Abstract

VIAENE, Lieselotte. The local relevance of transitional justice processes.: Indigenous survivors' voices on justice and reconciliation from post-conflict Guatemala. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2013, n.16, pp.85-112. ISSN 1900-5407.

A well- established assumption among human rights defenders is that all victims of massive human rights violations want to see the perpetrators brought to court. This article, based upon multi-sited ethnographic field research among Maya Q'eqchi' victims and perpetrators in post-conflict Guatemala, analyzes the local and cultural understanding that indigenous survivors' have of the armed conflict as well as their concepts of justice and reconciliation. It is argued that at the vernacular of indigenous communities' visions exists -embedded in their indigenous normative order and cosmovision- that challenge and problematize the dominant paradigm of transitional justice. In fact, from Q'eqchi' point of view, impunity -as defined by international law- is not the end of accountability, nor truth, reparation or reconciliation.

Keywords : Indigenous peoples; human rights; transitional justice; indigenous justice; justice and reconciliation..

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