Dr. Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey:

I thank the Chairman for his words. I thank all the members for attending to hear about our work in Guatemala. As members may know, Guatemala had a conflict that lasted for more than three decades. We signed peace accords in 1996 and we have some of the worst gross human rights violations. The truth commission documented more than 200,000 killings, and torture, rape and genocide. Even in the peace accords there was a commitment against impunity by the government and by the guerrilla forces. Ten years after the signing of the peace accords the situation in the country about security, justice and violence was really bad. We have a really bad situation regarding homicides and gender violence as in Honduras and El Salvador - the three countries called the "Northern Triangle" in Central America.

The answer of the state to all this violence really was impunity.

Because of this crisis and insecurity, and because we understood that organised crime has infiltrated the institutions in the justice system, the Guatemalan Government asked the United Nations for help and in 2007 a commission against impunity was established in the country. This is a unique commission because it has the power to investigate crimes and to present charges. With the commission in place changes began to take place. We have new authorities in the Supreme Court, new authorities in the police and a new general prosecutor. We started working as a team with the other institutions in the judicial system and changes began to appear. We were able to investigate, arrest and sanction drug traffickers. We were able also to investigate gangs - there is a problem also in Honduras and Guatemala - involved in murder and extortion. We were able to give a better response to gender violence. For the first time we were able to bring to justice a former Head of State who has been charged for crimes against humanity and genocide. We have a sentence, a conviction, the first one in Latin America, in a national court for genocide and crimes against humanity. The sentence lasted only ten years.It was then annulled by the constitutional court. The trial and the conviction were really important for the expansion of the rule of law in the country because it sent out a message that this type of crime should not happen and that the voice of the victims is heard by the justice system. Given that we have these advances there are some challenges because we have new authorities, a new general prosecutor, and a new magistrate to the supreme court. We need to ensure there are no setbacks in what we have achieved. I will leave it there. I do not know if Ms Blanco wishes to add anything.