UN SPOKESMAN ALVARO DE SOTO GIVES PRESSER ON GUATEMALAN TRUTH COMMISSION REPORT, 1999-02-26 (photo)

UN undersecretary for political affairs Alvaro de Soto gestures during a press conference February 26, the day after he received a report by Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification into attrocities committed during the country's 36-year civil war. Soto said he had been moved by the report and hoped that the events it details will never be repeated in any other part of the world. The commission attributes 93% of all the human rights abuses during Guatemala's civil war to the army which kept the right wing dictatorship in power. It also implicates the C.I.A. as having given equipment and training to the Guatemalan government, and it estimates that 200,000 people were killed during the conflict, 80% of them indigenous Maya indians. EA/SV/AA