"The international human rights case charging eight Guatemalan former military and police officials with genocide, state terrorism, torture and other crimes began February 4 in Madrid. Much of the case focuses on a two-year period in the early 1980s, known as the “Silent Holocaust,” in which the army and its proxies began a systematic campaign of repression against the Mayan Indians. Since genocide survivors were effectively denied justice in Guatemala, they brought their case before Spanish courts, which in a groundbreaking 2005 ruling decided to make Spain a country that observes the principles of “universal jurisdiction” for certain egregious crimes.

Kate Doyle, senior analyst at the National Security Archive and director of their Guatemala Project, attended the closed hearings as part of the investigative and legal team working on what’s known as the Guatemalan Genocide Case. She wrote summaries of the first five days of the trial, in which witnesses gave harrowing testimonies. NACLA presents this five-part series of Doyle’s chronicles on the opening days of this historic case."   more »