Jo Tuckman of the Houston Chronicle on Activist seeks justice for massacred Guatemalans:
Indigenous activist and grieving survivor Rosalina Tuyuc kneels to tidy the flowers and candles forming an improvised altar on the ground beneath a banner proclaiming, "Yes, it was genocide."
"This land will be eternally sacred for us," Tuyuc says in the sing-song tones of her native Kaqchikel Mayan tongue, remembering the hundreds of people believed buried nearby, among them her own father. "We will take their bodies away, but their spirits will stay here."
"Here" is an abandoned hilltop military base on the edge of Tuyuc's hometown of Comalapa, 50 miles west of Guatemala City, where forensic anthropologists already have uncovered the skeletons of 108 Maya Indians. Many were found with their hands and feet bound. Some were missing limbs or heads.
Here's to Rosalina Tuyuc's cause – justice for the disappeared. To hell with amnesty – there are too many skeletons lying around to forgive and forget.