ABSTRACT
During the 1970s and 1980s Guatemala was engulfed in intense internal warfare, la violencia as it is called in that country. La violencia was a confrontation between military and guerrilla forces. From the military's point of view, it was a battle against communism, against an armed and dangerous menace within. Whereas the guerrillas extended and unified their operations through an umbrella movement known as the Unidad Revolucionaria National Guatemalteca (URNG). Studies of la violencia by North American, European, and Latin American scholars have been influenced by international human rights discourse, with its goal of documenting the abuses of power by states and the systematic ways basic rights are violated. La violencia has claimed many more victims than merely those who suffered physical harm. Moreover, silence is continually subverted through cryptic public allusions to la violencia by the compelling desire to signal the influence of this period on the life of the town.
