My colleague Clark Boyd, Technology Correspondent for PRI’s The World, has a must-watch piece about the Guatemalan National Police Archive on PBS’s Frontline/World tonight. The original radio story aired on The World in September 2007. I found it riveting.
Here’s Clark’s “nutshell” description of the story:
More than 200,000 people died and went missing during Guatemala’s 36 year civil war. While the army was responsible for atrocities against indigenous people in the countryside, many have wondered about the targeted campaigns against dissidents and activists in the cities. It’s long been thought that the country’s National Police were responsible. Three years ago, the archives of the National Police were discovered by chance in a derelict police building in the middle of Guatemala City. Now, with the help of a Silicon Valley non-profit called Benetech, some 80 million documents are being cleaned, scanned, and analyzed for potential human rights abuses.
PBS local listings are here:
