The President of Guatemala, Alvaro Arzu, has formally asked for the people's forgiveness for the role of the government in the country's civil war.

More than one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand people died in the war, a thirty-six year conflict marked by human rights abuses and the massacre of many indigenous people.

Nearly two thirds of Guatemala's ten million citizens are of indigenous origin.

Thousands of them were displaced into government-run camps or fled into exile.

Speaking on the second anniversary of a peace treaty signed between the government and left-wing rebels in the URNG, President Arzu said he was asking for forgiveness so that Guatemalans would never return to the past and kill each other again.