Guatemala suffered through a brutal 36 year civil war that killed 250,000 people and displaced more than a million. The war was a wound from which Guatemala has yet to recover. Continued exclusion of indigenous peoples, land takeovers as a response to extremely unequal land distribution, and persistent grinding poverty, all causes of the war, persist and contribute to the escalating crime and insecurity that have become Guatemala’s new social crisis.
Children dressed as clowns beg in Guatemala City.
Teresa picks coffee with her baby, Santa Anita.
Augustina weighs her child in a bakery scale.
Carlos in the cooperative office.
Ixil triangle, Quiche.
Campesinos, Estrella Polar Quiche.
Squatter, Nuevo Palmar.
Campesinos wait for news of the authorities after a land takeover, Finca Maria Lourdes.
A woman is escorted by soldiers from an evicted takeover, Finca El Maguey.
Squatters prepare to resist eviction by the National Police, Nuevo Palmar.
A plantation adminstrator is tied to a tree by squatters at a land takeover, Finca Maria Lourdes.
A squatter builds his shack from plastic sheets, Rancho Tres Hermanos.
Mother and child squatters.
Morning fire, Quiche.
Rainy river crossing, Iztapa.
Archives of the National Police, with files on disappeared people.
Exhumed skull, Comalapa.
Anthropologist Danny Guzman holds a jawbone during an exhumation, Comalapa.
Women with pictures of their disappeared relatives.
Exhumation at Comalapa, a former Army base.
A woman grieves at the re-internment of her sister, a victim of the war.
Moruners carry the coffin of a victim of the war, San Pedro Jocopilas.
Stacks of wrecked police cars, Guatemala City.
Tortured bodies dumped on the side of the road, Guatemala City.
Murder victim, zone 10, Guatemala City.
Victim of a gang massacre, Escuintla.
Kids pick through trash after a prison riot.
Prison transport with gang graffiti, Escuintla.
Victim of the riot at El Hoyon in the morgue, Escuintla.
Members of the Mara 18, El Hoyon prison.
all photographs ©2006 by victor j blue