Guatemala jails five for massacre

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: BBC

A court in Guatemala has sentenced five former paramilitaries each to 780 years in prison for the 1982 murder of 26 indigenous Mayan villagers.

They received the maximum sentence of 30 years for each of the murders which took place during an infamous massacre of 177 women and children in Rio Negro.

The victims died refusing to move from the site of a new hydroelectric dam.

Guatemala was fighting a civil war at the time in which 200,000 people either died or disappeared.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7426800.stm

[Judi Lynn]

1. It's time people in the U.S. learn what kind of regime Reagan was supporting, with

their hard-earned tax dollars.

Here's a link from your posted article, which was listed to the right of the article, concerning the same paras:

Last Updated: Wednesday, 20 October, 2004, 16:59 GMT 17:59 UK

Guatemalan massacre trial starts

Six former paramilitaries have gone on trial in Guatemala over the massacre of 143 people in one of the worst incidents in the country's civil war.
Three other fighters have already been convicted over the 1982 attack on Mayan Indians - mostly women and children - in the village of Rio Negro.

It is thought the murders may have been punishment for the villagers' refusal to allow a dam to be built nearby.

A defence lawyer said his clients were innocent.

More than 200,000 people disappeared or were killed during the 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996.

Human rights activists say the former paramilitaries were behind some of the country's worst war crimes, including massacres, rapes and tortures.

Smashed against rocks

Guatemala's Truth Commission has described the killings in Rio Negro as genocide.

According to its report, the perpetrators raped women and smashed childrens' heads on rocks.

Afterwards, local people are said to have fled to the hills, where many more died of hunger or illness.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3760582.stm

Thank you for keeping us updated on this. Really don't want to miss this trial's progress.

[AlphaCentauri]

6. some time ago I did talk to a maya survivor of one of those massacres

He toll me how the Guatemalan army had the name of the people living in the village, they used to ask everybody to come outside of their home then the soldiers started calling people to step forward when they heard their name. The people then were taking to the school where they were torture and killed. He survived running thru the jungle

[Judi Lynn]

7. That would be an intense moment for someone, just meeting one of the survivors.

People have been so insulated here from the reality of what has been happening with U.S. right-wing support. They don't have the vaguest idea of what has really happened.

I'll bet the survivor to whom you spoke hasn't had a peaceful day, or any fleeting moment of peace of mind since he was thrown into that living hell, nightmare.

I'm sure someone simply listening respectfully to what he had experienced would help, somewhat, if it seemed genuine. He may not have been mutilated like the others, but he WAS tortured, just the same, wasn't he? Poor man, poor country, poor Latin America.

It shames us all, whether we bother to know about it or not.

[unhappycamper]

2. I wonder if any of these guys were graduates of the SOA. n/t

[dipsydoodle]

5. Issues there go way back before that

It's this to which you refer :

1982-1991: Latin American Officers Given US Manual Advocating Torture and Blackmail US Army intelligence manuals provided to Latin American military officers attending the US Army’s “School of the Americas” advocate executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents and sanctions the use of “fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment, executions and the use of truth serum” to recruit and control informants.

Whole timelone is here inc. the above
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=guatemala

[Judi Lynn]

8. Here's something which may help:

The School of the Americas and Guatemala Graduates of the School of the Americas (SOA) have committed some of the most egregious human rights abuses in Guatemala’s bloody history, including torture, murder, disappearances, displacement, and genocide. In fact, the military’s gruesomehistory still haunts Guatemalan civil society. Many of those responsible for the country’s worst acts against humanity continue to hold positions of power in the government and military. Each year, U.S. human rights groups lobby for a continued ban on military aid, which has been in place since 1990, in order to curb military control in Guatemala. However, the struggle for human rights will persevere until corruption and impunity end and civiliancontrol is restored. According to documents provided by the SOA under the Freedom of Information Act the School of the Americas trained over 1500 Guatemalans between 1946-1995. (No training occurred at the SOA between 1978-83 because US military aid was cut off under President Carter and reinstated under President Reagan).

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:7SVW3i02CmkJ:www.nisgua.org/themes_campaigns/impunity/The%2520School%2520of%2520the%2520Americas%2520and%2520Guatemala.pdf+The+School+of+the+Americas+and+Guatemala&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Some of their more high profile Guatemalan granduates:

Notorious Guatemalan School of the Americas Graduates
http://www.derechos.org/soa/guat-not.html

[Judi Lynn]

3. Guatemala: Río Negro Survivors Identify Executioners

Guatemala: Río Negro Survivors Identify Executioners
Written by Thaddeus al Nakba
Wednesday, 07 May 2008



The six accused (right) with a translator in court

Guatemala has received much attention over recent violence and the impunity enjoyed by its perpetrators. Some organizations state that almost 15 people are murdered daily in Guatemala, mostly in the capital. These numbers are often compared to the levels of violence during the 36 year civil war in Guatemala (1961–1996). However, what many analysts forget to mention is that, during the nearly four decades of internal armed conflict, the vast majority of the violence occurred under the brutal dictatorships of Efraín Ríos Montt and Romeo Lucas Garcia (1980–1983). These four years saw a military campaign of genocide perpetrated against the indigenous Maya populations. To compare the present with this past is unfair to the victims and survivors of the genocide. Thus far, only one perpetrator has been successfully prosecuted. The current situation of impunity has roots in the violence of the past. Guatemala will never be able to solve problems of the present without first addressing the violence of the past.

Judge Opens Suspended Court Case for Río Negro Massacre


What crime did the women and children commit? – Juan, 25 March 2008

On December 19, 2007, a landmark legal trial commenced in Salamá, Baja Verapaz, when a local judge announced the continuation of a court trial suspended since October of 2004, charging six former members of the Xococ Civil Defense Patrol (PAC) with murder for their roles in the 13 March 1982 massacre of 177 Río Negro women and children. The six accused are being charged by the Guatemalan state-appointed public prosecutor (Ministerio Publico ) and by a local war survivors’ organization, the Association for the Integral Development of the Victims of the Violence Maya Achí (ADIVIMA).

Previously, in the same court case, three leaders of the Xococ PAC were sentenced to death in October 1999, later appealed to 50 years imprisonment, for their roles in the massacre. It has marked the only time in which Guatemalan military or paramilitary men responsible for the violence during the scorched earth campaigns under Dictators General Romeo Lucas Garcia and General Efraín Ríos Montt (1980-1983) have been convicted in a court of law. This is despite the hundreds of massacres committed and tens of thousands of innocent indigenous people murdered during the regimes.

Since the reopening of the court case, the six accused have given their declarations and have been cross examined by the prosecution and defense. According to ADIVIMA’s lawyer, Edgar Peréz, the accused attempted to paint a picture of their subordination to the Army and Commander Solares. Essentially, they described in their declarations that they only followed orders. Some even claimed they never arrived in Río Negro, despite witness testimonies negating this claim.

Río Negro be Dammed



The Chixoy Hydroelectric DamThe majority of the witnesses in the March 13, 1982 Río Negro massacre currently call Pacux "home." Pacux is a "model village" (also called "strategic hamlet" and "pole of development") set up by the Guatemalan army and the National Institute of Electricity (INDE) for the residents transplanted by the large reservoir created by the mega-project known as the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam. However, much like the current situation in Guatemala, the State never truly consulted the 23 affected communities throughout the planning and development stages, despite embarking on the project as early as 1975. It certainly never asked for their permission.

Through the influence of INDE, army incursions began almost immediately in communities to be affected by the mega project. Supporters expected to profit immediately from the endeavor. The goal was simple: Get the people out as quickly as possible. The first massacre in Río Negro occurred as early as March 4, 1980, when a military policeman acting as a security guard for the dam opened fire on a crowd of campesinos protesting his presence in the region. Seven protestors were killed. The INDE security guard was lynched.

Army and State violence and terror only increased in the aftermath, especially against leaders of campesino organizations opposed to the project. Military often used the excuse of looking for the lynched soldier’s weapons when they raided houses and kidnapped outspoken residents, who were later found dead or remained missing. In fact, four months after the massacre, two leaders of the community, Evaristo Osorio and Valeriano Osorio Chen, went missing as they headed for a meeting in the capital with INDE officials. With them they carried their only copies of official documents of the promised compensation by INDE for the residents. They had previously handed over the property titles of the residents to INDE officials. Their bodies were found later with evidence of torture. The documents were stolen and INDE denied ever receiving the land titles.

The Guatemalan army and INDE labeled the rural Maya Achí people of Río Negro ‘subversives’ and ‘guerillas’ due to their refusal to be forcefully relocated for the dam. Río Negro residents quickly learned that not only would INDE and the Army not respect their civil rights; any democratic resistance to their displacement would only be met with terror and violence.

Most Río Negro residents attempted to avoid the increasing State terror by fleeing their ancestral homeland to other regions. This usually entailed resettlement to Pacux, with its cramped houses and poor, arid land provided by INDE in its "agreement" with the people. But when the residents saw the true conditions of life in Pacux, combined with INDE’s refusal to meet its part in the compensatory agreement with the affected residents, resistance only continued.

The State responded with four massacres in an eight month period in 1982, which killed at least 440 Río Negro residents, the vast majority of the population (CEH. Annex I: Book I. Illustrative Case No. 10: "Massacre and Elimination of the Community of Río Negro").

When all residents were either dead, hiding in the mountains, or resettled in the military colony of Pacux, the construction of the hydroelectric dam began as planned, with the financial support and tacit approval of the "international community." Throughout the violence directed at the Maya Achí population in Río Negro, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank continued financing the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam until as late as 1985.

Very stark details of Rio Negro massacres follow:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1272/1/

[Judi Lynn]

4. Images from the Rio Negro area:

Monument to the murdered citizens, with images showing acts of brutality to the people killed.

The Chixoy Project and the Massacre and Displacement of Maya-Achi Peasants

Man by Rio Negro

Credit: Bret Thiele

In the early 1980s the Government of Guatemala was involved in one of the most brutal phases of an already brutal war against the majority of the Guatemalan people. At that time, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank partnered with the Government of Guatemala to fund the construction of the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam, a project that would greatly benefit many of the military leaders who owned vast tracks of land in the area. The first phases of the dam project involved displacing Maya-Achi peasants from the reservoir basin in which they had lived for generations. The displacement of the village Rio Negro was carried out through a series of brutal massacres, all under the financial support and supervision of the two banks.

Legal Responsibility of States as parts of the World Bank and IADB
In addition to the Government of Guatemala, the COHRE petition joined the States with human rights obligations under the Inter-American Human Rights system which were Directors of the two banks and held disproportionate voting power, in particular the United States.

One argument presented in the petition is that States that make up the banks all have human rights obligations. These States cannot ignore, or indeed violate, these obligations simply by organizing themselves into inter-governmental organizations or by using the banks as agents to carry out policies that violate their respective international human rights obligations.

The United Nations General Assembly's International Law Commission (ILC) has begun to address the issue of the international responsibility of States for the internationally wrongful act of an international organization. The ILC, in the provisionally adopted articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations, states in Article 1 that the said articles do indeed apply to the international responsibility of States for the internationally wrongful act of an international organization. Furthermore, the provisionally adopted Article 3 states, inter alia, that an internationally wrongful act has occurred "when conduct consisting of an action or omission: (a) is attributable to the international organizations under international law; and (b) constitutes a breach of an international obligation."

http://www.nlginternational.org/news/article.php?nid=8



Massacre Site by Rio Negro



Survivor



Paramilitary defendants (death squad members who did the international banks' work)



Witnesses of the 1982 massacre

[Peace Patriot]

9. Great news--that Guatemala is at long last proceeding with these investigations and trials

and also that Guatemala just elected its first progressive government.

We need a commission here, too, to investigate the actions of the Reagan regime in connection with the horrendous slaughter in Guatemala. Any responsible Reagan officials, still living, need to be prosecuted, and our people need to know what was done there with U.S. backing, funding and training.

Not knowing leads to more atrocities--as is happening now in Colombia, with Bush/U.S. backing, funding and training ($5.5 BILLION's worth!)--and, of course, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo Bay, in secret torture dungeons in eastern Europe, and God knows where else.

Let the ignorance and silence in this country end, forever!