Guatemala
What's New
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13 February 2012
By Rachel Hatcher
Hatcher is a PhD candidate at the University of Saskatchewan. She is now in Guatemala studying post-conflict public memories and discourses of the civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador.
The Guatemalan Congress is considering stricter controls…
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2 September 2011
Nine countries plus the initial core group of eight have pledged to join the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a U.S. official told FreedomInfo.org Sept. 2, bringing total membership to 17.
The nine countries that have sent in “letters of intent”…
Read more news….
freedom of information
Guatemala made a huge leap forward in the struggle for openness and government accountability on September 24, 2008, when Congress passed the Law for Free Access to Public Information. Openness advocates, human rights defenders, and active lawmakers have been promoting the law since the first version was presented to Congress in 2002 and now have an effective tool to promote transparency and combat corruption in Guatemala. The law is set to go into effect in April 2009, when citizens will have the opportunity to exercise their right to know and test the limits of the legislation.
Guatemala’s right to public information is included in the 1986 constitution, but the importance of a transparency law did not enter into public attention or into the political debate until the end of the civil war, when human rights advocates began pushing for official records from the internal armed conflict. The Peace Accords were signed in 1996, officially ending the 36-year internal armed conflict that left an estimated 200,000 dead and another 40,000 disappeared. These numbers were produced by the UN-backed Historical Clarification Commission (CEH), which attributed over 90% of the abuse to government security forces. The findings of the Commission were based primarily on testimonies, forensic investigations, and also US government records released in response to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Commission was given virtually no access to Guatemala’s government files on the war, due to the military’s obstruction of investigators looking for evidentiary records. The longstanding government silence about the war propelled openness advocates to press their case for the passage of a national freedom of information law. Read more >>
LEARN MORE: in-depth overview | news archive | ngos | chronology | further reading | excerpt from Global Survey
NGOs and civil society
Asociación para el Estudio y Promoción de la Seguridad en Democracia – Sedem (The Association for the Promotion of Security and Democracy)
Acción Ciudadana (Citizen Action)
Asociación de Investigación y Estudios Sociales – ASIES (The Association for Investigation and Social Studies)
La Fundación Myrna Mack – FMM (The Myrna Mack Foundation)
Periodismo por el Acceso a la Información Pública: international network of regional journalists and organizations involved in the promotion of access to public information.
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8 July 2011
By Natalia Torres, CELE Senior Researcher
Articles on freedom of information in Latin America, written by the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (CELE) in Argentina, will be a regular feature in FreedomInfo.org. See this article…
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8 July 2011
Por Natalia Torres, Investigadora Principal del CELE
Difícil hablar de la genealogía del derecho a saber en Latinoamérica sin considerar las batallas por el derecho a la verdad, el derecho de familiares de personas desaparecidas a saber qué ocurrió con…
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10 June 2011
The National Security Archives June 8 posted on its website a copy of the report, “From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the Historical Archive of the National Police” (Del Silencio a la Memoria: Revelaciones del Archivo Histórico de la Policía…
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7 October 2009
Open government advocates offer first-hand accounts of FOI promotion in Latin America
Latin America’s leading open government advocates recently released a report, bringing together data from 17 countries and offering new findings on the status of freedom of information in…
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25 August 2009
By Jesse Franzblau and Emilene Martinez-Morales
Washington, DC — The US government’s August 24, 2009, release of a controversial CIA 2004 Inspector General report on torture brings new attention to the issue of how information on human rights abuses is…
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19 June 2009
By Greg Michener
In the last year or so, Latin America has been abuzz with news on right-to-know campaigns. But some countries have been buzzing louder than others. Uneven media attention to transparency policy is a global phenomenon with serious…
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19 May 2009
By Greg Michener
2008 was a big year for freedom of information movements in Latin America. Three countries passed access to information laws last year (Uruguay, Chile, and Guatemala), officially institutionalizing the publics right to know. Varying degrees of media…
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1 May 2009
Over 8,000 NGOs and Private Contractors Also Subject to the Law
Guatemala City, Guatemala — On April 21, 2009, Guatemala’s Law for Free Access to Public Information went into effect, officially allowing citizens to request information from 1,000 government offices and over…
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20 March 2009
Historic Police Archives Key to Prosecution of Former War Crimes
Guatemala City, Guatemala — March 5, 2009: A long-awaited break in one of Guatemalas most notorious human rights crimes, Hctor Roderico Ramrez Ros, a Guatemalan police officer, has been arrested…
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24 February 2009
Related Material from Guatemalan Military Archives Could Be Released Soon
Madrid, Spain — Official documents from American and Guatemalan government files were presented as evidence last week in Spains National Courtthe Audiencia Nacionaland turned over to Judge Santiago Pedraz. However,…
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13 February 2009
By Jesse Franzblau
Mexico City, Mexico – On January 30, 2009, in a testament to Mexicos frontrunner role in the global transparency movement, Guatemalas Vice President Rafael Espada led an official delegation to lay the groundwork for future collaboration with…
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28 September 2008
Silvina Acosta – Program Manager, Trust for the Americas
Emilene Martínez-Morales – Transparency Programs Coordinator, National Security Archive
Washington DC, – The Right to Know made headlines in Latin America during the past year. Just a few days ago the…
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22 March 2006
By Toby McIntosh
Riding a wave of transparency, the idea of encouraging Freedom of Information (FOI) laws as part of the development agenda is gaining currency, but slowly.
With research and case studies increasingly identifying transparency as a key tool…
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5 December 2003
The Inter-American Development Bank and Plan Puebla-Panama
Journalist Wendy Call reports on the controversy over the IDB’s multi-billion-dollar development plan for southern Mexico and Central America, with specific attention to information access, public consultation, and participation of stakeholders (and the…
