A Painful Past Meets a Painful Present; and a Request

Below is a clip of a story for the Washington Post. I won't repost the entire article here, but do suggest reading it.

This is what I "worked" on, on and off, from 1997-2003 which cumulated in my thesis (yes, I know, I graduated in 99 but you know us Friends Worlders). For any tech savvy readers out there, I would like to find a way to put my thesis online for anyone to read who might be studying this subject or a similar one. I am at a loss of where to begin, and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

Exhuming the Past In a Painful Quest
Guatemalan Victims' Families Seek Closure, Justice

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 28, 2006; Page A01

NEBAJ, Guatemala -- A decade after the conclusion of the long civil war that ravaged this Central American nation, Guatemalans are literally trying to dig up their past.

Spurred by a surge of requests from victims' families this year, dozens of forensic anthropologists have been fanning out across the countryside to search for remains of the 200,000 people -- most of them Mayan Indian civilians -- who were killed or abducted during the 36-year conflict.

Many were massacred by military forces and dumped into mass graves. Others were buried hurriedly in unmarked, secret locations by relatives anxious to avoid rampaging troops.

About 40,000 victims simply disappeared after being seized by government operatives.

Nearly every day brings another grisly discovery: skulls of toddlers executed with gunshots to the head; corpses of young men whose necks are still looped with the garrotes used to strangle them. Nearly every week brings another funeral packed with weeping relatives: once-youthful widows now wrinkled and gray, children long since grown to adulthood.

Meanwhile, in a cavernous, damp warehouse in Guatemala's capital, investigators wearing protective masks and surgical gloves are combing through piles upon piles of mildewed documents from a recently discovered secret police archive, hunting for clues to the fate of the disappeared.

The current effort is hardly the first probe of wartime atrocities since peace accords ended the conflict in 1996. But its scope and pace are unprecedented in a country where those responsible have enjoyed near impunity. Only two military officials have been imprisoned for war crimes, according to human rights activists, despite findings by a U.N. commission that government and allied paramilitary forces committed nearly all of the atrocities.