Millions of documents that could shed light on alleged government efforts to eliminate leftists and guerrilla sympathizers during Guatemala's 36-year civil war have survived for decades inside a dusty, humid warehouse.
They may not last much longer.
Protecting the information from roof leaks, vermin and potential sabotage has become a full-time job for civilian activists and personnel from Guatemala's human rights defender's office.
Human-rights officials believe the files, compiled by the infamous, now-disbanded National Police, could shed light on the role police and shadowy security groups played in the killings and disappearances of thousands of government opponents.
"There could be evidence of human-rights violations, but we might never find out if the files decay or are destroyed," said Carla Villagran, director of analysis for Guatemala's national human rights ombudsman, whose office stumbled upon the towering stacks of mildewing documents last summer while investigating a report of explosives hidden in the area.
Containing at least 48 million pages, the files are currently stacked haphazardly from floor to ceiling across five spacious rooms inside the decrepit, two-story remains of an unfinished hospital-turned-warehouse. The building is surrounded by a semi-abandoned police complex filled with junked cars in a crowded northern Guatemala City neighborhood.
Cracks in the roof and walls provide little protection from heavy spring and summer rains, which flood the building and drench paperwork already coated in mold. Decades of dust and dirt also make it tough to decipher information, as do the rats, bats, cockroaches and other critters that live among the piles of pages.
"When the rains start, we have to put buckets everywhere and move the files all over the place, to parts of the building where there are fewer leaks," said Ana Corado, one of a team of police clerks who have been in charge of sorting the files since long before human-rights officials knew they existed.
Authorities also worry that current or former police officers -- or anybody, really -- could steal or destroy bundles of documents to keep investigators from uncovering evidence that may incriminate them.
The warehouse is so exposed that several years ago during Christmas street celebrations, a firecracker flew in through a broken window and charred some files, Corado said.
The building has no security cameras, and authorities only on Monday finished construction of a 2.7m fence topped with razor wire that extends along most of the length of the warehouse. Before that, hundreds of residents used the area as a shortcut, traipsing past the warehouse on their way home.
The police complex does house kennels for drug-sniffing dogs and sleeping quarters for some officers, meaning there are always law enforcement personnel around. The human rights ombudsman has hired six security guards, who work 24-hour shifts in teams of three to provide extra protection.
"Everything has been calm. We haven't seen any threats or indications there will be an attack on the files," said security guard Pedro Garcia. "But with the fence, they will be safer."
Guatemala's civil war was Latin America's bloodiest, pitting guerrilla groups against a string of US-backed military and civilian governments. About 200,000 people, most of them civilians, died or vanished before UN-brokered peace accords ended the fighting in December 1996.
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