US deports ex-Guatemalan soldier accused of role in 1982 massacre
US deports ex-Guatemalan soldier accused of role in 1982 massacre
Santos López Alonzo, accused in the massacre of more than 200 people during the country’s civil war, was sent to Guatemala City
Associated Press in Guatemala City
Wednesday 10 August 2016 18.26 EDT
A former Guatemalan soldier accused of taking part in the massacre of more than 200 people in 1982 during the country’s civil war stepped onto Central American soil Wednesday after failing to convince the United States not to deport him because he fears for his life.
Santos López Alonzo, 64, was sent to Guatemala City on a charter flight and Guatemalan authorities took him into custody, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. His hands shackled, he was escorted off the plane and into the back of a pickup truck surrounded by two armed agents. Upon his arrival, López insisted to reporters that he was innocent.
López served with an elite unit of the Guatemalan army and is among four former soldiers arrested after coming to the US years after the slaughter of villagers in Las Dos Erres. Two are serving time in American prisons for immigration crimes and one was deported and sentenced to more than 6,000 years in prison.
In an interview with the Associated Press last week at the California immigration detention facility where he was held, López said he guarded women and children during the slayings but killed no one. He said he fears retribution from Guatemalan authorities or other inmates for helping US investigators prosecute a former comrade.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/us-deports-guatemalan-soldier-1982-massacre
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Justice for The Dos Erres Massacre
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The Dos Erres Massacre
In the early 1980s, the Guatemalan army responded to a guerilla offensive with “Operación Ceniza” (“Operation Ashes”). [1] Adopting a strategy called “draining the sea the fish swim in,” the dictator Efraín Ríos Montt ordered armed forces to raze entire villages and slaughter indigenous peasants suspected of guerilla sympathies. [2] These anti-civilian operations were spearheaded by the Kaibils, special forces units known for their shocking cruelty. [3]
The Dos Erres Massacre, while infamous, was just one of hundreds of atrocities committed in this time. It started in October 1982, when guerrillas ambushed an army convoy near the tiny village of Dos Erres, killing 21 soldiers and taking 19 rifles. The Army retaliated on December 6, 1982, flying in 58 Kaibil soldiers to wipe out the inhabitants of Dos Erres, considered to be guerrilla sympathizers. [4]
Disguised as guerrillas, the Kaibils descended on the village and herded the men into the school building and the women into two churches. After searching, in vain, for communist propaganda and contraband, the soldiers began the slaughter. They threw a three-month old baby, alive, into an empty water well, then proceeded to smash the heads of infants against walls and trees. The skulls of older children were crushed with a sledgehammer. [5]
The villagers were then interrogated, then shot and dumped into the well. Women and girls were raped, then mutilated with machetes. The Kaibils shoveled dirt into the well; the survivors’ cries still audible through the earthen seal. An estimated 350 civilians were massacred at Dos Erres. [6]
More:
http://cja.org/where-we-work/guatemala/related-resources/justice-for-the-dos-erres-massacre/
(You may recall US Pres. Ronald Reagan totally supported Efrain Rios Montt, the genocidal murderer.)
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