began reporting on Guatemala in 1983. It is a very readable way of putting the police archives find in some historical context. It's a coincidence that both Burnett and Caistor have both come back to Guatemala after many years in the field.