San José Poaquil
Encyclopedia
San José Poaquil is a municipality
in the Chimaltenango department
of Guatemala
. San José Poaquil, like many other Mayan indigenous towns throughout the western highlands, suffered greatly under the severe military repression of the early 1980s. In 2002, 76 human remains were exhumed from mass graves by the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG). According to locals, the 76 bodies that FAFG recovered represent a minimal portion of the municipality's residents that were killed or disappeared in the violence. Like other parts in Guatemala, reconciliation in Poaquil is complicated by the fact that the perpetrators of the violence, many of whom were forcibly conscripted into the military's Civil Defense Patrols (PAC), still live amongst their victims.
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
in the Chimaltenango department
Departments of Guatemala
||Guatemala is divided into 22 departments :#Alta Verapaz#Baja Verapaz#Chimaltenango#Chiquimula#Petén#El Progreso#El Quiché#Escuintla#Guatemala#Huehuetenango#Izabal#Jalapa#Jutiapa#Quetzaltenango#Retalhuleu#Sacatepéquez...
of Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
. San José Poaquil, like many other Mayan indigenous towns throughout the western highlands, suffered greatly under the severe military repression of the early 1980s. In 2002, 76 human remains were exhumed from mass graves by the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG). According to locals, the 76 bodies that FAFG recovered represent a minimal portion of the municipality's residents that were killed or disappeared in the violence. Like other parts in Guatemala, reconciliation in Poaquil is complicated by the fact that the perpetrators of the violence, many of whom were forcibly conscripted into the military's Civil Defense Patrols (PAC), still live amongst their victims.