She says there have been two distinct sides – the political and the personal – to the journey that began when the police told her late in the summer of 1990 that Myrna had died in a traffic accident. Despite the eventual guilty verdict passed down in 2004, both aspects of her battle remain far from resolved.

On the personal level, she has doubts about whether closure is ever possible. "In a personal process of reconciliation, sometimes we have to learn how to forgive ourselves," she says. "When you focus too much on legal justice, the system can make you a victim."

Faith is the fuel that sustains Ms. Mack. "Seeking justice for 14 years with all the threats and tensions – it's not what I call justice, and the only way to stay strong, keep moving forward … and try to build hope is through faith," she says.

On the political level, the fight to improve governance in Guatemala faces deep-rooted institutional problems in the political and legal systems that make any progress excruciatingly slow, says Dr. Rachel Seider, senior lecturer in Latin American politics at the University of London. "Helen Mack certainly gets a 10 for effort, but the political reality is that results are very slow in coming," she says.

Ms. Mack is well aware that her battle is uphill and points out that the situation in recent years has worsened despite the efforts of groups like hers. She harbors grave fears for her country after an election due in September: "I think that our democratic institutions have been weakened from some years ago … I don't know if the people will have the maturity to discuss the results of the election."

Candidate Alvaro Colon is dogged by funding corruption charges and right-wing candidate Otto Perez Molina, a retired general, wants to strengthen the hand of the army to deal with unrest.

Remembering the days of extra-judicial killings as unofficial state policy, Ms. Mack says that even today, the state avoids investigating deaths of human rights defenders and is highly wary of those fighting the culture of impunity in Guatemala. "Military officers feel they are threatened because human rights organizations are working on cases such as executions, genocide, or massacres," she says.

The nexus where the personal and political come together for Ms. Mack is in how to improve the security in people's lives. Her experience with the Myrna Mack Foundation has made it clear that any society at risk needs to focus on more than just safeguarding freedom from fear. "When we talk about discrimination or marginalization, it has to do with poverty and all the economic, social, and cultural rights. These rights are equally as important as civil rights if you want to have political reconciliation."

A landmark U.N. Development Program report in 1994 set out a model that sought to expand the security paradigm from its traditional focus on the state to a broader definition that included the security of people's lives within national borders. Another report by the Commission on Human Security in 2003, co-chaired by Sadako Ogata and Amartya Sen, reiterated that economic, social, and cultural rights were equally as vital as civil rights in securing human freedoms.

This concept of human security is central to Helen Mack's fight  to empower communities to ask for the full spectrum of their rights – civil, economic, social, and cultural. Her approach to justice is equally comprehensive. Focusing on narrow legal remedies is only half the story, she says: "I see justice as something more holistic – that is, not only justice from a legal point of view or fighting impunity, but also social justice."

Her personal faith backs this broader approach to security. As a Catholic, Ms. Mack sees the social doctrine of the church as something involving the right to such public goods as education and health. During the Cold War, the United States and Western powers emphasized civil rights over economic and social rights due to the ideological battle between communism and capitalism. Today, the West uses the demon of terrorism to promote civil rights at the expense of social rights, says Ms. Mack.

"It's a case of, 'If you are not with me, you are against me.' But in this world, we cannot be just black and white; there are many grays in between that do not make you an enemy of the state, and that concept is still not well-understood by politicians here and in the United States," she says.

Lack of effort in recent years by Western nations to improve the quality of governance in Latin America frustrates many who work in the region.

"It was important during the Cold War, but now that most of the countries in the region are nominal democracies, the main policy toward the region appears to be one of neglect," says Dr. Seider.

Ms. Mack says Guatemala has been left largely to fend for itself at a time when social and political structures in the country are still extremely fragile. She says powerful groups – including those in organized crime – are increasing their sway over weak institutional processes. "We are not going to survive as a country unless those responsible in government – and we are talking about political parties, the business sector, the civil servants – sit down and really talk about what is best for the nation," warns Mack.