Good news from Guatemala

by planetparker

From Guatemala comes the welcome news that four men have finally been arrested for their part in the notorious Plan de Sanchez massacre of July 1982, in which 268 innocent people lost their lives. This even occurred during the blood-stained regime of General Efraim Rios Montt, The Guatemalan army had been fighting various left-wing guerrillas for over two decades, and Rios Montt and many of the country’s pampered elite believed they were receiving the backing of Guatemala’s indigenous population. On grabbing the presidency he instituted new policies for the war, including the burning of crops and whole villages, as well as the establishment of local vigilante groups or Self Defence Patrols or Petrullas de Autodefensa Civil (PAC) who would work with the army in their fight against the insurgents. Many of these patrols were made up of indigenous Guatemalans, who were thus being insinuated, often against their will, into the struggle against the guerrillas. The inhabitants of the village of Plan de Sanchez in the country’s central highlands refused to join up, not necessarily because they sympathised with the guerrillas, but because they found that the persistent struggle for survival took up much of their time. They were increasingly victimised for their recalcitrance and their complaints to the authorities were often met by fines, leading many of the men to leave the village for the surrounding mountains.

 Market day in Plan de Sanchez

 Sunday 18 July was the day of Plan de Sanchez’s weekly market that attracted visitors from other villages and the surrounding countryside. Early in the morning other visitors appeared on the scene: uniformed soldiers accompanied by men from the Self-Defence patrols (PAC). Forstly they fired two artillery rounds at the villagers, causing sever panic and several injuries. They then proceeded to rough up the village’s inhabitants and to carry out house-to-house searches. Then, in the afternoon, an ominous event occurred when they sealed off the village, preventing anyone from entering, or more important, from leaving. The villagers were collected and the young girls were separated and moved to a house in the village. Here they were interrogated, abused, beaten, raped and finally killed. Meanwhile the remaining villagers were housed separately. The older inhabitants were subjected to intensive physical beatings, after which they were killed. These obscene salami tactics continued with the separation of the young children and even babies as young as nine months old from their parents.  The soldiers did not think them worth a bullet; instead they either had their heads bashed in with rifle butts or they were swung against the ground with such force that their skulls cracked. The only ones left were the women and such men as had not fled from the village. A grenade was thrown in to the house where they were packed. The explosion started a fire, but just to make sure no one got out, the house was surrounded and sprayed repeatedly with automatic fire. Anyone who attempted to leave the village was shot. The visitors eventually left before midnight, having murdered at least 268 people.

 Identification and burial

 The next day those who had fled from the village, as well as the handful who had managed to conceal themselves or escape the killing returned. It was impossible to identify the bodies of the burnt. Many had already been partly eaten by dogs and other wild animals. In the afternoon the visitors returned. They forced the villagers they found there at gun point to hastily dig eight graves into which the victims were piled. Surprisingly, these witnesses of the atrocity were not killed; they were only threatened with death. Any houses that had not been consumed by the flames were ransacked and then set on fire.

A code of enforced silence

The soldiers left the field of carnage and lust they had created, though they threatened the survivors that they would suffer dreadful reprisals if they spoke of the events. Then they left, followed gradually by the survivors who left Plan de Sanchez a smoking ruin, suffused with the stench of burning flesh. In subsequent years a handful of the villagers drifted back and the military allowed them to resettle, on condition that they maintained their silence and joined the Self-Defence patrols.

 The search for justice thwarted

 It is difficult to conceal horrid feats. It took ten years, and the return of Guatemala to a form of civilian rule, (though under military tutelage) before attempts were made to launch a criminal investigation. These came to nothing, as witnesses were often intimidated or killed, while the Guatemalan judiciary showed a marked lack of appetite to pursue justice. In 1996 came the formal end of the hostilities that led to the massacre. Unfortunately, one of the terms demanded by the military before they’d agree to a peace settlement was a blanket amnesty for their misdeeds.

 A glimmer of hope

 In 2000 the then president of Guatemala Alfonso Portillo admitted government involvement and promised to pay relatives of the survivors compensation, but still the Guatemalan courts or police refused to get involved. 

Alvaro Colom

The election of the centre-left Alvaro Colom as president in 2008 ushered in a new willingness to address the problem of justice delayed being justice denied. The two men arrested are Lucas Tecu, military commisioner in the region when the massacre occurred and three PAC members Mario Julian Acoj, Eusebio Grave Galeano and Santos Rosales Garcia.  This is a start, but the overall responsibility for the events of that day in July n nearly thirty years’ ago include far more people, not all of them present in the village.

 The beginning or the end?

 These arrests are a start, but one worries that they may mark the end of the search for justice. President Colom’s term is coming to an end. His likely successor is Retired General Otto Perez Medina.  Guatemala

Perez Medina

 is a country racked by violent crime, much of it drug related (and some carried out by former members of the security forces who have found peace and lack of impunity for their crimes not to their liking), Retired General Perez promises to strike hard at criminals. Only a fool would believe he will fail to protect some of his former colleagues, especially if a full inquiry into past crimes were to reveal just how deeply the Guatemalan army is dyed with the blood of the innocent.