18 f) Expert opinion of Carlos Martín Beristain, a physician. Guatemala is a country that since 1954 has been subject to a series of military dictatorships, an increasingly acute domestic armed conflict, and use of intelligence services for counterinsurgency tasks and clandestine operations. In this context, as the REMHI Report states, there has been “ostentatious impunity,” in which many of the clandestine operations were carried out publicly and openly, with no legal safeguards, no system for protection vis-à-vis the victims’ situation. From a psychosocial standpoint, impunity has several effects. First of all, educational effects, that is, a change of values in a society in which the ability to lodge petitions is paralyzed or the act of lodging a petition becomes a new source of danger or possible re-traumatization due to the threats suffered by the complainants. This generates “learned powerlessness,” as it is called; in other words, people learn that nothing can be done to effect change and that what they need to do is to go back to the more primitive forms of adaptation, trying to protect themselves. Another effect of impunity, within the framework of this change of values, is that it stimulates a rise in private revenge. When the judiciary does not publicly restore a certain balance after a violation or traumatic act, social violence rises. Impunity also entails a risk of repetition of the atrocities that occurred in the past, inasmuch as those responsible remain in control of the subsequent political process, and any attempt to generate a new system of justice is controlled. A context of impunity, in turn, often discredits democracy, because the value of justice is not taken up in a new social process, and this leads to situations in which human right violations are considered part of the way to struggle against a context of impunity. Finally, justice corroborates that certain facts took place, in other words, when justice is lacking, the truth is easily “wounded.” With respect to the effects of impunity on the next of kin of the victims, it makes remembrance of the victims a private one that can only be discussed with members of the family or persons one trusts, so it does not become part of a collective remembrance. Human rights violations suffered by the victims and their next of kin have a social and political cause, but there is no social and political framework for them to fit into. One thing that can help the next of kin to deal with the impact of violence better is to have social support, but impunity is an impediment to this. Impunity also generates new traumatic experiences for the victims, as the fact of filing a petition or a habeas corpus remedy becomes a frustrating experience or one of failure, and sometimes also involves the risk of suffering threats, intimidation, etc. Fear, associated with not expressing traumatic experiences, makes it more difficult for the next of kin to deal with the traumatic event. The individual effects mentioned more frequently by the victims and reflected in the REMHI Report are the feeling of injustice and a feeling of powerlessness. From a psychological standpoint, lack of control over life is much greater in cases where traumatic events are associated with impunity.