48 case, where they came from, why they were made available to the public, and their importance for the criminal proceeding. She testified on the role of Guatemalan military forces during the war, on the information that the United States had regarding their participation in human rights violations, and on various aspects of the military intelligence institutions. In 1994, the “Guatemala Documentation Project” was set up and she was its director for seven years. This project was created before the establishment of the truthfinding committee, subsequently known as the “ Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico,” with the aim of having access to the secret files of the United States of America and to obtain the documentation required by the investigators of said committee. She worked for the truth-finding committees in El Salvador and Honduras, and she recognized the difficultes they face to obtain information about the military who were the center of violence. The United States agencies constantly record information on these allied military forces. This was the origin of the project to try to enter the secret files of the United States of America to obtain useful information for the Guatemalan investigators, anticipating the future establishment of a truth-finding committee. In addition to secondary sources, such as human rights reports and books, analysts of the “National Security Archives” resort to available legislation such as the “Freedom of Information Act” that authorizes obtaining declassified documents of the government of the United States, to disseminate them and create further debate on said policies. This law was passed in 1966, allowing any person to make a formal request to the United States national security and foreign policy agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Pentagon, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Agency for International Development, for them to supply information on their policies in operations. Backed by this law, in the framework of the “Guatemala Documentation Project,” they requested information on human rights cases from these agencies, especially regarding the military, the training they received, and the United States government policies. They have often had confrontations with that Government regarding requests for declassification of certain materials, and they have even had to go to court. The information found in the declassified documents was verified through a vast collection of secondary and primary sources. After six years of research, she prepared a report on the history, structure, organization, and doctrine of the Guatemalan Army as an institution and its role during the 30-year “civil war.” Specifically, the documents analyzed contain numerous references to the role of the “Archivo” and of the Presidential General Staff or “Estado Mayor Presidencial” (EMP) in human rights violations in Guatemala. The “Archivo” in Guatemala is the name of an intelligence unit of the Presidential General Staff, created with the help of the United States. At that time, it was known as the “Regional” or as the regional telecommunications center for Central America, and it operated as an intelligence network. Its name changed in the seventies and eighties to the “Archivo” or “Archivos,” and in 1986, when a civilian took office in Guatemala, its name was changed to “Dirección de Seguridad Presidencial” or Presidential Security Directorate. In Guatemala there were various units with intelligence responsibilities, especially: the “D2”; the “Archivo”, which operated within the EMP; the “G2” that was an intelligence unit within the armed forces that conducted field operations; and the “S2” that was a military unit in the conflict zone. The EMP is an intelligence organization and one of the branches of the armed forces. The “Archivo” is an

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