Guatemala Human Rights Commission

The Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, humanitarian organization that monitors, documents, and reports on the human rights situation in Guatemala. GHRC advocates for survivors of human rights abuses in Guatemala, and works toward systemic change. GHRC was founded in 1982 by Alice Zachmann, SSND, in response to having visited and witnessed the human rights abuses taking place in the country during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996).

With little attention being given to the increasing violence in the 1980s, the Commission published urgent action bulletins, organized speaking tours and delegations, and created “Voiceless Speak,” a program that provides financial assistance to Guatemalans living in the United States who promote peace and respect for human rights in their native country. In 1989, the Guatemala Human Rights UPDATE, a bi-weekly human rights publication was started.

In the early 1990s, the Commission supported, among others, the efforts of Jennifer Harbury, a Harvard-educated lawyer who used little-known provisions in Texas common law to marry, and gain legal standing as widow of, a dead guerrilla commander, Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, who supposedly had been captured and forcibly disappeared in Guatemala in 1992 in violation of the Geneva Conventions regarding prisoners of war. By staging hunger strikes and holding multiple protests, Harbury and GHRC successfully forced the US Congress and the State Department to declassify thousands of documents that dealt with the United States’ action in Guatemala. Harbury's case led to the revelation that a covert CIA operation had directed millions of dollars to the Guatemalan military (despite there being a congressional ban on military aid since 1990) and forced the operation to be terminated. GHRC's involvement in the case briefly made it a target as well.

After the Peace Accords were signed in 1996, GHRC began the Puentes de Paz project, which supports the mental health needs of a women’s group in Guatemala by providing psychologists, and Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC), a program founded to support survivors of torture in Guatemala. Both later attained their own non-profit status.

GHRC now publishes a quarterly newsletter called El Quetzal, continues to support the Voiceless Speak Fund, host annual delegations, lead speaking tours, and present various film series. The Commission has also expanded its works to include founding the For Women’s Right to Live Campaign and the Human Rights Defenders Program as well as assisting Guatemalans seeking asylum, introducing resolutions to the US Congress, and supporting cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

GHRC as a non-governmental human rights commission is not connected with the national human rights institution, the Procurador de los Derechos Humanos.