Guatemala: Ten years after the end of the civil war, Guatemala is still one of the most unequal societies in Latin America, writes Fiona Forde in Guatemala City.
The prominent political story in Latin America throughout last year was the rise of the left.
Chile got its Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia its Evo Morales. Years earlier, the left who had been the victims of the 1970s torture years in Argentina, came to power. Similar was the story in Uruguay.
But not in Guatemala. With almost 60 per cent of its population Mayan, a third mestizo, and 10 per cent white, Guatemala is almost identical to Bolivia demographically.
Like Chile, the country has endured decades of internal armed conflict and experienced one of the worst genocides in contemporary times. Yet no indigenous leader has emerged here.
Nor are there champions of the poor and vulnerable in the places at the top. Ten years after the end of the civil war, which promised to address the discrimination, Guatemala is still one of the most iniquitous societies in this part of the world.
All too often the overlap between pueblos indiginas and extreme poverty here is startling. More than six million guatemaltecos, or 57 per cent of the population, live in poverty.
One in every three indigenous people lives in extreme poverty, scraping by on less than a dollar a day. On the other side of the spectrum, 3 per cent control the bulk of the country's wealth.
But it's all too easy to explain away the social divide in terms of the Mayan make-up. There are more than 20 indigenous groups in Guatemala today, each with their own language, a fact that would make the emergence of a leader of their own difficult, but not impossible.
Most would argue that it's the slow pace of the reconciliation process that is keeping the majority down. It is 10 years since the signing of the peace accords which brought an end to the 36-year internal armed conflict.
During that period, 200,000 people were killed. The vast majority of them, 82 per cent, Mayan. More than 42,000 were disappeared. Yet no one has ever been held accountable for the genocide.
Many of those who had direct involvement in the four governments that ruled during the three-decade conflict still hold the reins of power firmly in their hands.
It is only three years since Efrain Ríos Montt, the man who is widely recognised as the architect of the genocide, ran for office again.
"Unlike Bosnia or Rwanda, we never had an international tribunal here to investigate the genocide," explains Christina Elich of the United Nations Development Fund in Guatemala. The issue became a stumbling block in the negotiations of the peace accords. Now it is too late. And unlike Bosnia and Rwanda, power relations have changed little here. Subsequently, "only 3 per cent of the forensic investigations carried out on the country's mass graves have gone to trial," says Ms Elich.
"Justice has been the main focus of reconciliation and reparation in other countries. But not here. In Guatemala it's about restoring dignity. It's symbolic. And that's important. But justice is just not being done."
But it is not for want of trying. The national human rights organisation, CALDH, a body that is supported by Trócaire, and in turn part-funded by Irish Aid, has for many years pursued justice in areas where the government has chosen not to look, mainly the genocide and more recently the incidence of feminicide that is coming to light.
"After six years of investigative work, we now have the evidence we need to show that this was indeed genocide," explains Cristina Laur, the deputy director of CALDH. "But the problem here is impunity. And the lack of willingness on the part of the justice officials to move forward."
Take the case of Fernando Garcia, a young man of 26 who was bundled into the back of a police van one February morning in 1984 as he strolled through his local market, never to be seen again. He was a student, but also a union member and a critic of Gen Montt and his men.
For the past 22 years his wife Ninette Montenegro has campaigned for justice over the disappearance of Fernando and the thousands of other men, women and children whose remains have never been found. So far, impunity has got the better of her cause.
"I know I'll never see him again. But I'll never stop wanting to know what happened to him. How his life ended. He was my best friend. The man I chose to be my partner in life. And I can't let that go easily."
Impunity does not stop with the past. More than 600 Guatemalan women were killed throughout last year, a figure that has doubled since 2001. Yet only five cases were brought to trial.
The investigations into the feminicide show that the women - aged between 13 and 26 - were raped, tortured, dismembered, all traits that were exhibited during the genocide. "This says something to us," explains Ms Laur of CALDH, which is leading the investigation. "It makes us ask where are these techniques being learned. And given there's total impunity for the crimes committed during the war, we have to ask ourselves are those people still committing crimes."
But the tide just might be turning now. CALDH presented its cases of genocide before the national justice system six years ago with a damning indictment of Gens Efrain Ríos Montt and Romeo Lucas Garcia.
Not surprisingly, little came of that.
But around the same time, the Rigoberta Menchu Foundation, headed by the Nobel laureate, presented its own case of genocide before the Spanish justice system. And next month, after years of waiting, a Spanish investigative commission will come to Guatemala to take declarations from victims and the accused in private hearings.
General Ríos Montt has been asked to take the stand on June 28th - the man they call Guatemala's Gen Pinochet.
And Guatemalans are mindful today of the efforts of what became of the former Chilean dictator when the Spanish justice system caught up with him.
"Put it before the public eye, national and international," says Ms Laur. "That's what we want."
And maybe that is what they need to get justice for genocide.