Ms Blanca Blanco:

The Guatemala office was set up in 2001 and for the past 13 years we have been supporting transitional justice after the peace accords and working with human rights defenders. The transitional justice work would be a comprehensive approach to justice not only in terms of legal access for victims of the conflict but also psychosocial support, for example, with regard to exhumations. The exhumations help people to bring the grieving cycle to a close but are also helpful as a testimony for the trial on genocide and other trials that have taken place. We work with women who were sexually assaulted during the conflict providing psychosocial and legal supports.

In terms of human rights defenders we are working with some international bodies, such as Peace Brigade International and some national organisations that provide training on security and help design security measures for organisations.

Deputy Byrne made the point about the weak trade links between Ireland and Guatemala. There is a signed EU association agreement with Central America. The commercial pillar has already been rolled out in Guatemala but one of our requests is that the democratic clauses which have not been implemented yet, would be put in place. That would be our way of being able to monitor human rights abuses. We would encourage the European Union to move that forward.