Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Bloggers Chapines

Guatemala's first blogger reunion took place last Friday.

The day before, the Guatemalan government announced that at long last it would create an investigative body to look into the disappearances of around 45,000 civilians during the Civil war. "Uncertainty is a kind of permanent torture for the survivors," noted Frank LaRue, presidential human rights chief.

If the plan is approved by congress a national registry of victims could be established and who knows, there may even be some prosecutions.

I read the other day that crime fiction author (and originator of Bones) Kathy Reichs, by trade a forensic anthropologist, has fictionalised her experiences of examining human remains extracted from mass graves in Guatemala as Grave Secrets.

The rainy season has started in earnest over there, prompting a degree of hand-wringing about the unfinished state of works aimed at repairing the damage from last year's winter. 8000 families left homeless by Stan have yet to be relocated.

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