UC San Diego

In a country like Guatemala, with a long history of contentious politics and internecine violence, the telling of history often becomes a debate over "truth" and the "authority" to tell it. For the people most affected by the violence of war, garnering international humanitarian attention is vital and the way in which it was done in this country proved to be polemical. In the 1980s, testimony became a tool of resistance against violence and oppression. Testimony as a tool transformed in the postwar period. It became both a method of collective healing and social justice, as well as an alternative way of constructing a history of violence. This thesis explores testimonio's transformation through a comparative analysis of three important texts : Rigoberta Menchú's testimonio and two truth commission reports known as the CEH report and the REMHI project. All three texts show the socio- historical importance of inscribing subjective and affective versions of "historical truth" into narratives of Guatemala's violent past