ANNOUNCER:  Tonight on FRONTLINE/World, three Stories From a Small Planet.

On the U.S.-Mexico border—

OBSERVER:  He's not even looking at those cars as they go through the lane.

ANNOUNCER:  —a 16-year veteran of the border patrol crosses the line after meeting a beautiful smuggler with a lot of cash.

OBSERVER:  Even one corrupt border official can be a national security risk.

ANNOUNCER:  Reporter Lowell Bergman investigates the growing business of human smuggling.

In Guatemala, years after the end of a dirty war, a country's secret history is discovered.

CLARK BOYD, PRI's The World:  [voice-over]  It was a complete mess.  Rats, bats, bugs and mold had taken over the building.

ANNOUNCER:  And rare evidence of human rights abuses is saved with help from Silicon Valley.

JIM FRUCHTERMAN, CEO, Benetech:  We thought that was an injustice that we had to fight.

ANNOUNCER:  And finally tonight, in Mozambique, a local pop star sings about an unlikely subject, ecological toilets.

 

Mexico
Crimes at the Border

Reported by
Andrew Becker
Lowell Bergman

 

LOWELL BERGMAN, FRONTLINE/The New York Times:  [voice-over]  In a cemetery in the border town of Tijuana, there is a shrine that everyone knows.  It's the burial place of a young soldier.  He's called Juan Soldado, and he's the patron saint for migrants who wish to illegally cross into the United States.

I've been reporting on crime and corruption along this border for over 30 years.  Since 9/11, there's been an expansion of one type of illegal activity here, human smuggling.  After months of trying, I'm about to meet one of the smugglers.  They're called ``polleros'' here.  The smuggler has agreed to talk on one condition, that we not show his face.

[on camera]  So what is this place?

``RAFAEL'':  This is like a local hero.  Most Mexicans are superstitious and they ask miracles to Juan Soldado, ranging from anything from being able to cross to the United States safely to any type of favors or miracles.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  We will call him ``Rafael.''  He's 28 and he's part of a new generation of human smugglers.   He told me how he got started in the business.

``RAFAEL'':  I had this friend who had a lot of money.  And he was, like, 16 and I was, like, 18 at the time.  And I was, like, ``Dude, like, how do you make all that money?''  He's, like— he didn't really want to tell me at first.  And then when he told me, I was, like— I didn't believe him.  And so he took me to the people and they offered me a job, too.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  To show me how the smuggling business works, Rafael took me for a drive around Tijuana.  During the day, things look calm, but it's one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico.  Rafael said danger is part of the allure of the business.

``RAFAEL'':  I have driven cars across to the United States with people, and it feels— it's like an adrenaline rush.  It feels really good, actually.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  He took me along the Mexican side of the border and told me how the business has changed, how it has expanded since 9/11.

``RAFAEL'':  After 9/11, the border was really, really sealed those couple of months.  Since 9/11, it's been really hard for people smugglers and drug smugglers alike.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  So he said the smugglers had to adjust.

``RAFAEL'':  They started developing new ways, or I mean, actually having to really make a special compartments, like in the dashboard and stuff, that are harder to get.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Now more than ever, most migrants need the help of a smuggler to make it across the border, making them indispensable.  As a result, the smugglers say, they're making more money than ever.

``RAFAEL'':   This is the line.  This— all these people want to— are going across to the United States.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [on camera]  So in this line that we're passing, do you think there are people hidden inside these vehicles?

``RAFAEL'':  Yeah.  Let's see— yeah, some of these cars, as we speak, have people in there with illegal documents.  Every day, they try to get across.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  More illegal migrants are trying to get through border checkpoints like this one, the San Ysidro Port of Entry between San Diego and Tijuana.  It's the busiest land border crossing in the world, where over 100,000 people cross every day.  Smugglers are using this route in part because the U.S. government is spending billions to build up this modern wall, backed up by cameras, lights and many more border guards.

Pres. GEORGE W. BUSH:  The United States has not been in complete control of its borders for decades.  We have a responsibility to enforce our laws.  We have a responsibility to secure our borders.

[www.pbs.org: More on border security]

LOWELL BERGMAN:  This wall makes it harder for the migrants to simply go straight across the border over the hills or through the desert.  Now, according to one study, an estimated one in five who cross illegally do so through the ports.

BORDER AGENT:  [subtitles]  Where are you from, Madam?

LOWELL BERGMAN:  It used to be that inspectors didn't have to ask for your papers, but now there are new rules, including proof of citizenship or a valid visa, and they search entire cars much more often.  But with this volume of traffic, inspectors must rely on their instincts and experience.  With all these cars, if they stopped and searched every one, the entire border would shut down.  So there's pressure to keep the line moving.

Rafael said the smugglers are well aware of this.  They train their clients how to act to get through with fake or stolen documents.

``RAFAEL'':   Well, they usually ask you to be, like, not even polite or anything, because it's your country.  You're not asking permission to go in there, ``It's my country.''  Just be confident because they can sense— if your hand shakes, they notice that.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Customs inspectors also find migrants hidden in cleverly built compartments.  At times, migrants have died in compartments like this.  Now if a migrant is found hidden where they can't free themselves, the smugglers are prosecuted.  Otherwise, when they get caught, smugglers like Rafael often get off because the court system simply can't handle the volume of cases.

``RAFAEL'':  Yes, I was caught.  Well, nothing happened.  They just took me in.  That time, I had three people in the trunk.  The most you're going to stay is 24 hours.  It's really easy to get out, and they just put you back out, along with the people you tried to smuggle.  So it's nothing.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  After they've been arrested, these buses carry the illegal migrants and often the smugglers like Rafael to this border gate, where they are repatriated back to Mexico.

MIGRANTS:  Hasta la vista!

LOWELL BERGMAN:  No one seemed particularly concerned.

REPORTER: [subtitles]  Are you going to cross again?

MIGRANT:  [subtitles]  Yes, tomorrow of course.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  We asked how they would try to cross.

MIGRANT:  [subtitles]  Through the line, right past the inspectors.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Rafael told us that as soon as the migrants go through the gate, the smugglers are waiting to pick them up for another try because part of the new way of doing business is migrants don't have to pay until they are safely delivered into the U.S.

``RAFAEL'':   You can always try again.  You can keep trying because there is no problem in keep trying.  But usually, the people that want to go across to the States, they will get across to the States.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  But, he said, there's one guaranteed way to get across on your first try, a corrupt U.S. border official willing to take a bribe.

``RAFAEL'':   I know— I have known inspectors that are crooked, other people have worked with them, but you would never talk about them and you will never say you have one because it's your golden ticket, your meal ticket, because those are, like, very, very hard to catch.  They would make a lot of money because it's, like, fail-safe.  It's secure.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Terry Reed is an FBI agent in San Diego.  He's part of their Border Corruption Task Force.  He told us they've added agents and are busier than ever.  Agent Reed recounted one of their most important cases.  It all started when he got a tip from an informant about a corrupt officer.

TERRY REED, FBI Border Corruption Task Force:  The allegation simply was there was an officer at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.  It was a white male who goes by the name ``El Guero.''   That's all we had.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [on camera]  El Guero?

TERRY REED:  I think it means the white guy or the blond.  That wasn't a lot to go on.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  Then, after more than a year of investigation, another tip led them to this woman, Aurora Torres, who they suspected was a human smuggler.  Reed set up an undercover sting operation to see what else they could find.

TERRY REED:  The first step was to have an undercover officer place a phone call to Aurora Torres Lopez on a phone that we knew that she used for smuggling.  We explained what we wanted to have done.  Aurora Torres agreed to meet us.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  This is the video taken by their undercover agent of a meeting she had with Torres at a McDonald's in San Diego.

TERRY REED:  Aurora explained how much it would cost, that she had an officer at the border working at Otay Mesa Port of Entry, and that it was 100 percent a sure thing.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Torres then told the agent that a lot of her clients are people who have criminal backgrounds and cannot afford to be apprehended at the port.

The agent arranged with Torres to have a migrant smuggled across the border.  What Torres didn't know was that the migrant would actually be an undercover FBI operative.  This is the Tijuana hotel where she loaded him and other migrants into an SUV.

The operative reported back that after they waited in the border line, they got to the checkpoint and were quickly waved through by ``El Guero,'' the blond customs inspector.

[Immigration and Customs Enforcement footage]

Once inside the United States, smugglers still need to get paid, so they typically hold illegal immigrants hostage, sometimes at gunpoint, in houses like this one, called ``load houses.''  They only let them out when relatives or friends in the United States pay the required smuggling fee.  It's cash on delivery.

AGENT:  The window to the bedroom has a board on it and it's been nailed shut to prevent any escape to the outside.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  In Agent Reed's undercover operation, he tracked Torres's vehicle, with the group of illegal migrants, to this load house in a San Diego suburb.

TERRY REED:  They crossed the border and they ultimately ended up here at 9046 Three Seasons.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Then a member of Reed's team, posing as a relative, was instructed to bring $3,500 to pick up their operative.

[www.pbs.org: More on the smuggling business]

When the FBI debriefed their operative about his trip across the border, he told them that he read the name tag of the inspector.  It was Gilliland.  At the time, Michael Gilliland, a former Marine, was a decorated Customs and Border Protection officer with 16 years of experience.  Edward Archuleta was his co-worker.

EDWARD ARCHULETA, CBP Internal Affairs:  He knew the laws backwards and forwards.  He could tell you where to find a duty code.  He could tell you how to process a seizure.  He was the type of person that I could personally say that I looked up to and I wanted to be that type of inspector.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  The FBI began to do surveillance and wiretaps of Gilliland.  This is one of the phone messages they listened in on.  It's Aurora Torres, the leader of the smuggling group.

ANSWERING MACHINE:  This is Mike.  I'm sorry I can't come to the phone right now.  I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

AURORA TORRES:  [subtitles]  Hi, my love.  It is 12:36—

LOWELL BERGMAN:  From these wiretaps, obtained by FRONTLINE/World and The New York Times, it appears the two were having an intimate relationship.

AURORA TORRES:  [singing]  Happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Mike,  [unintelligible] baby, happy birthday to you.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Other recorded calls were too graphic for television.

AURORA TORRES:  [subtitles]  The next time I see you, I am going to give you a strong, strong, strong hug.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  The FBI told me that it's a well-known tactic that smugglers use sex to entice border agents into compromising relationships.

[on camera]  The way he was recruited was a combination of sex and money.  Sounds like an espionage operation.

ANDY BLACK, FBI Supervisor:  Greed is a powerful motivator for some individuals.  Sex is a powerful motivator.  In this case, there's more pressure now than I think at any other time for smuggling organizations to elicit the help of border officials in their smuggling operations.  If you have a corrupt border official working for you, you've got the keys to the nation.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  Still, in the Gilliland case, the FBI needed to prove he was actually taking bribes.

[on camera]  You guys are set up about here, doing a surveillance of that location over there—

TERRY REED:  That's right.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  —when Michael Gilliland showed up.  Tell us what happened.

TERRY REED:  Well, this is the home of Aurora Torres Lopez.  Again, listening to wiretaps, we knew that he was going to be coming over to pick up something.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  This is the FBI's surveillance video.  It shows Michael Gilliland on his way to meet with Torres.

TERRY REED:   We set up and we see Mike come in.  He gets out and he walks into her residence empty-handed.  And then a few minutes later, he came out carrying a plastic bag, much like the one you would find at a grocery store, you know, a small white plastic bag.  And he took that to his car and then proceeded home.  You can draw your own conclusions as to what was in the bag.  This was another day of business for him.  He was coming over to pick up his money.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  A month later, Gilliland went to work not knowing that the FBI had gotten their arrest warrants just hours earlier.  They set up their final surveillance.

This is some of what they saw— Gilliland waving cars through.  He's not doing any inspections.  He's not looking at identification, not asking any questions and not searching any the cars.

Torres pulls up with 11 illegal immigrants inside this black GMC Yukon.  Gilliland lets them through without inspection.  The FBI finally had all the evidence they needed.

TERRY REED:  The plan was that we would then roll back into the port and arrest him on the job, and that's exactly what we did.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  After being arrested, Gilliland was taken into an FBI interrogation room, where he took off his Customs uniform for the last time.

As for Torres, she was also arrested that morning.  Like many smugglers, Torres operated with a small network of family members and associates, and some of them were arrested, too.

Since the border build-up, federal officials believe these types of groups have become more sophisticated and profitable.  I asked Rafael if Torres's group was typical, or was the smuggling business more organized?

[on camera]  Is it a big business, or is it—

``RAFAEL'':              It's not a monopoly.  It's a lot of people, a lot of families.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  A lot of different families involved?

"RAFAEL":  Yes, just lot of different families involved.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  And he said that even small operations pay off the drug cartels for protection and for permission to operate.

"RAFAEL'':              The smart ones will talk to the organized crime in Tijuana and be, like, ``OK, so we're polleros.  How much is you going to charge us a month to leave us alone and that the cops will leave us alone?''  The price varies from how big their organization is.  There's people that pays up to, like, $25,000 a month.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  And these smuggling groups can afford it.  After Torres was arrested, the FBI found nearly a half million dollars in a safe in her bedroom.  She pled guilty to smuggling and was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in federal prison.

Like Torres, Michael Gilliland also pled guilty.  He was sent to prison and ordered to pay a $200,000 fine.  But no one knows how many illegal migrants he let into the country or how much money he made.

TERRY REED:  I can't be sure what he made.  I couldn't tell you.  I know what he pled guilty to, and that was approximately $100,000 in bribe money.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [on camera]  But there's this one incident where you see a convoy going though.

TERRY REED:  Depending on the size of the car, you could have 10, 12 people in the car.  So times four cars, 48 people, a thousand bucks a head, you know, that's $48,000.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  In one evening?

TERRY REED:  One evening.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  That's almost his annual salary.

TERRY REED:  Getting pretty close.  Getting pretty close.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  Michael Gilliland declined our requests for an interview.  In the end, Gilliland was sentenced to five years in federal prison.  Sentences for corruption related to human smuggling are generally lighter than those for drugs.

TERRY REED:  The penalties are not as severe.  People, just people, you know, the sentences are considerably less.  Would I like to see them serve more time, me personally?  Absolutely.  But unfortunately, we don't write the laws that are on the books.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  The Gilliland case is only one of many since 9/11.  There was also Customs Officer Richard Elizalda, Border Patrol Agents Samuel McClaren and Mario Alvarez, Border Patrol Agent Oscar Antonio Ortiz.  And just last week, at the same border crossing where Michael Gilliland worked, FBI agents arrested another inspector who they accused of being part of a human smuggling ring.

And this just in the San Diego area.  Federal officials say across the border, there have been a hundred similar busts in the last five years, and that currently, they have nearly 200 open investigations.

ANDY BLACK, FBI Supervisor:  There's more pressure on the other side of the border from the smuggling organizations to elicit the help of a corrupt border official for a number of reasons.  The fence and wall have gone up.  It's more difficult for aliens to come across the border.  Additionally, there's an increase of law enforcement on this side of the border since 9/11.  The pool of individuals who are susceptible to corruption has grown.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  We interviewed officials from various agencies here at the border about the corruption problem.  After 9/11, as part of the Homeland Security Act, there was a big reorganization which split the responsibility for corruption investigations between six different agencies.  Some officials say this hampered their efforts.  And today, it's still not clear who is in charge.

Archuleta, Gilliland's former co-worker, is an agent in the newly expanded Customs and Border Protection Office of Internal Affairs.  He says that institutional confusion continues to be part of the problem.

[www.pbs.org: Read the interviews]

EDWARD ARCHULETA:  My personal opinion, after 9/11 happened, the alphabet soup even increased.  Are we different agencies in some sense doing the same thing?  Sure.  Could we merge into maybe more of a streamlined agency?  I would love that on a personal basis, to have one corruption agency looking at it, but you're not going to do that.  Everybody wants their piece of the pie.  But yeah, there's some frustration.  Sure.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  With all this disorganization, officials here worry about their ability to fully investigate the flood of allegations, especially now, as the forces on the border are expanding like never before.

This is a recent Border Patrol television ad.  They plan to hire thousands in the next two years.

ANNOUNCER:  We are highly trained professionals.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  These new hires would add to a Border Patrol that has almost doubled since 9/11.

ANNOUNCER:  The Border Patrol.  We protect America.  Are you up to the challenge?"

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Officials here told us this hiring has meant a lowering of standards and increased risks.

[on camera]  Do you have any sense whether the problem has gotten worse or better or different, or what's happened?

ANDY BLACK:  The consensus is it has increased.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  The corruption?

ANDY BLACK:  Correct.  The level of corruption investigations has increased.  And we know that those corrupt officials that are allowing vehicles in unchecked have no idea as to what's entering this country, whether it's a potential terrorist, a convicted murderer, a convicted rapist, or drugs.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  FRONTLINE/World and The New York Times made numerous requests to get an interview with the man in charge of our borders, Department of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, but he declined.  So finally, I caught up with him at a press conference.

[on camera]  Our reporting recently has shown from officials in the DHS and the FBI that stronger crackdown at the border's resulted in larger human smuggling organizations and an increase in corruption along the border.

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, Secretary of Homeland Security:  We generally consider, for example, a rise in the cost what it takes to be smuggled across the border as a sign that we're being successful.  It's like a rise in the cost of drugs.  It tends to indicate that we're being successful.  As far as corruption goes, it's like with the police department.  The bigger the police department, the more cases you're going to have.  It strikes me that the answer is to continue to increase the pressure on illegality, it's not to surrender to illegality.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  Since Michael Chertoff wouldn't talk to us further, I went to see the man who proudly takes credit for the wall and the crackdown, long-time San Diego congressman Duncan Hunter.  He's the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.

[on camera]  We went to talk to people at the Border Corruption Task Force here in San Diego, and what they've said to us is they're having more and more cases of inspectors who've been arrested, and they tell us they're going to arrest more very soon.

Rep. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), California:  You've got tragic cases.  And any time you have a lot of money available and you have that kind of opportunity, you're going to have some people who go in the wrong direction.  But I totally reject the idea that somehow the border fence has made government agents corrupt.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Nobody's saying that the border fence has made government agents corrupt.  What they're saying is that the price, the money involved in moving people across has gone up, and so therefore, there's more money available.

Rep. DUNCAN HUNTER:  I just disagree with that.  I think if a person has— has corrupt tendencies, I think he's going to have those corrupt tendencies for a small amount of money or a large amount of money.  And I think what you have is you've got a larger volume of people coming across.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  Wayne Cornelius is a professor who's an expert on immigration.  I asked him about the corruption problem as we walked along the U.S. side of the border.

Prof. WAYNE CORNELIUS, U.C. San Diego:  That's an inevitable consequence.  And migrants have told us in interviews that their smugglers increasingly make arrangements with border crossing agents.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Cornelius has interviewed literally thousands of migrants since 9/11.  He says corruption is not the only problem.  He questions the overall effectiveness of the build-up.

Prof. WAYNE CORNELIUS:  Our research shows that fewer than half of those who come to this border are apprehended.  And of those who are caught, all but 3 percent eventually get through.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [on camera]  So you're saying that 97 percent of the people who try to get across this border over here get across eventually?

Prof. WAYNE CORNELIUS:  If they don't succeed on the first try, they almost certainly will succeed on the second or the third try.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  Professor Cornelius told us 97 percent of the people who try to get across the border make it.

Rep. DUNCAN HUNTER:  Well, but remember, I've only built 14 miles of border fence here in San Diego.  The fence was extremely effective, and that's why we have to extend it across the border and that's why I put in the bill in 2006 854 miles of double border fencing, so we have to build the rest of the border.

[www.pbs.org: More on U.S. immigration policy]

Prof. WAYNE CORNELIUS:  Their position is that it's simply a matter of time and spending more money, increasing the manpower available to the border patrol, and eventually, this will turn the tide.  We really don't see that happening.  There is nothing in the actual record of the border enforcement build-up that would lead us to believe that we are going to get to that point.

Rep. DUNCAN HUNTER:  The question that that begs is, what are you trying to tell us as a result of that, that we should have an open border or we should have a semi-closed border, or we should have people holding hands at the border?  What I know is, the fence works.

LOWELL BERGMAN:  [voice-over]  But back in Tijuana, Rafael told me he's not worried about going out of business any time soon.

"RAFAEL'':   The smuggling people business, the pollero business, will stop only when there's no borders.  Unless you can stop poverty or hunger, you will never stop it because people will always want to help their families.  It doesn't matter how big the wall is.  If you build a really tall wall, they'll just dig a hole.  It doesn't matter.  So you will never stop people getting across to the United States.

ANNOUNCER:  Later tonight, in Mozambique, an Afro-pop star earns international recognition for his public health work.

But first, in Guatemala, the lost secrets of a country's past are decoded with the help of Silicon Valley.

 

Guatemala: The Secret Files
Reported by Clark Boyd

 

CLARK BOYD, PRI's The World:*  [voice-over]  Here in the heart of Guatemala's capital, it's surprisingly peaceful now, but this is still very much a country recovering from a long, bloody civil war.  When the fighting ended in the 1990s, many here wanted to move on, burying the secrets of the war, along with hundreds of thousands of the dead and disappeared.

But then in July of 2005, the past thundered back.  An explosion occurred at a military munitions dump near Guatemala City, leading officials to check buildings like this one for other unexploded bombs.

Alberto Fuentes, a long-time human rights worker, came here to make sure nearby civilians were safe.  But soon, he told me, investigators discovered a bombshell of another kind.

ALBERTO FUENTES, Human Rights Worker:  [subtitles]  When the investigators saw those windows, they saw the packets and books, they went inside and asked, ``What is this?''  They were told, ``This is the historical archive of the National Police.''

CLARK BOYD:  The Guatemalan government had for years denied the existence of a National Police archive, but here it was.  And it was a complete mess— rats, bats, bugs and mold had taken over the building.  There were stacks and stacks of papers, and some more ominous artifacts, as well.

GUSTAVO MEONO, Former Guerrilla Leader:  [subtitles]  It's a .45 caliber.

CLARK BOYD:  Gustavo Meono is a former guerrilla leader who's now in charge here.  He tells me that this building was much more than an archive during a dark period of military rule in the early 1980s.

GUSTAVO MEONO:  [subtitles]  Right here, a police unit operated.  Unit 6 of the National Police in General Rios Montt's government was based in this building.  And there are many accounts of grave violations of human rights— illegal detentions, illegal prisons, tortures.  It is possible that extra-judicial executions took place in here.

CLARK BOYD:  In these abandoned papers, it seemed, investigators had found the hidden history of one of Latin America's longest, dirtiest wars.  For more than 30 years, Guatemala was consumed by fighting.  State-sponsored violence against indigenous people and dissidents became a matter of course.  In the cities, many lived in fear of being disappeared or executed by the National Police.

[www.pbs.org: Guatemala's history of violence]

AURA ELENA FARFAN:  [subtitles]  At 6:00 in the evening, four men showed up at my house.  They told me that my brother had been captured.

CLARK BOYD:  After the disappearance of her brother, Aura Elena Farfan founded an organization dedicated to finding out the truth of what happened during the war.  Her group represents more than 3,000 Guatemalans who've been looking for answers about missing family members.

AURA ELENA FARFAN:  [subtitles]  What these photos show is only a small sample of the more than 45,000 Guatemalans who were illegally detained and later disappeared.  Unfortunately, it's been 24 years, and we haven't been able to find out, officially, what happened to him, or any of them.

CLARK BOYD:  Back at the abandoned police archive, answers are what interested the human rights investigators, as well.  To help sift through the evidence, forensics experts and a team of lawyers were brought in.  Carla Villagran was one of the first.  Like many who work here, Carla told me she had a personal connection to this history.

CARLA VILLAGRAN, Chief Human Rights Investigator:  I was married.  I was 19 years old.  I was married with a man that was part of the guerrilla movement at that moment.  And he was kidnapped by the police and disappeared.

CLARK BOYD:  Like Carla, many here hope these documents will shed light on what happened to the dead and disappeared.  But finding answers wouldn't be easy.  Without an index or order of any kind, the task of sorting some 80 million documents quickly became overwhelming.

CARLA VILLAGRAN:  It was impossible to deal with something as big as that archive.  So when we decided to assume the responsibility of the investigation of the archive, we needed help.

CLARK BOYD:  That help came from an unlikely place, California's Silicon Valley and a small non-profit called Benetech.

JIM FRUCHTERMAN, CEO, Benetech:  How could Silicon Valley help the human rights movement?  When we heard that there were these 60 or 80 million pages of documents, you know, I think, ``Oh, that's a medium-sized asbestos litigation.''  People scan that number of documents all the time.

CLARK BOYD:  Former rocket scientist Jim Fruchterman founded Benetech to seek high-tech solutions to humanitarian problems.

JIM FRUCHTERMAN:  Every time human rights information gets lost, that's someone's story of suffering that now will make no impact on the world.  And we thought that that was an injustice that we had to fight.

CLARK BOYD:  Dr. Patrick Ball is a computer scientist at Benetech who took on the Guatemalan police archive project.

PATRICK BALL, Dir., Benetech Human Rights Program:  We looked at the archives itself, and it became obvious to us very quickly that nobody's going to read 80 million documents in any meaningful timeframe.  It's going to take a long, long time even to preserve this material, much less analyze it or understand it.

CLARK BOYD:  Ball had worked in Guatemala in the 1990s, helping document a possible genocide carried out by the army against rural indigenous people.  For him, the disappearances and murders carried out in the cities had remained a mystery.

PATRICK BALL:  It was long thought that the perpetrator of most of those disappearances was the National Police.  And when the archive was discovered several years ago, all of us who've been studying human rights in Guatemala for a long time were very excited, because, ``Oh, my gosh, this is our opportunity to flesh out the story of the disappeared, the urban violence.''

CLARK BOYD:  Ball had developed software that would preserve and analyze the police archive, potentially giving families — and human rights prosecutors — the information they'd been looking for.

JIM FRUCHTERMAN:  We thought that we'd actually give them the tools to capture that information so that it could be used for advocacy, used for connecting people with other people, and eventually maybe someday even for bringing people to justice.

[www.pbs.org: More about Benetech]

CLARK BOYD:  With Benetech's help and some outside funding, the archive in Guatemala got to work.  The first task was to clean and organize stacks of documents and scan them one by one onto computers.  Working together with Patrick Ball at Benetech, lawyers from the human rights office began to analyze the data and were encouraged by the big picture that quickly emerged.

CARLA VILLAGRAN:  Now we can explain how police acted during those years, why they were doing those kind of things.  I know that now we can explain those kinds of things precisely because this type of technology helps us to put together information and to make those big interpretations.

PATRICK BALL:  Many people said, ``When you get to the documents, you'll find that the police have removed everything that might be of interest to you.''  That's certainly not the case.  Indeed, there's a great deal of information.  Perhaps 15 percent of the documents, is our working estimate based on what we have, speak to events which are potentially human rights violations.

[www.pbs.org: Read the full interview]

CLARK BOYD:  As the archive continued to work through the documents, not everyone was so happy about what might be revealed.  Death threats were made against archive employees, and there was at least one attempt to fire bomb the building and destroy the secret files.  Security cameras were installed, and copies of the scanned files would be specially encrypted.  Backups would be sent each night to Benetech servers outside the country for safe-keeping.

GUSTAVO MEONO:  [subtitles]  This is a unique archive.  There aren't two or three others.   It is this one or nothing.  We can't make any mistakes that would put this work in danger.

CLARK BOYD:  Despite threats, work at the archive continues around the clock.

During the civil war, the National Police perpetrated many of the crimes documented in the archive.  I've been told they've reformed, but some current senior officials were on the force during the war, and I wondered how they felt about the archive project.

I tracked down the current chief of police.

CHIEF OF POLICE:  [subtitles]  I began my career in the rank and file of the old National Police force.  Things have changed and Guatemalan society has scrutinized those who were part of the old police force.  But in all societies in the world, there are the good and the bad.

CLARK BOYD:  The chief acknowledges past police abuses, but he says he's not concerned about revelations from the archive.

CHIEF OF POLICE:  [subtitles]  In my view, in the transparency, conduct and professionalism of the National Civil Police, it doesn't affect us.  You'll be able to see historical information there about situations that happened in the country.  If something comes out, then let it come out.

CLARK BOYD:  Facing the truth about the country's past is exactly what Guatemala's new president has been promising, as well.  Earlier this year, Alvaro Colom made an historic visit to the National Police archives.  He surveyed the files that may contain answers critical to healing the nation's wounds.  In a country where people still don't talk openly about what happened during the war, this was a significant moment.

Pres. ALVARO COLOM:  [subtitles]  This is very historic, very important for Guatemala, for future generations.  And I'm confident this will contribute towards truth and justice.

CLARK BOYD:  Around the same time, the president made another historic move, opening up the archives of the Guatemalan army, as well.

President Colom agreed to talk with me about this new official openness.

Pres. ALVARO COLOM:  [subtitles]  Our government has nothing to hide, neither I nor anyone in my cabinet.  It's time to know the truth.  It's time for Guatemala to sleep peacefully, without dwelling on the past but rather on the present reality.

CLARK BOYD:  [on camera] [subtitles]  And personally, with what happened with your uncle—

Pres. ALVARO COLOM:  [subtitles]  Obviously, I'd like to initiate something with my uncle.

CLARK BOYD:  [voice-over]  For President Colom, like so many in Guatemala, the story was personal.  In 1979, Colom's uncle, a well-known opposition politician, was gunned down in his car in Guatemala City.  A government assassination was widely suspected, but the details may only now come to light as the police archive project continues.

Pres. ALVARO COLOM:  [subtitles]  When I visited the police archives, I had a very strong feeling, a longing for justice.  And my head was filled with images of the past that we should never forget if we want justice.  And I think that was the strongest feeling, to do everything I can as president to fortify justice.  I have to do it.

CLARK BOYD:  It's been nearly three years since the archive was discovered.  Some relatives have grown frustrated that the government still hasn't given them answers about their loved ones.  And an official report, which they hope might be used for prosecutions, has been delayed several times.

Meanwhile, back at the archive, the work continues.  There are now more than 100 people on staff.  Many are members of a younger generation, who are giving the archive project a new sense of urgency and purpose.

MARIA EUGENIA, Archive Worker:  [subtitles]  I have in my hands a great responsibility.  My job is not to work for a salary or to pass the time.  It is work with implications for the future so that in the future, new generations can better understand our history.

CLARK BOYD:  One file at a time, a lost chapter of Guatemala's history is being recovered.  Soon the staff hopes that all of this will be open to the public.  Then, they say, these stories saved by a chance discovery and some modern technology will never disappear again.

ANNOUNCER:  Finally, in Mozambique, a child of war uses his music to help the next generation.

Mozambique: Guitar Hero Reported by Marjorie McAfee

 

MARJORIE McAFEE, Reporter:  [voice-over]  On the other side of the world, far away from modern life, lies a vast expanse of land called Niassa.  This is Mozambique's most northern province.  Its high elevation makes you feel like you could pluck a cloud out of the sky.  Only one dirt road links this remote region to the rest of the country.  It's a place the world forgot.

But in a small village up the road, there's excitement in the air.  A crowd is gathering.  Everyone has come to see this man, Feliciano dos Santos.  He's one of Mozambique's best-known musicians, and he's turned up here, in the middle of nowhere, to play with his band, Massukos.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  [subtitles]  Good afternoon!  Good afternoon!

MARJORIE McAFEE:  If everyone looks a little bewildered, it's for good reason.  They've never seen a rock band before.  But they recognize Santos as one of their own.  He was born and raised in Niassa and sings in the local tribal language.

This is their most popular song, and it's a little unusual.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS AND BAND:  [singing] [subtitles]  Let's wash our hands.  Let's wash our hands.  For the children to stay healthy, for the uncles to stay healthy, for the mothers to stay healthy, we build latrines.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  That's right, Santos is singing about toilets.  He's not your typical rock star.  He uses his music to teach villagers about good hygiene.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  They need to know about HIV.  They need to know about disease come from water.  They need to know about the environment, about sanitation.  And I wanted to teach the community to avoid, to avoid have these kind of problems.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  Santos wanted to do more than just sing about sanitation.  In the mid-1990s, he founded an organization, Estamos, to deal with Niassa's health problems.  They focus on water issues, like building pumps and wells to provide clean drinking water.  But their main project is toilets, installing ecological latrines.  Santos showed me how one works.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  [subtitles]  There are two pits.  The family uses one pit until it is full and then switches to the other.  The family does not have to dig toilets in different places.  They just keep alternating pits, which saves space and time.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  It's called an Ecosan toilet.  Santos didn't invent it, but he's introduced it to rural Mozambique.  The brick-lined pits prevent contamination of the groundwater.  And there are other benefits, too.  Families with an ecological toilet collect ash from cooking fires.  They keep the ashes in a location next to the latrine.  After each use, you throw a handful of ash onto the waste, which eliminates the smell and keeps away disease-bearing flies.  Touching the ash also reminds you to wash your hands, further reducing the chances of contamination.

And there's more.  Santos tells me that after six months of composting in ash, the waste is transformed into top quality fertilizer.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  [subtitles]  From here, this compost is ready for the fields.  It is a natural fertilizer that doesn't cost anything.  It's more economical for the family.  With this, they will have more food to eat.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  But farmers like Jamal needed a little convincing to try it.

JAMAL:  [subtitles]  Last year, I was at my friend's fields and I saw that his cabbages were growing very well.  And it looked like it had a lot of good fertilizer on it.  So I went with my friend to his house and saw that the fertilizer was from the latrine.  But the cabbages were growing so well, I said I'd like to have one, too.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  Today, Santos and the Estamos crew are at Jamal's house, helping him put the finishing touches on his new ecological toilet.  In Niassa and other parts of Mozambique, Estamos has installed over 300 toilets, bringing a sustainable sanitation system to places that never had one before.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  I don't want to see children growing with the same problem as I have.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  Santos has a personal motivation for this work.  As a child, he contracted polio from contaminated water.  It cost him part of his leg.  Not one to give up, Santos made his first artificial leg out of cardboard.  But he still bears the scars of being sold short for his disability.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  It's sad, but discrimination begins at home.  When my wife was pregnant, we went to her uncle's house.  In front of my wife and my mom, he said, ``Who's this guy?  He is not capable of taking care of anybody.  I can't give him my daughter because he won't be able to take care of her.   Who can he take care of?''  He told me to leave.  He said this in front of my mother.

[singing] [subtitles]  Sit down and think about life.  Sit down and think about life.  People die every day.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  Santos has always turned to music for healing.  He started his band Massukos in the aftermath of a long and devastating civil war.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  [subtitles]  Massukos is the name of a fruit.  I was inspired to name the band after that fruit because we were just finishing a war.  And after the war, many people needed to fight a spiritual hunger.  So our music is intended to fight spiritual hunger.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  Santos's message resonates in Niassa, where life is tragically short.  Most people here don't live past the age of 42.  One reason is AIDS.  One out of six people in this area is infected with HIV, so Santos has also taken up the fight against AIDS.  His group Estamos does HIV/AIDS education and prevention, including plays like this, where villagers reenact the traumas of infidelity and infection.

MAN:  [subtitles]  She says she went to the hospital and that she's got a disease.

WOMAN:  [subtitles]  Joao, you know, if she is HIV-positive, then so are you.

MAN: [subtitles]   I'm leaving.  You stay with her.  She's got HIV, not me!

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  We teach them how can disease get in the community, how someone can get HIV, and how to avoid HIV also.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  Back at Estamos headquarters, Santos tells me about his latest AIDS initiative.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  [subtitles]  We started a new program to identify and provide access to water and sanitation to people who are HIV-positive.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  With this expanded AIDS campaign, their clean water work, and of course, their eco-toilets, Estamos is busier than ever these days.  They now employ over 40 people and have an operating budget of nearly a million dollars.  It's mostly from Western aid groups.  But recently, the Mozambican government has gotten involved, selecting ``Wash Your Hands'' as the theme song for a national health campaign, a real honor for Santos.

SIMAO FONTES, Lead Singer:  [subtitles]  He has become a sort of billboard icon.  When it comes to water and sanitation throughout the country, he's an icon.  This success, he deserves it.  He deserves it.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  Simao Fontes is the lead singer in their band, and he and Santos work together in the Estamos office.  It's a unique combination.  They're non-profit health workers by day, Afro-pop stars by night.

And lately, it's not just locals who've recognized the good they're doing.  Earlier this year, Santos received an international environmental award in San Francisco for his work with Estamos.

[www.pbs.org: The Goldman Environmental Prize]

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS:  [subtitles]  I am deeply honored to receive this award for our work.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  With his popularity and stature, Santos could have left Mozambique a long time ago.  But Santos's heart remains in Niassa, and for now,, he and his friend, Simao, say they have too much work left to do here to leave.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS AND BAND:  [singing] [subtitles]  I sing out loud, your name is Niassa.  I sing out loud, your name is Niassa.  I am not embarrassed that you are poor like this.  I am not concerned that you are fragile like this, Niassa.

MARJORIE McAFEE:  As they continue their work with Estamos, building up this forgotten place, Santos and Simao have a simple message: Don't forget where you come from, and try to do some good while you're here.

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS AND BAND:  [singing] [subtitles]  Other people say, ``I'll never go back to Niassa.  Why go back?''  But here we are.  Santos is Niassa.  Simao is Niassa.  Estamos is Niassa.  Massukos is Niassa.