Complete Thesis_double spaced abstract.pdf

two important databases for the measurement and record of violence in Guatemala. The first is
the Recovery of Historical Memory Project (REMHI), put together for the Human Rights Office
of the Archdiocese of Guatemala. The report was published in 1999 and it details firsthand
accounts of political violence in each department in Guatemala from 1960 to 1996. Data is
disaggregated by year, department, type of violation, and the perpetrators of the incidents. The
REMHI also provides a detailed historical account of political violence dating back to 1871. The
other database which recorded and published evidence of the political violence in Guatemala was
the Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH, 1999). The CEH was formed in
1994 through the Accord of Oslo to document the political violence that occurred in Guatemala.
Similar to the REMHI the CEH also took thousands of firsthand accounts and testimonies from
victims, family members, politicians, military personnel and guerrilla members. An accurate
measurement of political violence in Guatemala might never be established, incidents taking
place in remote and rural villages, incidents with no records, and incidents where the perpetrators
will not speak out results in an undernumeration of violations. As a result, neither the REMHI
nor the CEH claim to be an exact measure of the political violence in Guatemala. However both
databases do offer a very close approximation of the levels of political violence experienced in a
given year, by a given people, in a certain manner. For this case study the focus will be state
sponsored violence; in Guatemala this accounts for approximately 93% of the violence in
Guatemala (Sanford, 2003, 42).
Independent and Dependent Variables: Definitions and Operationalization
The independent and dependent variables utilized in the study are listed below. During
the time period 1950-1995 each of the independent and dependent variables will be examined in
detail. The single case study with a time series design will allow for the control of other
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