Documents Shed Light on Guatemala's Past

[cosmicone]

GUATEMALA CITY - A trove of newly discovered police documents confirms that Guatemala's infamous National Police helped identify and kill leftists during the country's 36-year civil war.

Amid the piles of molding files — 48 million in all — investigators have found lists of thousands of people, classified under the labels "disappeared," "assassinated" and "political detainee."

Some files hold fingerprints of the dead. Many include pictures of corpses — some showing signs of torture, with their hands tied behind their backs or bullet holes in their heads.

"They logged people who turned up dead, and some were even photographed. From there, we can identify the disappeared," said Gustavo Meono, leader of 20 investigators going through the files.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051207/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/guatemala_police_archives