Broad sectors of society display these feelings as a result of their experience of living with terror. At sundown, whether in the countryside or in the city, people hurry home to the relative safety of closed doors. Among the war's victims, these feelings can be much more acute. A smaller number referred to hallucinations, alcoholism, fits of anger, jealousy, and mistrust as products of the war. Such fears are reinforced by the prevailing climate of insecurity and impunity.
Impunity becomes a social model.
Under the current government, although a number of human rights cases have gone to trial, few have resulted in convictions. And so far the masterminds, or intellectual authors, of these crimes remain untouched. On several occasions, lower court convictions have been successfully appealed and overturned. To date, no military officer over the rank of sergeant has served time for a human rights violation, and no one at all has answered for the 45,000 Guatemalans disappeared during the civil war, or for a single massacre, despite a wealth of physical evidence gathered from dozens of mass graves and extensive eyewitness testimonies. This is especially dangerous for the young, who are at a stage of their development where they are becoming part of the social fabric of the country and are incorporating values and norms of what is and what is not possible, what is permitted and what is prohibited for coexistence and mutual respect.