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San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala Victoria Tubin was 10 years old when her father went missing with Guatemalan military forces.
It was September 1981 – the length of the 36-year-long civil war – and Sebastian Tubin Poyon was entering his hometown of San Juan Comalapa when he did not return home. Forty years later, as thousands of Guatemalan people have lost loved ones in the war, Victoria and her family have not lost their chance to search.
“I still feel that my father is not here,” he told Al Jazeera at a ceremony to commemorate the establishment of a monument at the former military barracks at the town entrance where his father was last seen.
“Where is he?” Tubin asked, holding a picture of his father in his arms. I would love to see her again, to hear her voice, and to know her gray hair. ”
Environmental problems
By the end of the Guatemalan war in December 1996, more than 200,000 people had died and 45,000 were missing. The violence had a profound effect on rural communities.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has found that Indian Indians made up 83 percent of the victims, while Guatemalan military was responsible for 93 percent of the human rights abuses. The commission concluded that the killings had taken place.
“The state was an oil-rich machine that had put all its resources away so that no one could find it,” Fredy Peccerelli, director general of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG, in his Spanish comment) told Al Jazeera.
Tubin Poyon was a local leader in the Indigenous area of Maya Kaqchikel, located 76km (47 miles) from the capital of Guatemala City, and was working to improve access to services, including clean water. That’s what attracted the attention of the military, said her daughter.
The couple fled San Juan Comalapa to live in a town near Guatemala City when they heard of the threat. But he fell into abject poverty and on September 13, 1981, his father returned to San Juan Comalapa to raise money for his family.
He was detained, detained, and beaten by soldiers on the main road leading to the town, according to witnesses. Tubin Poyon was later taken to a military camp at the entrance of the town, arrested and never seen again, witnesses said.
Pictures of the missing are posted on the steps of the former San Juan Comalapa camp on June 19, 2021 [Jeff Abbott/Al Jazeera]Unidentified grave
Since the war, the old army at the entrance of San Juan Comalapa has been like an open bar for Indian citizens – as well as a symbol of enduring pain and the many questions about the loss of their loved ones.
An unmarked grave was found in an old camp after the families of the missing approached the Guatemalan attorney’s office with their stories and missing stories. In total, independent investigators unearthed the remains of 220 people in 53 graves between 2003 and 2005 in the former military camp.
Of those 220, FAFG initially managed to identify 48. Since 2018, it has identified 19 others.
The foundation opened its own club in 2008, but it was not known for the first time until 2011, Peccerelli said. Everywhere, archaeologists have unearthed more than 8,000 remains in hidden tombs in former colonies, town cemeteries, and highways across Guatemala. About 4,000 of these remains have been identified.
“Every couple we’ve worked with is hoping their loved one is alive,” Peccerelli said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to stop looking at the dead – as bold as it sounds and as brave as they are.”
Identification is a long and costly process, which is hampered by the military’s refusal to provide information and the lack of politics to establish a tribunal for victims of war, between 1979 and 1984. But the commitment of families to find loved ones and the FAFG work has allowed the establishment of a DNA record that can be compared to the rest.
It can take years to identify those affected, as Peccerelli explained that this depends on having DNA samples from different families. The FAFG maintains a warehouse for missing families and has a campaign to get people to donate their DNA so that they can match what has been found.
“I’m looking for a needle in a barn,” he said. “Most of it just happens by accident to get the right body at the right time and the right family at the right time and have the two of them on the list.”
At the memorial, Tubin often thinks of what his father would say about his experiences over the past 40 years. His parents had few opportunities, but he managed to study, became a professor of ethics, and completed his technical studies.
The remains of his father have not been found, nor is Tubin’s DNA the same as any other FAFG find. But the hunt continues.
“Searching for my father has helped me,” Tubin said. “It really helped me [for my siblings]. He did not want to hunt, he says it is better to forget. But it is not easy [to forget]. ”
Unidentified graves unearthed between 2003 and 2005 serve as a reminder of the brutal wars that ravaged civilians [Jeff Abbott/Al Jazeera]A global problem
Guatemalan families are not the only ones looking for their missing loved ones, too.
Efforts to locate people missing from the war, in violation of human rights, and migration are taking place in Iraq, Syria, the Balkans, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Mexico, elsewhere in the world. Over the past 30 years, advocates have encouraged countries to help in the search for and identify those who are missing as an important part of the path to truth and healing.
“Accepting this and ensuring that countries are participating in finding people in need, no matter what their nationality is, is important,” Kathryne Bomberger, director-general of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), told Al Jazeera.
“It’s very difficult and it’s difficult because often the government or the politicians who represent them are the ones who are causing this,” he said.
The regional agreement in the Balkans resulted in the discovery of 3,000 secret cemeteries in the region, as well as the identification of 70% of the 40,000 missing in disputes in the region from 1991 to 1995.
“Finding people in need requires a place after the war where the government can take over,” Bomberger said. “That’s why it’s difficult.”
Continued difficulties
Even in groups after the war, researchers are able to continue to overcome obstacles.
Returning to Guatemala, despite the progress of the search for missing persons, the country’s parliament has shown a lack of interest in approving legislation that would help in the search for missing people.
In 2007, families and supporters of the victims of the war petitioned for a law that would set up a committee to search for 45,000 people, but it was not approved. As a result, the hunt is left to families and organizations such as the FAFG, which is heavily funded.
“It is important to continue to search for those who are missing and identify them,” Jordan Rodas, a national human rights activist, told Al Jazeera. “But the Guatemalan government is showing no political interest in helping thousands of families find their loved ones.”
However, Guatemala is one of the few countries where independent researchers have worked hard to locate and identify those missing in the civil war.
The FAFG has also set up a school to report on the experiences of researchers from other countries, including Mexico, Colombia, and Sri Lanka. Researchers around the world travel to Guatemala regularly to study international hunting skills and training.
One of the key things, says Peccerelli, is to create special, diverse groups that can focus on the hunt for those most in need – as well as connecting families who are suffering in all areas.
“The biggest mistake is trying to find just what you need in return for what you love to do,” he said. “You need experts. You need to earn trust. You have to be with the community. ”
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