This would only anger the Generals and lead to greater instability among the civilian government. In tracking communities before, during, and after other exhumations, her research shows that this line in political science is erroneous. The historical reconstruction through the exhumation leads people to have political participation that they did not have before. Sanford has found that in communities prior to exhumations, most of the people of Guatemala did not even know what a Congress is, much less who a deputy in the Congress is. Afterwards, some of the women who do not even speak Spanish can tell you who some of the deputies are.
People have an idea of what their role in the political process is.
If you want to have a country that is democratic, then you better have a majority of the people, who in Guatemala happens to be Maya and rural, participate in the political process. In some communities where there have been exhumations, the people have organized to get what the state owes to them. In one community that Sanford has tracked for three years, the community has organized and now have schools, and medical clinics have been set up. They are politicized because they know they have a right to participate. Without death certificates, the widows have no right to inheritance.