This document discusses how data and statistics were used to prove genocide acts occurred in Guatemala. It provides context on the diversity and armed conflict in Guatemala. It explains how Efrain Rios Montt came to power and faced trial for genocide. Patrick Ball used data from multiple sources to show the homicide rate for indigenous Maya people was 8 times higher than non-indigenous people in the Ixil region, proving the acts were targeted. The analysis supported achieving justice, though only for a short time. The document raises questions around using past commissions' work to identify patterns to prevent future genocides.

1. Data and Genocide Acts
By Renata Avila
Berlin, 10th March 2015.

2. Some context

3. Diversity: 24 linguistic groups

4. Armed Conflict

5. Genocide Acts: how to prove those

6. Efraín Rios Montt in power

7. Efrain Rios Montt in trial

8. How to prove it?
• Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(CPPCG)
• ...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
• (a) Killing members of the group;
• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
• — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, Article 2[2]

9. In short…
Genocide is a specific crime it does not mean
killing a lot of people. Genocide specifically
means that you picked out a particular group.

10. Truth Commission

11. Testimonies

12. Exhumations *

13. The story told by the remains

14. But how can you prove it was
systematic and against x ethnic group?

15. Meet Patrick Ball

16. What Data + Statistics did
• The analysis of Patrick Ball using data from
different sources and statistics to fill the
missing information gaps, showed that the
homicide rate for non-indigenous peoples in
the Ixil region was 0.7 percent, while the
homicide rate for the Maya was 5.5 percent:
the probability of being killed by the Army was
8 times greater for the Maya Ixil than for their
non-indigenous neighbors.

17. Justice achieved

18. For a week…

19. The curious case of Metadata to
determine command responsibility

20. Random discovery

21. National Police Historical Archive

22. Some ideas
• How could we potentially use the discoveries
of truth commissions and the work done in
the last 2.5 decades to find patterns of
violence?
• Will a data powered analysis help us to
prevent a genocide from happening?