Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

History was made this week in Guatemala: for the first time the perpetrators of mass murder have been convicted of their crimes. These were four soldiers who were found guilty of taking part in the massacre of Dos Erres in December 1982 when over two hundred peasants, many of them women, children and old people, were killed by the Guatemalan army during the short-lived but bloody regime of General Efraim Rios Montt.

The Rios Montt regime

 A struggle between various left-wing guerrillas and the military government of Guatemala had been going on since the early ‘60s with the Guatemalan army, backed by the United States and Israel  committing ever more disgusting violations of human rights.  Rios Montt was a career soldier who had dabbled in politics. Many observers felt that he had actually won the 1974 presidential election as candidate for the Christian Democrat party, but was denied victory by massive fraud. He came to power in June 1982 in a palace coup promising to pursue the war with

... and the same to you!

renewed rigour. In 1968 he had left the Catholic faith, as like many conservative elements he believed that it had been taken over by “Marxists” and joined the American-based fundamentalist Pentecostal Church of the Word or Verbo Church, in which he became a lay preacher. When he took power he stated in his inaugural address that his presidency was the wish of God – and if God had demurred he would probably have been tortured and shot. His policy was summed up in three words: frijoles y fusiles: beans and guns. In other words: if you‘re with us you will be fed; if you are against us, you’ll be shot. Among those singled out for special treatment were the dirt poor indigenous Guatemalans. Centuries of discrimination at the hands of the Creole dominated governments, whether military or civilian, made them sympathetic to the guerrillas, but most found the backbreaking struggle for survival took up all their time. Any area of the countryside considered friendly to the guerrillas was subjected to a scorched-earth policy, whereby villages were burned to the ground, livestock killed and crops destroyed. The inhabitants – those who were not killed immediately – were often herded into concentration camps. Because Rios Montt was fighting a “communist-inspired” insurgency, as well as his links to the American right through his Christian fundamentalist beliefs, he enjoyed the support of the American government and CIA,

The massacre at Dos Erres

Peten

In late October twenty-one members of the military were killed and some weapons stolen in an ambush in the northern province of Petén. The landscape was dominated by swamps, jungle and lagoons and inhabited largely by subsistence farmers belonging to the Maya ethnic group. The army was itching for reprisals and early in the morning of December 6th members of the Kaibiles, the Guatemalan equivalent of the SAS entered the village of Doss Erres disguised as guerrillas.  They were convinced that many of the villagers belonged to the guerrillas or were concealing information about them. Male villagers were separated from women and children. They were corralled in the village church and school and subjected to brutal interrogation while the village was searched. No incriminating material – and crucially no weapons – could be found and the soldiers began to grow frustrated. The children were separated from their parents and were dispatched, often by having their head bashed against trees. Then it was the turn of the old and the womenfolk, who were usually raped prior to being killed. The last to die were the men. This went on for three days until the whole of the village’s population had been annihilated and their bodies thrown into a well. Apparently the last to die was a young girl brought off as a sort of trophy, gang raped and then strangled. 

 By wiping out the village and its population the soldiers and their superiors in the government hoped to erase any memory of what had happened at Dos Erres. However word did get out. The events were publicised by human rights groups but the Guatemalan army denied any responsibility, even though the country returned to nominal civilian rule in 1986. A peace deal ending the war was signed in 1996 but it included an amnesty for soldiers who had committed crimes during the war. In 1998 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that the amnesty did not cover seriou8s crimes such as genocide or mass killing. It was only in 2000, eighteen years after the massacre, that the then Guatemalan president, Alfonso Portillo, admitted that the Guatemalan army had been involved in the killings at Dos Erres and offered the victims’ relatives cash compensation.

Who was really responsible?

The real instigator of these crimes, Rios Montt, is still alive and is, by all accounts, hail and hearty as he goes into the eighty-sixth year of his miserable life. Even though he was deposed in 1983 he went on to become the speaker of the legislature and to stand for the presidency in 2003 in which he received 11% of the vote. In 2007 he was elected to the legislature and so enjoys parliamentary immunity from criminal proceedings. An attempt was made to pursue him through the Spanish courts, but this was thwarted due to the obfuscation of Rios Montt’s lawyers.

It is reckoned that as many as ten thousand people were killed during the time Rios Montt was president, the vast majority innocent bystanders in a conflict over which they had no control. What is more, just as the brutal repression of the Guatemalan people did not begin with Rios Montt but simply grew in intensity, neither did it end with his ouster.

Has justice been done?

One may ask whether such judgements are useful. What good does it do the victims? Should we not forget the past? It is important that those who carry out such barbarous acts should be punished and should not think that the passage of time exonerates them. They must be shown that the murder of the defenceless and the innocent will not go unnoticed by the civilised world.

The convictions of some of those involved in the Dos Erres massacre is but a start. The pursuit of those responsible for other massacres during Rios Montt’s time, such as those in the village of Plan de Sanchez, have been delayed because the judges have not found sufficient evidence for conviction. For far too long Guatemala has been bathed in a culture of impunity, created and maintained by its judiciary. Its courts are staffed by judges who make judgements in the interests of their patrons. Not only have the victims of the army looked for justice in vain. So too have the families of the girls and women who have disappeared, probably murdered. These people died not because of their political views, but solely because of their gender. The price of human life in Guatemala is still ridiculous low, compared to the price of justice.