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Washington, DC, March 28, 2013 – A radio program on the Dos Erres massacre in Guatemala in 1982, which featured National Security Archive senior analyst Kate Doyle, won a prestigious
George Foster Peabody Award yesterday. The program originally aired on May 25, 2012, as part of "This American Life" from WBEZ, and was a collaboration
with Pro Publica and Fundacion MEPI. The Peabody is the oldest award for electronic media and recognizes "distinguished achievement and meritorious
service."
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The Kaibil special forces unit, which carried out the Dos Erres massacre in 1982, on parade in Guatemala City. (Photo © Jean-Marie Simon)
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Doyle appeared in the broadcast as an expert on the massacre, which claimed the lives of more than 250 civilians, and on the subject of human rights abuses
in Latin America. As director of the National Security Archive's Guatemala documentation project, she has spent over two decades breaking loose – through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act – the documentary record on that country's tragic civil war and history of gross human rights violations. She
has appeared as an expert witness in numerous trials of former officials in Latin America, including Peru's Alberto Fujimori. In 2012, Doyle won the
ALBA/Puffin award, one of the world's largest for human rights activism.
A selection of key U.S. declassified documents on Dos Erres that the Guatemala project obtained through the Freedom of Information Act appear here.
The Guatemala project's previous publications on the genocide in that country, and specifically on the Dos Erres massacre, are available on the National
Security Archive's Web site. Of particular interest is Kate Doyle's article, "Justice in Guatemala," featured in NACLA Report on the Americas, published one year ago to mark the 30th anniversary of the coup that brought to power General Efraín Ríos Montt, whose trial for genocide began in Guatemala on March 20, 2013.
Click here to go to the program page of "This American Life."
The National Security Archive congratulates "This American Life", Pro Publica, Fundacion MEPI, and all the other 2013 Peabody Award winners.
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