Dozens of Indigenous Guatemalans paid tribute Saturday to the thousands of victims of the bloody civil war that tore the Central American country apart for more than 30 years.
One survivor of the 1960-1996 conflict, Diego Rivera, told AFP in the northwestern town of Nebaj that people were coming together to remember "those who gave their lives and blood" for peace.
Nebaj and the towns of Cotzal and Chajul form the so-called Ixil Triangle in the ethnic Mayan region, an area still haunted by dozens of wartime massacres, forced disappearances and executions of Indigenous people, mostly at the hands of the army.
For those crimes, later classified as genocide, a Guatemalan court in 2013 sentenced former dictator Efrain Rios Montt (1982-1983) to 80 years in prison -- a sentence later overturned on grounds that he had not been allowed an effective defense.
The retired general died in 2018, aged 91, as his retrial was going on.
Every February 25, Guatemala honors war victims on the date that, in 1999, a Truth Commission -- formally the Commission for Historical Clarification -- released its "Memory of Silence" report under UN auspices.
That document concluded that the war between the government and leftist guerrilla factions -- which ended in 1996 with the signing of a peace treaty -- led to more than 200,000 deaths and disappearances, the vast majority of them blamed on state security forces.
Rivera, a 68-year-old farmer, said relatives and victims of the conflict are unhappy with the current right-wing government of President Alejandro Giammattei, which they accuse of neglecting their requests for reparation.
"All the consequences of this conflict continue to mark our lives," said 48-year-old Juana Baca, part of a group of Indigenous women.
In Nebaj, a huge banner was unfurled reading "Never again -- rivers of blood in Guatemala" -- a protest against the candidacy in June presidential elections of former deputy Zury Rios, a daughter of Rios Montt.
Victims' groups also filed legal complaints Friday against her candidacy, citing a constitutional prohibition against political participation by relatives of any coup leader.
That ban kept Zury Rios out of the 2019 presidential election, but the electoral court has allowed her current candidacy.
About 40 percent of Guatemalans are Indigenous, and in many rural areas, members of the ethnic Maya group are often the majority.