A report by the Parliamentary Human Rights Group of the visit to October Guatemala in 1984 by Eric Avebury

1. n

2. 'BITTER AND CRUEL..
Report ofa mission to Guatemala by the British Parliamentary
Human Rights Group
October 1984
'It is not mere imperfection, not corruption in low quarters,not
occasional severity,that I am about to describe:it is incessant,
systematic, deliberate, violation of the law by the Power appointed to
watch over and maintain It.. it is the wholesale persecution of
virtue when united with intelligence, operating upon such a scale that
entire classes may with truth he said to he its object,so that the
Government is in hitter and cruel,as well as utterly illegal, hostility
to whatever in the nation really lives and moves,and forms the
mainspring of practical progress and improvement.'
W.E.Gladstone, Letter to Lord Aberdeen,7 April 1851, on the Bourbon
regime in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
rJ LATIN AMERICA BUREAU
j I AMWEU.SJRUT.UONOON ECIR-IUL

3. 2.2.3.4
2.2.4
2.2.4.1
2.2.4.2
2.2.4.3
3.
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
Ck)iiteiite
MAP
PREFACE
GUATEMALA IN BRIEF
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
(V)
(vi)
(vii)
(viii)
1.
1.1
1.2
INTRODUCTION
Historical background
The present context
2. THE RIGHT TO LIFE
2.1
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.1.3
2.1.4
2.2
2.2.1
2.2.2
2.2.3
2.2.3.1
2.2.3.2
2.2.3.3
Rural killings and kidnappings
The general situation
Killings and kidnappings by the army
Killings and kidnappings by the civilian
patrols
The level of fear and the implications
for obtaining information
Urban killings and disappearances
The general climate
Forced disappearances
Urban sectors affected
Trade unionists
Students
Activists in the tolerated political
parties
Prisoners in Pav6n
The fate of the disappeared
Secret prisons
Secret cemeteries
The fate of those previously held under
the Special Tribunals
3
3
4
6
6
6
7
8
8
10
10
10
12
12
12
13
THE CONTROL OF THE
COUNTRYSIDE
Civilian patrols
Model villages and development poles
Food within the counterinsurgency
model
Disruption of the rural economy
14
14
15
18
20

4. 4. THE DISPLACED IN
GUATEMALA CITY
1
2
3
4
5
22
5. non-governmental
SECTORS
5.1 Trade unions
5.2 The work of the church
5.3 Human rights organisations
24
24
' 25
27
6. TORTURE
7. THE POLITICAL CONTEXT
8. RECOMMENDATIONS
28
29
32
APPENDICES
Alleged killings and kidnappings by the
army in 1984
Disappearances in 1984
Trade unionists killed or kidnapped
since November 1983
Students killed or kidnapped in 1984
Catechists from one group of40
families killed in Guatemala City since
July 1984
UN resolution, December 1984
Statement of Guatemalan bishops*
conference, June 1984
33
34
36
37
37
38
39
m
FURTHER READING 40

5. .. V',:, ■'
MEXICO
,>■'>- f'>■•»-. <N. .•"•■ ,'•.•! • •• ^
HuehuetenangtK
El Quichd
El Pet6n
-<S^
i"'V ' -
V ■' ■ . .•
^ ' ,1 • , ■.... ,^ .,V
/ 1 ^
Alta Verapaz
Pom6s*i
•.K- I
- j
•'i}! ./
.' wmmf
BELIZE
GULF OF
HONDURAS
m f
r ^
Baja Verapaz
El Progreso
^ Solola j >A Guatemala
, ( J-" JJ- Gity*
Retalhuleu ( ^ —
Zacapa
Chlqulmula
HONDURAS
PACIFIC OCBAN
Esquintia Santa Rosa
Jutlapa
EL SALVADOR ir:

6. Preface
Thisreportwascompiled onthebasisofa privatevisitbytwomembers
ofthe British Parliamentary Human Rights Group the(PHRG),I^rd
Avebury(memberoftheHouseofLordsand ChairmanofthePHRG)
and Anthony Lloyd (Labour Member of Parliament for Stretford,
Manchester, and member of PHRG). They visited Guatemala 15-21
October 1984and Mexico21-24October.Theinformationtheyreceived
is supplemented by testimonies taken by two researchers working for
the PHRG in the month of October 1984. Apart from meeting high-
ranking government officials,membersofthearmyand poUticalparty
leaders,thedelegation received atotalof70personaltestimoniesinside
Guatemala, a further ten in Mexico and a number of 'group
testimonies' from trade union representatives, the Grupo de Apoyo
Mutuo(Mutual Support Group)and representatives of human nghts
organisations.Thewitnessescamefrom differentregionsofGuatem^a
and from different sectors of Guatemalan society. They include the
relatives of the victims, trade unionists, catechists, peasants, social
workers,nuns,priests,journalists and displaced people.In mostCMes
their names do not appear in the text for fear ofreprisals against their
families or themselves. Although the delegation received testimony of
cases of human rights violations in 1983 and before,the focus ofthe
report is on 1984,and where possible,the period after the Constituent
Assembly elections of 1 July 1984.Much oftheinformation contained
in the report is hitherto unpublished. u j
Itisin the nature ofall human rightsinvestigationsthatfirst-hand
evidence is rare — many of the victims have perished, have left the
country orareterrified ofreprisals.In Guatemala,too,wehavehadto
rely partly on indirect evidence. However, we draw firm conclusions
from the cumulative weight of testimony from the oppressed, the
bereaved and therelativesofthedisappeared,aswellasthose whohave
suffered directly at the hands of a vicious militant dictatorship. We
believe that,confronted with this vast mass of misery and despair,it
would be morally incorrect to demand the standardsofproofin every
individual case that would be required in a court oflaw.
London,November 1984
The Parliamentary Human Rights Group consistsof morethan 100 members
of both Houses of Parliament.They have published reports on El Salvador,
the Philippines,Zimbabwe,Guyana and Uganda.
vi

7. GuatemalainBrief
AREA
POPULATION
LANGUAGE
RELIGION
ECONOMY
LAND DISTRIBUTION
LITERACY
HEALTH
GOVERNMENT
42,000sq. miles (approx. halfthe size of Britain).
7.5 million. Ladino(mixed Spanish and Indian
Descent):40Vo. Indigenous Indians:60Vo. Rural
inhabitants:61% of total.
Official language Spanish, but four main
indigenous groups(Quich6,Kekchi, Mam and
Cakchiquel)speak 22languages wi^ over 100
dialects.
80% nominally Roman Catholic.20% Protestant
and Evangeiical.
ON? p.c.(1980)$1,080.
5% of the population receive 59% of the
national income, while the poorest50% receive
7%.
75% ofthe population receive a p.c.income of
less than $300.
Main exports: Coffee,cotton,sugar, bananas,
meat.
Employment:34% of the active labour force
unemployed.52% underemployed. Less than 2%
of workers belong to ofilci^iy recognised unions.
65% ofland is in iarge commercial farms(30%
of which is uncuitivated). 18% family-sized
farms. 16% is in small peasant plots too small to
support a family.9out of 10 inhabitants of the
highland departments live on such plots.2% of
the population own 70% of the land.91% own
22%.
64% ofthe population cannot read.
Life expectancy:56(45 in rural areas).(73in
UK).
Infant mortaiity: 77 per 1,000 births(13 per
1,000 in UK).4out of every 5 Guatemalan
children under 5 are malnourished.
Doctors: 1 per 2,560 persons(1 per 640in UK).
Guatemala has been ruled almost without
exception by a succession of right-wing military
dictators since a CIA-inspired coup d'6tat in 1954
overthrew the reformist government of Colonel
Jacobo Arbenz. The latest military ruler is
General Mejfa Victores, who ousted General Rios
Montt in August 1983.
vU

8. SummaryofFindings
N
1.In a thirty-year war against their own people, the
1 Guatemidan militaryhavecreatedanationofwidowsand
orphans.Over100,000peoplehavebeenkilledand88,000
disappeared. Throughout 1984, the killings and
disappearances have continued, and there has been no
significantimprovementin the human rightssituation-
I ifanything,ithas worsened since 1983.
2.The Guatemalan armyandthecivilian patrolsworking
under their authorily continue to be responsible for high
numbers of deaths and abductions ofthe non-combatant
population in the rural areas. While the number of
massacres carried out by the army has declined since
1982,the present'stage'isoneofmore selective killings
and abductions — involving anythingfrom one tofifteen
people at a time. Particular victims continue to be
catechists (unordained Christian teachers), social
[.workers, community leaders, refugees hiding in the
hiountains,and real or suspected guerrilla sympathisers
wiip.giveftemselvesup under the governmentamnesty.
3.High numbers of trade unionists, teachers, students
and otherurban workerscontinueto beabducted orkilled
j every month.Disappearancesareknown toberunningat
over50amonth.Thelevelofabductionsactuallyreported
I is higher than in 1983.
4.The government and military assertion that
disappearances are largely the work of guerrillM or
1 extortioners,or thatthe disappeared have gone to Cuba
or the Soviet Union to receive training, is a brazen lie.
The evidence points inexorably to the state security
apparatusas being responsiblefor these crimes.
1 5.The civilian patrol system,which now boasts800,000
members,(a)isaform ofinvoluntaryservitude,(b)forces
the rural population to take part in morally repugnant
acts such as kidnapping, beating, torture, rape and
murder,and(c)directly violates the principle offreedom
of movement.
I 6.The construction of 'model villages' within the so-
called 'development poles' inflicts further suffering on
I the rural population.Theirbasicaim ofimposingmilitary
control over the highland areas entails the congregation
and regfulation of the civilian population, severe
restrictionson movement,strictcontroloverthegrowing
and distribution of food,and the building of militarised
zones all over the rural departments firom which the
military can coordinate counterinsurgency activities.
They are justifiably compared to the strat^c hamlets
developed during the Vietnam and other
counterinsurgency wars.
7.Someofthe mostbarbaricformsoftorturecontinueto
be used systematically against political and common
prisoners in rural areas and urban centres, includmt
electric shock treatment, extraction of fingernails, an(
even the amputation ofvarious partsofthe body.
8.There are severe restrictions on the so-callec
'democraticopening',in whichtheGuatemalanmUitaryis
meantto hand back powertoacivilian presidentin 1985.
The Constitutional Assemblyis virtually powerless,asits
main tasks arelimited to writing anew constitution ant
settingthetimetableforthepresidentialelections.Yetin
the past Guatem^a has enjoyed excellent constitutions
which have simply been flouted by successive milita^
1 governments. Even if a civilian president were to be
elected in 1985,itishighlyimprobablethathe wouldhave
any control over the military. The army will keep their
hands firmly on the levers of power in the country,as
they have donefor 30years.In addition,no partyofthe
left or centre left can participate in the democratic
j opening withoutgreatriskto their personalsafety.
9.The future of the democratic opening must remain
uncertain andthe prospectofanyimprovementin human
rights violations doubtful.Judgement musttherefore be
suspended until the process unfolds - if indeed it is
allowed todoso.In the meantime,werecommendthat(a)
Britain should not restore diplomatic relations with
Guatemalaasthis would beseenasanendorsementofthe
claim by the Guatemalan militaiy that human rights
violations have diminished significantly; (b) neitiier
Britain nor the EEC should give economic aid to
Guatemala for the time being;(c)noforeign government
should givearmsnoranyothertypeofmilitaryaidtothe
Guatemalan government; (d) any government gipng
1 economic aid to the Guatemalan government should be
totally satisfied that any aid earmarked for rural
developmentwould notbe used bythe Guatemalan army
for its own counterinsurgency purposes.
vili

9. LntTBODUCim
'We here are the survivors of 30 years of repression,since the best
politicians and representatives of the popular sectors have been killed, are
in exile or do not participate In the process because they do not believe In
it.'(Victor Hugo Oodoy, member of the Constituent Assembly)
1.1 Historical background
In ail the controversy and press coverage surrounding the
Central American crisis, Guatemala is often regarded only
asan addendum to the conflictsin neighbouring ElSalvador
and Nicaragua. The grim statistics summarizing
Guatemala's political reality — i00,0(X) killed since i960,
iOO political assassinations a month in 1984, 10
disappearances a week, 100,0(X) orphans, half a million
displaced — barely reach the North American,let alone the
European newspapers. Yet Guatemala is the richest and
most populous country in Central America; bordering
Mexico in the north and west and Belize, Honduras and El
Salvador in the north and east, it occupies a key strategic
position within the isthmus; it has rich mineral deposits,
including oil and nickel; and with direct US investments of
$260 million, it is of greater economic importance for any
US administration than Nicaragua or El Salvador.
One of the major reasons for the lack of publicity is
the presentlow levelofdirect USinvolvementin Guatemala
compared to its commitmentsin Honduras,ElSalvador and
Nicaragua. From 1977 to 1984,the US Congress repeatedly
voted to block military and non-essential economic aid to
Guatemala because of its abysmal human rights record. At
the same time, the US administration has not 'needed' to
become too enmeshed in the Guatemalan civil war as the
Guatemalan military has proved itself much more adept
than its Salvadorean counterpart at containing the growth
of strong and very active guerrilla forces.
But USinvolvement has notalways been so restrained.
Guatemala's last 'democratic interlude' between 1944 and
1954 was brought to an end by a CIA-engineered coup that
toppled the reformist government of President Jacobo
Arbenz. Opposition from the landowning elite and the
United Fruit Company crystallised over Arbenz's moderate
proposals for land reform. Ever since 1954 real power has
lain in the hands of the army. Fraudulent elections every
four years between 1970 and 1982 provided a plausible
facade of democracy, as each time the army-sponsored
candidate claimed the victory — general elections became
merely elections for generals. Throughout the 1970s,
demands for social and economic reform were ruthlessly
kept in check by4it^rmy and government-linked death
squads.Large numbek^ftradeunionists,priests,students,
intellectuals, leaders ofWass-roots organisations, and two
leaders of the traditionally moderate social democrat
program of political murder, the
litical centre, and the series of
invinced many Guatemalans that
secould not be realised through the
!ar organisations like the National
Union Unity (CNUS) and the
?easadt Unity (CUC) that had grown
parties, were killed. Thi
elimination of the pc
fraudulent elections c(
social and political chai
electoral process.J*opi
Committee for Aradt
Committee of
im t ^
n-i'
throughout the 1970s were Increasingly driven into a closer
alliance with an emerging armed opposition.
By the beginning of 1982 the armed groups were In a
strong enough position to make a serious bid for political
power under the banner of the Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Unity(URNG).In the hieManj^^enq^tments
especially, the growing impoverishmenrofuie ind^enous
population and the government's brot^jroponse to their
attempts to overcome their piSlE3eim by forming
cooperatives and other grass-roots organisations had led
large numbers of Indians to sympathise both actively and
passively with the insurgents.
In March 1982'born-again' Chrislitm General Efrain
Rios Montt became president after acoup d'6tat,pledged to
clean up Guatemala's electoral process and to eradicate the
armed opposition. In the months that followed he
accelerated the process of counterinsurgency sending
thousands of troops into the north-western areas, where
Indian supportfor the guerrillas was known to bestrongest.
'Scorched earth' tactics and the indiscriminate murder of
whole Indian communities were the weapons used against
those suspected of sympathising with the insurgents^
Amnesty International estimated that 2,600 people were
killed from March to October 1982, while other humaii
rights organisations put the year-end figure as high as
10,000.The Guatemalan bishops'conferencereferr^tothe
slaughter of the Indian people as genocide.
Rios Montt wasdeposed by anothercoup on 8 August
1983 and was replaced by his former minister of defence.
General Mejia Victores. Rios Montt had alienated the
businesscommunity by proposing a value-added tax;he had
annoyed the upper echelons of the army by relying on an
innercircleofjunior officersand interfering with traditional
patterns of army promotion; his aggressive style of'born-
again' Christianity had dismayed traditional Catholic
sentiments both inside and outside Guatemala; and his
reluctance to support US regional plans for the reactivation
ofCONDECA(the Central American Defence Council)had
distanced him from the Reagan administration.
1.2 The present context
The government of Mejia Victores represents a return to the
more traditional form of Guatemalan politics. Although
there are both civilians and military officers in ministerial
positions within the present cabinet, the real power in the
country is known to be the council of senior military
commanders.Death squads are again operating against real
or suspected opposition in the cities, after a decline In their
activities under Rios Montt. In the rural areas Mejia
Victores has continued and expanded his predecessor's
counterinsurgency policy through theconsolidation of'Plan
ffjSu t/v * c "A**"* Cvj^ t

10. General Mejia Viclores. Piers Cavendish/Reflex
Firmeza'(Stability Plan), one of a series of Vietnam-style
pacification programs. He has also committed himself to an
electoral timetable in which the military are intended to
withdraw from politics after the presidential election
planned for some time in 1985.
The first stage of this posited withdrawal were held on
1 July 1984, when elections took place for the Constituent
Assembly. The parties taking part essentially spanned only
the far to the centre right of the politicalspectrum.Owing to
the peculiarity of Guatemala's electoral system, the
Christian Democrats(DCG — centre-right)won the highest
percentage ofthe vote but only 20 ofthe 88seats as against
the 23 won by the far-right MLN-CAN(National Liberation
Movement — Authentic National Centre)and the 21 won by
the UCN(Union of the National Centre). The remaining 24
seats were shared by six other parties. Parties advocating
social reform,like the PSD(Social Democrat Party)or the
PGT(Guatemalan Communist Party), did not participate.
Null and spoiled ballots reportedly amounted to I7.3^o of
the vote, higher than the Christian Democrats' 15.6%.The
Constituent Assembly is empowered only to draft a new
constitution and set the timetable for presidential elections
in 1985. It is not empowered to enact legislation nor to elect
a provisional president.
The undeclared civil war between the URNG and the
army continues,mostly in the rural areas.The four political-
military organisations that make up the URNG — the EGP
(Guerrilla Army of the Poor), the FAR (Revolutionary
Armed Forces), the ORPA(Revolutionary Organisation of
the People in Arms)and the PGT- nucleo(the Guatemalan
Communist Party-nucleus)— are not in as strong a position
as they were in early 1982,but at thesame time are far from
defeated. Major army operations against the FAR in May
1984 and the ORPA in August 1984 have not eradicated
these organisations. From press reports, army statements
and URNG communiquis it is possible to deduce that there
is a regular and sizeable guerrilla presence at least in the
departments of Quichfe, San Marcos, El Pet6n, northern
Huehuetenango, and the area south of Lake AtitlSn. The
army estimatesthe guerrilla fighting strength at4,(K)0-5,000.
It is within this context that the government and the
army are making every effort to emphasise the genuineness
of the'democratic opening'and the alleged improvement in
human rights. The present campaign to improve
Guatemala's international image is closely linked to the
pressing need for large amounts of economic aid and
military spare parts. Many observers state that the Mejia
Victores government has finally discovered thatthe nation's
future depends on gaining the acceptance of the world
community, especially in North America and Europe.
Guatemala's agricultural economy has been badly damaged
by the world recession and the shrinking demand for its
primary products. Foreign exchange reserves are virtually
exhausted and foreign debt stands at US$1.5 billion. The
economic crisis has been exacerbated by the costly
counterinsurgency program and a long-term strategy of
military control over large areas of the highland
departments.
The government has apparently succeeded to some
extent in polishing its tarnished image internationally.On 22
September 1984an official ActofUnderstanding wassigned
between Spain and Guatemala providing for the resumption
of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Spain
had broken off reiations in 1980 as a result of the killing of
39 peasants and embassy staff in the Spanish embassy in
Guatemala on 31 January. Guatemala's slated support for
the Contadora process and professed neutrality in the
Central American regional crisis has meant better relations
with Mexico, unusual praise from President Betancur of
Colombia for 'its positive example for the rest of Latin
America', and a welcome for Mejia Victores in Costa Rica
by President Monge.The Reagan administration for its part
has set USeconomic aid for Guatemala at$157.8 million for
financial year 1985(a 40% increase over 1984), while, for
the first time since 1977, $300,000 has been earmarked for
the training of Guatemalan soldiers. There is even talk of
Great Britain's restoring diplomatic relations with
Guatemala,with a possible settlement ofGuatemala's long
standing claim over part or all of the former British colony
of Belize.
The fundamental issues therefore are whether the
general human rights situation has improved or simply
changed, whether the Guatemalan military is willing to
surrender real power to a civilian government within the
democratic opening, and whether foreign economic or
military aid will help to bring genuine democracy to the
Guatemalan people or merely serve to consolidate in power
the alliance between the army and powerful economic elites
by supporting their attempts to suppress the continuing
demands for social change.
The Guatemalan government dismisses critical
information published outside Guatemala, claiming it is
part of 'the KGB's $3,000-million-a-year disinformation
campaign'. We describe in the following pages what we
believe to be the reality.

11. 2.THE RIGHT TOLIFE
'Guatemala Is now a nation of orphans.'(Guatemalan journalist,
Guatemala City, October 1984)
2.1 Rural killings and kidnappings by(he army and
civilian patrols
2.1.J The general situation
On 8 September Guatemala City was shocked by the
preliminary results of an official census of the number of
orphans in Guatemala. Baudilio Navarre, Che president of
the Supreme Court, revealed that for the departments of
Quich6, Chimaltenango and San Marcos alone the figure
was a staggering 51,000 orphans, Speculation immediately
arose that the final figure would be well over 100,000 if the
other highland departments affected by the civil war were
included. It was estimated that this number of orphans
implied that at least 25,000 had been killed in those areas
alone. The Impression of wide-scale devastation given by
official figures was confirmed by local religious sources,
who talk of'the help given to 2,800 widows in one town in
Baja Verapaz', 'the survival of eight families in a small
village in southern Quichfe out of a former population of
300", or 'the disappearance of 56 villages in northern Alta
Verapaz'.
Over the last three years, damning reports from
human rights organisations and resolutions at the UN have
consistently accused the Guatemalan army of gross and
persistent human rights violations, especially against the
indigenous population, it is our firm conviction that,
although the repression in general has changed in style, the
Guatemalan army and the civilian patrols working under
their authority continue to be responsible for many deaths
and kidnappings of the non-combatant population in the
rural areas.
The pace and degree of human rights violations is
related to the strength of the threat to those in power posed
by those struggling for social change. Thus,in Guatemala's
recent history, in the periods 1966-70 and from 1980 to the
present the violations have been massive as they have
coincided with the years when the armed opposition has
been at its strongest,In 1982especially,but at other times as
well, the army has been prepared to kill large numbers of
non-combatants, including whole villages, in order to
eliminate the guerrillas' popular support. A well-known case
is the village of San Francisco Nentbn, Huehuetenango,
where 300 were massacred in July 1982, A deliberate policy
of massacres, destruction of villages and the burning of
subsistence crops formed part of Rios Montt's 'Victoria
1982' (Victory 1982) campaign plan, which was aimed at
dealing the armed opposition a quick and decisive blow.
The present'stage'is one of more selective killings and
kidnappings — involving anything from one to fifteen
people at a time — as the army tries to consolidate its grip
on the countryside. One highly-placed church official told
us that in his department,'the bestial repression of 1981/2
mm
^■1
iyidows at Rabinal, Baja Verapaz. Jenny Malthewt/Format
has diminished. The effect of that repression has been to
terrorise the population . . . The repression is much more
selective now. Why? Because they do not need to kill.' After
'Victory 1982', the present stage of consolidation is a
continuation of 'Firmeza 1983' (Stability 1983), which is
essentially aimed firstly at eliminating the real and suspected
civilian support for the guerrillas, and secondly at
controlling the rural population and resources and isolating
it and them from the guerrillas. The first clement involves
large numbers of selective killings and kidnappings. To say
that the repression is more selective is not to imply that there
are only isolated cases of killings. Testimony after testimony
from the highland regions of Quich6, Huehuetenango, San
Marcos, Sololi, the Verapaces, Chimaltenango, and
Totonicapin reveal high numbers of deaths of calechists,
cooperative leaders, social workers, people who refuse to
join the civilian patrols, refugees hiding in the mountains,
and people giving themselves up under the government
amnesty.
The second element involves the forced settlement of
the non-combatant population in refugee camps, re
education camps, and model villages, and the promotion of
'development poles', as well as the inclusion of 800,000 men
into the civilian patrols. These arc described in chapter 3 of
the report.
While it is generally true that the number of massacres

12. has diminished,there is strong evidence to suggest that they
have not ended in all departments. For example, we are
aware that there have been allegations of recent army
massacresin areas where the guerrilla presenceis still strong.
In the area west of Nebaj, Quiche, where there have been
recent clashes between the army and the EGP,it is asserted
that the army has carried out large-scale reprisal killings,
abductionsand the burning ofcropsas punitive measureson
the civilian population. While these violations may have
occurred,the focus of our report is on cases where we have
received direct and unchallenged testimony. While we were
in Guatemala City, the Guatemalan press carried the story
of a mass killing of ten peasants, who were found in a
common grave on 2October. An inhabitant ofthe village of
Rio Bravo,Suchitepdquez, was walking home late at night
when he tripped over something which turned out to be the
head ofa partially-buried corpse. When they started digging
around the head, the bodies of ten victims, most of them
indigenous people, were unearthed. They had been slashed
with machetes and strangled;four of them revealed signs of
having been buried alive. A few days earlier, 23 peasants
from neighbouring S0I0I& had disappeared.
As for the question of responsibility for the killings
and abductions, we have been told by very reliable sources
living in rural areas that the guerrillas are occasionally
responsible for selective assassinations or ajusliciamientos
ofinformants,farm ownersor others believed to be working
closely with the army. However,it is the firm opinion both
of these sources and of many indigenous witnesses,
refugees, and displaced people that it is the army and
civilian patrols who have been, and continue to be,
responsible for the overwhelming majority of the killings
and abductions.
2.1.2 Killings and kidnappings by the army
To illustrate the general trend of selective killings, we list a
selection of cases from three different departments of
Guatemala and a longer testimony from a health worker in
San Marcos(see box). Others are listed in appendix 1.
ALTA VERAPAZ
San Cristobal: On 10 September 1984, Sr Policarpio Chen
Col, founder and director of the savings and credit
cooperative in San Cristobal, was violently kidnapped.
Various witnessessaw six or seven armed men grab him and
force him into a private car. Army responsibility is known
firstly, because, the driver of the car was recognised as a
man called Sr Lara,who has a reputation of being linked to
previous abductions and assassinations in San Cristobal,
and who at present works in the military zone of Cob&n.
Secondly, on the previous night, some members of the
civilian patrol were looking for Sr Policarpio under the
orders of Sr Ambrosio Cahuec, military comisionado for
San Cristobal. A witness heard Sr Ambrosio say to the
civilian patrol,'Grab Sr Policarpio,but don't kill him yet!'
Two days after the abduction, his body was found in
another department.El Progreso,with his eyes and genitals
missing.Sr Policarpio was well-known for his work with the
refugees in the area.
HUEHUETENANGO
Monte Cristo:On 22August 1984,the military captured ten
peoplefrom Monte Cristo,near Barillas,ofwhom nine were
men and one was a woman.Their names are Tom&s Diego,
Juan Pablo Diego,Ram6n Pascual, Mateo Molera Carino,
Andres Diego Andres, Francisco Alonzo, Ram6n Andr£s,
Sim6n Mateo Lucas, Pablo Miguel and Maria Candalaria.
Witnessessaw them being tortured before being taken away.
They are now presumed dead.
San Mateo Ixtat&n: On 2 June 1984,the army picked up a
TJ6griM0P(V^.js,.,.
MynameisTeresaXiloJ anal
thedepartmentof^an Marcdstii^h^thprdtnotef,abd.|g
acatechist.I wouldliketotellyoubfiomaeyetits^^hich;:^
waknow asdaUy'^periehb^ ifi
. On U Mwch l984afel6ft^i;:tiiedMy
the miiiiiclpatit^ofSan^igUel.IktwUic&hand ^
the home bf4Sf Aiejhndfd^Gdihbtt^e^da'^
worker and a member oMiis local cooperatlvei and
was supposed tp-be gplttgj.tovWprk;with hta ;was:
talking to^hlM-ibbtlL^wofl^^^iirdvi^ "^egetables^i
planting trees,pruning peach and other fruittrees,the
conservation of soil — When the.army arrived at the
house;TherdlVere eight soldiers ~fbuc-stayed in the--
jeep and fouf^gol biiti The^-grabbed^;^ej^drbrocaLl
.him.ttp and took hiiri away With thenii W ^
^ Wheti I t^dised what'lWas happening^ I started
screaming,beggihg them dotto take him away,'telling
them he was notabad man,jthat he.was tryingjto help;
^'his pedpie^ihaihe'Wasa^^iN^hsetdbtejiersbnHtrledv
'tostniggleWith thesoldteflfItHed tb help hlmibutthe;
soldiers kicked nie,threw hte tpihe grotind,'^and took;,
Alejandro >yith;Uiem.;He^as^Msb.^eaming.;:Hi8;|
I'hibthef also" was-'a'Witnela?tp5^a11ilhI8^^^^
Sweeping and beggingtheSdldim nbLb away^t
"vbut they did anyways;Tliey;buhdied;h thejeep)
'ahd We hadto watchiheri^c1djig^M}Md|h^^^
"tinder the seat. • s
Three days later I went to the town ofIxchiguSn.;
•The veryday!Wasthere,thearniyarrived againin their/
;jeepi/fiverybhe was..{yery dpsfet beeauSM^ had.taken
|bff/Itheiri^teachet, Juah?|Mehdps4K-lie
VdiscbSsittg"d;itH'^them''theiiCrri
'Indian ianguagel:Otherteachers^had been Insist^ that-
We should speak only Spanish^'biit that IS not bur;
.mother tohgue,>Juan MendOSa bilingutd;-
captured for saying whathe did.^v^i^-^A;^' V
Three dayS later,on 17 March,"three bodies were:
found in a ravine near thetown,they Were people who.
had been arrested by the police at the'sanie time as the
teacher.Onehad noeyes,andtheeyegbfiheothershad
been brutally pushed in.One.bfthe bodies also had no
testicles and their stomachs had beeiL,tblri
:.meathoo;k.:-;';'p'^;:
;" ■; Aiejaiidrb Gbmez reappearedmemonthslatef ib;
a mountainous regibh y^ far away,:In Alta Verapaz.'
/He had; beeii'i''beaten,^lbrtUredi:;^iindfblded;Vand^
handcuffed. He arrived at the heafest yiilage, dragging
himself aioiig and terribl^ WpundedK^e loCal:people
.helped him With What iitUenspn^^fhe^^ :that hC;
..could get home. - : i ' '
■ , He has gone out of-bis hiBid lr-.autistic, as the
doctors say. He just Stares into.the distance. Unable to
communicate.Wi^ alivingisoul. SOtnetimes at night he
begins to Scream and Wail.'He SOundkUke a madman,
beggingUierti toStopb^tihglUni/JHefSJust aVegetable
ttow.
bilingual teacher named Margarito Castaneda Sebasti&n,
who was working on a project funded by USAID. He was
taken to a nearby cornfield and beaten up in thesight of the
people from the village and kept there for a number of
hours. He was seen in the military base of Huehuetenango a
week later. He is now presumed dead or being kept in sub
human conditions.
■I'

13. CHIMALTENANGO
San Jos6 Poaquil; 24 people were abducted by the army in
the period 9-16 September 1984.The witnesses prefer not to
give their names for fear of reprisals. Two people who tried
to inquire about the whereabouts of the kidnapped were
seriously threatened by the colonel of the military zone,and
after being detained and interrogated, were forced to leave
the area.
It is also strongly alleged that the army on occasions
enter a village and claim to be guerrillas to test thesympathy
of the inhabitants. On I October 1984,a group ofsoldiers,
pretending to be guerrillas, entered a village in
Huehuetenango(name of village withheld)and took away
16 men who 'had spoken badly of the army". The 16 were
tied up, beaten with rifle butts and thrown into a river at
7.30 p.m. They were later taken to the local military base
(names and ID numbers of the 16 are withheld).The source
for this account was the officer who told a religious person
working in the area that this is what they had done.
On various occasions, we heard mutually consistent
allegations that those who gave themselves up to the army
under the amnesty suffer selective abductions one, two or
three months after they have surrendered. The pattern is
repeated in the Verapaces,Huehuetenango,Chimaltenango,
and Quich6. At first the amnestied are treated well by the
army, given food and medicine and offered new homes or
piecesofland to build a new house in the model villages. But
after some time, some members of the amnestied group,
usually male, would be kidnapped, often by the civilian
patrols under the orders of the army. Most would not
reappear.
It was also strongly asserted that real or suspected
guerrilla sympathisers who have either been captured or
given themselves up are forced by the army to Identify
guerrilla sympathisers in the civilian population. This could
take the form ofex-guerrillas wearing a hood or a mask and
being told to point out other guerrilla sympathisers in
villagers or even on buses. The person disguised would feel
compelled to point someone out for fear that if he did not
comply, he would himself be killed.
2.1.3 Killings and abductions by the civilian patrols
Every able-bodied man in Guatemala's highland
departments has been forced to carry out active service in
the civilian defence patrols. About 800,000 have now been
recruited and armed with everything from sticks and
machetes to rifles. Their main function is to be a system of
political control over the rural population, as they are
regularly forced to saturate the countryside with patrols,
guard roads and villages, and report on anyone who resists
joining the patrols or anyone arousing suspicion. Failure to
participate in the civilian patrols is often assumed to be a
sign of sympathy for the guerrillas. The patrols operate
totally under the ultimate authority of the military. The
civilian patrol system is described in more detail in section
3.1.
A common allegation was that the civilian patrols,
under the orders of the army,were forced to kill or kidnap
members of the civilian population. In fact,in certain areas
like southern Quich6 and Baja Verapaz we were told that it
was essentially the civilian patrols who did the killing and
performed the abductions.
As an illustration, we quote the following case:'On 9
September 1984, Pedro Pferez [real name withheld) was
kidnapped from his house in a village near the Pan-
American highway between Chupol and Los Encuentros,
QuichS. Twenty armed and masked men arrived at 9 p.m.
and took away Sr P6rez and another man (who was later
released). The kidnappers robbed the house of 75 dollars
and other personal goods. Circumstantial evidence strongly
suggested that members of the civilian patrol from a nearby
village were responsible. One of the kidnappers was also
wearing military clothing. Sr Pirez was responsible for a
community improvement scheme, and in particular for
helping widows in the area. He had also recently spoken to a
religious person working in the area of the cases of one or
two killings in each of the villages of Xepol,Pajulivoy and
Panquiac near his own village. He had alleged that in the
first or second week of August 1984,the military had called
together all the civilian patrols in these villages, produced a
list ofsuspects,and made the civilian patrols kill the people
on the list.'(Source: wife of Sr P6rez)
Denunciations to the press made by other villagers
would confirm the view that members of civilian patrols are
guilty ofatrocities. On 4 September 1984,the inhabitants of
Chicua 11, Chichicastenango, Quich6, asserted in La
Palabra that 14 named members of a civilian patrol in the
area were guilty of rape, abduction and murder. They had
abducted Sebastian Algua Macario, Josi Algua Panjoj,
Tom&s Macario Algua, and a young girl named Manuela
Macario Lindo, who had been raped by three of them.The

14. inhabitants alleged that the civilian patrol members had
cards saying that they were 'army specialists', which they
used to threaten those who denounced these crimes to the
police.
2.1.4 The level offear and its implicationsfor the
obtaining ofinformation
'Wewant you toknow...but wedon't want youto know.'
(Nun from one ofthe highland departments,October 1984)
One of the things thatimpressed us most strikingly was the
general level of sheer terror,clearly the legacy of years of
brutal repression. A number of witnesses would describe in
detail what had happened to their villages or to their
relatives,and then would insist that the name of the victim
or even the name ofthe villageshould not be included in the
report.This fear ofreprisalsis one ofthe reasons why some
of the atrocities that take place in the rural areas are never
reported.
The general condition of fear had, it was felt,certain
implications for the collection of information and the
verincation ofalleged human rights violations. Anyonewho
travels with the military,for example,is severely hampered
in obtaining an accurate picture of events by the fact that
any witness would be likely to say what she/he felt the
military would want to hear. As one bishop explained, no
indigenous person would ever speak openly under such
conditions'.
We had direct experience of this problem when we
were accompanied by the military in a region of Quichfe.
Witnesses would often look towards the soldiers while
answering questions. However,on one occasion, when the
military were out of earshot,we received testimony that the
army and the civilian patrols had recently been responsible
for killings in a village in Quiche.
2.2 Urban killings and disappearances
2.2.1 The general climate
Mil] ... is indisputable that a new wave of violence is
spreading across the country ... alongside violence
organised from common delinquency is political violence
erupting in all its intensity ... No political system can
justify itself by means of violence and disrespect for the
individual, especially when it is against the fundamental
principle of creation: life.' (Editorial in El Grdflco, 3
September 1984).
While the majority ofatrocitiesthat occur in the rural areas
go unreported. every day the Guatemalan newspapers are
full of shocking stories of kidnappings or assassinations in
Guatemala City or other urban centres, of bodies fouiid
mutilated,ofclandestine cemeteriesaccidentally discovered.
The front pages carry such headlines as 'Man stoned to
death in zone 7'.'Ten peasants found massacred in secret
grave', or 'Bloody corpse found in taxi with 17 machete
slashes'. Photos appear of firemen picking up tortured
corpses from the banksofrivers or from the sidesofroads.
Other photos of the recently disappeared come towards the
back of the newspapers, bearing silent witness to the|
suffering of the relatives.
Both newspaper editorials and high-ranking
churchmen call for an end to the violence that has escalated
since July 1984. The situation is compared to the last few
months of the regime of General Lucas Garcia in 1981/82,
when political violence was at its zenith in Guatemala City.
A glance at individual named cases that are reported m the
Guatemalan press reveals the extent of the violence. In a
three-week period in October, a total of 14 killings, 12
abductions and 16 disappearances were reported, the
majority of them in El Grdflco or Prensa Libre.
Individual assassinations and disappearances in Guatemala
January to October 1984
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sep. Oct. TOTAL
.'.U, 28" 147 79 100 133 31 50 79 84 n... 73128- 147 79 100^ 133 31 50 79 84 n... 731
42 157 74 57 61 34 79 43 34 n... 581
Monlhly toW, 70 304' 153 157 194 65 129 122 118 n... 1,312
Monthly averages:81 assasslnalions,65 disappearances.
Source.'OuaiemaJan Justice and Peace Committee.
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sep. Oct. TOTAL
individual
assassinations'
Forced or
Involuntary
disappearances'dhaVpMraiices'
65 105 94 103
64 157, 45 37 s 80 .23 25, - ;43 , 38 34
Mommytotals 129 262 " 138 131 183 87 . 86 105 . 105 112
Monthly averages:73 assassinations,55 disappearances.
Source,'Ouatemalnn Human Rights Commission(CDHO).
1. -mn.fiioroIwlodeiliemcgorto'MdMppiniwl.h ef.duludo nolInclude itinnpied Wdiupplnp nof UdMpplnp ofpeople^01««r rcjp^r.
TiiMen|oreiiiee.UmetedtOfepfeien(citity»V»oflhereeliuimb«8ofvloUiiont - .";,v A J '
7. . s ' ^
u
a,'. 'h
^.,,,.1,4,,,^^.',
idffllnoci'.They

15. The government and police version is that this rise in
violent crime is due to 'common delinquents' — private
gangs of professional kidnappers, drug traffickers, or
private Vendettas. However,it was the view of many other
observers that, while there was a noticeable increase in
common criminality, the official explanation was often a
coverfor the essentially political nature ofmanyofthecases
reported.
2.2.2 Forced disappearances
'I have spoken with government authorities, I have visited
numerous detention centres, I have placed various
advertisements in the papers. Can you imagine how I must
feel doing all this,noteven knowing whether it is all in vain
...my husband may already be dead.'(Wifeofkidnapped
teacher, Guatemala City, October 1984.)
The Guatemalan bishops stated in September that 38,000
Guatemalans had disappeared in the last 30 years.Ofthese,
500 have been added since the beginning of 1984. Human
rights organisations putthe figure for the first eight months
of 1984 at 511 forced disappearances (Guatemalan
Commission for Human Rights)or 581 (Justice and Peace
Committee),giving a monthly average of approximately60
a month. As the table shows, the figures for both
ilisBppeRrances and assasslaallyiis mm faiily mm
except for a drop in June, which was the month preceding
theelectionson 1 July,when Guatemala City wasinundated
by foreign journalists. We were also informed by a high
non-governmental source that the flgure for reported cases
in 1984had gone upcompared with thesameperiod in 1983.
A numberofexplanationsaregiven bythegovernment
for the large number of disappeared Guatemalans: (1)
emigration to Mexico and the USA for economic reasons;
(2) voluntary disappearances by people who join the
guerrillas or go to Nicaragua and Cuba to receive training;
(3) ordinary criminal kidnappings; (4) kidnappings by
guerrilias. We asked the government if we could meet a
Cuban-trained guerrilla, but although they said that 8,000
former guerrilla sympathisers had come forward under the
amnesty in 1984, they could produce no one who had
received training abroad. There may be some 'ordinary'
kidnappings, but they are not of poor peasants,catechists,
trade unionists,orstudents.The guerrillas have been known
to kidnap prominent figures like a newspaper editor,
industrialists, farm managers or reiatives of high military
officers,butin most ofthese cases the kidnapped have later
been released, after a ransom has been paid or a
communique has been published.
One official did admit the existence of right-wing
paramilitary groups'who might be working against trade
unionists', but no government spokesman conceded the
possible responsibility ofthe governmentsecurity forces.In
striking contrast, at a packed meeting of more than 100
relatives of the disappeared, witness after witness ascribed
blame to the agencies of the state; they described the
abduction of their relatives from their homes or from the
street, generally by heavily-armed men in civilian clothes,
often using cars with no number plates. Very strong
circumstantial evidence convinced the relatives that in every
single case the governmentsecurity forces were responsible.
Over 250 families have joined the Grupo de Apoyo
Mutuo par el aparecimiento con vida de nuestros hijos,
esposos,padresyhermanos(MutualSupportGroup for the
appearance, alive, of our children, spouses, parents and
brothers and sisters)since its formation on 5 June 1984.Of
these250,58are relativesofpeople who havedisappeared in
1984,representing,as they said,'the tip oftheiceberg'. We
were able to receive personally the details of25 of the 1984
cases.Itisour firm beliefthattheapparatusofstatesecurity
,TESTlMokvJSIf^^^
My namft' '
respectively.Myhusbdnd,HdgddetednPaiactoSpi'||
; teacher ill the urban'primary edticatbniiyjtt(ihA/an^
ninth-semester laW'student at the UniversHy'dftrSah'
CarloSi He was
■— Where Was he kldnap]ied?r4^J
7:^ He was on his:way4o the.schoolWhere he works*-
I'Abotlt30 hispUpiis fi-bmthethirdyeahWerewithhim
J~ailabout9or'lOyears oldi'Stiddenlyawhitetwhmsab
vehicle stopped'hiid'lily hiisbahd''was grabbed'from
: amongst the children and pushed into the vehicIe.>The
children are young so they couldn't really give^more
information about 'the incident vsince" theyjf'were
screaming, crying and shouting to thekidnappers not to
. take away their teacheri,Hoiyf^er iy ;%e imow that;
there were foUr meii in civilian/dressi'heavUy'luinedi^
always* ihave had no>news Of him Since then.'iiUp to
,^ In m opinion! who wm' iisponslWi lof ihi
.kldhuppthg? '
—Ibelieve that;;; welli I'll tell you the truth. They
must be very cruel people because they have left ray
daughters without the affectiOrt Of theirvfhtherfahdi
without economic support. When my husband was
takenaway welostpracticallyeve^thin^3hot onlyhis:
love but also oUr ecOhomic Wellbeing* This especially
has been a real problem for rae.C-. .' -'"v 'tt- >,
;— How has it affected your daughters?
—Iask God not to let this affect them badty.'What I::
most want is thatj in spite ofioUr?Mtuatioh* they
continue along the straight path* that they be Upright
and honest. Because they have had the Seeds of hate
sown in them at sUch a young age,Iam very afraid that
this hateis all they must feel for the people who carried
off their father* evenif they don't knOw Who they arei'
For example, the eider Oneimagines that every'inanShe'
passes is the cause of her father's absence from home/
- Sr'i- - -J- "
— Have you takenany steps or made any complaints to
bring about the reappearance Of your husband?
■—Ihave placed advertisements in.the newspapers;;at y
least the odes of biggest circulation in Guatemala.
■ How many ads? ' ^
—-Approximately 15 or 20: times. I' have also
approached the government asking: forf .the/
^ investigations to be Speeded up.Ihave,appealed to the .
'kidnappers to soften theii- hearti a litilfandlet hlni gci;
free. AlsoIhave personally approached the head of the
government and thegeneraldirector of the police, andI
am going to have art irtteryleW ; With the head of:
Technical Investigations. The third in command of the
policehas shownmeinnumerable sheets of paper which
say that the case is being looked intoiibut nothirtg/
i concrete* All they tellmeis, 'Look* hereisall this.This '
is a report of sUch and such U plaee* here is U report of:
another place, andhere's another * . butIdon'teven:
know what these reports mean. What is worst is not,
havinganythingconcrete.Therearenoclues, there'sno,,
hope. It's as if people.who,,are kidnapped areinvisible*:

16. liffiATOWMUOrai
MIENTO CON TODE NUETO5Pli®
: vv'. rw -. I"'
.pi. 'I®; Ift. I]?:
UWrMV* . W<U.Wk%M
.»<*»■■ M'M "
1*1.'''.■
• ' • Hm-t t* '!' "' n
wns 3".; ^ 1% w mteMMlk" W»..
' . .Xi,;'!
PAorcv 0/rte mism;relatives of theMutual Support Group. Piers Cavendish/Reriex
is responsible for these crimes, and that the policy of
arbitrary forced disappearances remains an institutionalised
and systematic instrument for removing persons considered
to be opponents of the regime.
Here is just one example: 'Carlos Guillermo Ramirez,
a nineteen-year-old student, was kidnapped from his home
(34 Av. 'B' 8-33, zone 21, Colonia Justo Rufino Barrios,
Guatemala City) by eight plain-clothed heavily-armed men
in two cars — one with number plates, one without. Several
of the eight wore boots used by the army.' A full list of 1984
cases of which we were informed is included in appendix 2,
with dates of arrest and other details where possible.
Government responsibility is also confirmed by
statements made by Licenciado Ricardo Sagustume
Vidaurre, ex-president of the Supreme Court, as reported in
£/ Grd/ico, 4 May 1984 (Lie. Sagustume was sacked by
General Mejia Victores for upholding the arrests of
paramilitary personnel charged with human rights
violations): 'With the passing of time, it was necessary . . .
to bring to light abuses committed against the inhabitants of
the Republic and against judicial authorities; the majority of
these abuses originated from (and unfortunately continue to
originate from) elements linked to the police authorities and
military circles, abuses which range from making employees
of the courts join civil patrols . . . to imprisoning people
without any previous order of a competent judicial
authority, thus violating fundamental guarantees at present
in existence.'
The relatives who refuse to be intimidated try by every
means to trace their loved ones. They place advertisements
in the press, present writs of habeas corptis, visit high
government and military authorities, celebrate masses and
tirelessly go round the hospitals, morgues and detention
centres. The official response they receive is usually that the
disappeared are out of the country or with the guerrillas.
The unofficial response is often threats or warnings from
anonymous telephone callers or even from high military
officials not to proceed with their inquiries. The sense of
frustration is enormous. Not one of the relatives of the
Mutual Support Group has reappeared.
Yet, we were told, if the police really wanted to find
the kidnappers, it was within their power. In some cases, the
police are present at the time of an abduction in the street,
but stand by and do nothing. In the recent widely publicised
case of Claudia Lorena Nunez, the police were able to find
the kidnappers within three days. Claudia, aged 14 and the
daughter of a Methodist pastor, was kidnapped on 2
October 1984 by four men and a ransom of 50,(W dollars
demanded. Three hundred policemen were involved in the
search for the kidnappers, and they were soon traced and
Claudia returned to her family. As one mother said, 'Why
didn't they mobilise 300 policemen for my son?'
Despite the constant declarations of independent
human rights organisations like Amnesty International,
Americas Watch, the Inleramerican Human Rights
Commission, and the International Commission for Jurists,
accusing the security forces and the military, no member of
the armed forces or the security forces, as far as we are
aware, has been charged with political crimes in 1984. This
fact alone strongly suggests government complicity in the
practice of forced disappearances.
2.2.3 Urban sectors affected
2.2.3.1 Trade unionists
'On 28 July 1984, Julio Morales (aged 12) was kidnapped by
a group of armed men who had come looking for his
brother, who was a worker at the Pantaledn sugar mill.
Twenty days later, he was released. The little fingernail on
his right hand had been removed.' (Testimony of worker,
Guatemala City, October 1984)
We were informed that there are about 30 known cases of

17. fXESTIMONY "
'v • • ; •
viAIvaro Reoi Sosa Ramos, ex-geoeral secretary of the
^ unloa at the Diana sweets factory, was captured on 11
: March 1984. On 13 March, he managed to escape Into
,-the Belgian embassy, and later went abroad under
; diplomatic protection. His testimony is unique In that
he Is one of the very few kidnapped people who are alive
: to tell their stories, .r
;-;'0n Sunday, 11 March, at about 9a.m., I was
V kidnapped as I was walking in the vicinity of the
Roosevelt soccer field, in zone li of Guatemala City.
. As I walked past a man,he called out to me,and
?when I turned to iook, he took out a gun. I thought
:;about running, but eight men had already got out of
. three cars. These cars had polarised glass windows.
They grabbed me and covered my face with a jacket,
then forced me into a van.
They took me to a house. I was left sitting there
'-for over two hours, and I could hear people screaming
in other rooms.
I was handcuffed and forced to undress,They tied
my feet together and hung me upside down.Then,they
hit me with an axe handle, while accusing me of
- belonging to a revolutionary organisation.
From the beginning, the torturers identlHed
themselves as kaibiles(special troops trained in counter-
insurgency). They told me that with the treatment I
'would tell them everything 1 knew. They took turns
beating me and if they were smoking, they would put
'out their cigarettes on my body. They would leave me
alone for a few minutes and then the next one would
• come in. .
After a few hours, they hurig jnc up by my feet
.again, and a kaibU came in especially to kick me in the
•. face.Then theytook me down to show me another man
who was hanging by his feet, in the same position as I
had been in. They asked me if I knew him. He was
disfigured from the torture he had received, but I
recognised him as Silvio Matricardi Salam, who I had
'met when he was president of the National Teachers'
Union.I wasshocked to see his body so mutilated and 1
immediately said that i didn't know him.They took me
.back and hung me up again,this time to give me electric
uShocks. . ,
... The violent cQatractions of one's body (during
electric shocks]and the wayit bangs against the wall are
incredible. I tried to get my head to hit the wallinsuch a ;
way that 1 would black out, but I couldn't. After the
electric shocks,they kept asking me if I would talk,ifI '
- would point people out to them. I told them that there
might be peopleI would know in Motafur Street inzone;'
9. I remembered that there was an embassy on this
; street.
At around noon on 13 March, they took me to
Montafur Street, which is situated between 7th Avenue,;
and Avenue Reforma in zone 9, on the same block as ;
the Belgian embassy. When wearrived there,four oftheV-.
men got out to grab two young women who were:
passing by. While they were distracted,1jumped out of;.;
the van and ran to the Belgian embassy andjumped over!^
the gate. As I was running to the embassy Inside the^'
grounds, I heard the first round of gunfire and felt aj^
bulletIn my calf.Then 1 feltanother bullet very near by^;.
heartand I lostcontrolofmyarm.A third bullethit me^<
in the liver. s' M-
I managed to reach the door and begged the^
ambassador and the embassy personnel not to turn me^-
In. They had seen what had happened, and had heard^.
the shots fired against the embassy.Several bullets hadf
hit the wall, narrowly missing the windows of tbe^>
embassy... :0
Later they took me to the Bella Aurora private^!
hospital. There, I could hardly sleep, watting for the'.^
moment they would do something to me,even though^^
the Belgian and Venezuelan ambassadors tried to calm^i
me. ' ' ^
I wasconstantly thinking ofthose who werebeing^
tortured in the house where 1 had been held,
remembered that I had seen another trade unionist,^
Samuel Amancio Vlllatoro,former secretary-generalof^
the union at the Adams factory. In the torture centre
had seen at least eight people, most ofthem hanging by v
their feet, and those who were sitting were covered with*!^'
hoods. 1 don't know what has happened to Samuel '
Vlllatoro since... :
EPILOGUE:On 21 March,Sosa Ramosleft Gualemala
under the protection of the Belgian embassy. Silvio.
Matricardi Salam, whom Sosa Ramos saw tortured in
, the prison, was found dead on the outskirts of the
southern city of Escninlla on 14 March,^ The ^
whereabouts of Samuel Villatoro remains unknown,
trade union leaders who have been kidnapped from
November 1983 until the present. We were given details of
23 of these cases, which are listed in appendix 3. Eleven of
these we were able to check personally with their relatives or
work colleagues. Union leaders have continued to be
harassed by direct forms of physical repression throughout
1984. Other violations oftrade union rights are described in
section 6.1. Those who have suffered especially in 1984 are:
(i)former leaders of the CNT (National Centre of
Workers)(the CNT was virtually destroyed in June
1980 when 26 trade union leaders were kidnapped
from their headquarters);
(ii)those unions who are attempting to resurrect the old
umbrella organisation of unions,CNUS(the National
Committee for Trade Union Unity)into CONUS(the
Coordinating Committee of National Organisations of
Trade Union Unity);
(iii)some workers attempting to form unions or who are in
dispute with the owners(for example,at the sugar mill
at Pantaledn and the Tejidos Universales factory in
Gualemala City);
(iv)those offering support to the Coca-Cola workers who
have been on strike since 17 February 1984;
(v)theemployees' union at USAC(National University of
San Carlos) who have been in dispute with the
management board of the university.
The relatives and colleagues of these workers are in no
doubt that those responsible for these acts of physical
repression are either the government security forces or
paramilitary groups working with the factory bosses. The
widely publicised case of Alvaro Ren^ Sosa Ramos (trade
unionist captured 11 March 1984)would support their view.
In his testimony (see box) he describes his capture and
torture at the hands ofthe kaibiles(the government's special
counterinsurgency troops). His case is unique in that he
managed to escape to the Belgian embassy on 13 March 1984
and thence to Canada.

18. 2.2.3.2 Students
The National University of San Carlos (USAC) has
continued to bea focusofdisappearancesand killings at the
hands of the security forces in 1984. This is not a new
development:in 1979/80,15,000students had been killed or
disappeared. As recently as November 1983 an ex-rector of
the university, Dr Reeves Carrillo, was kilied whiie getting
out of his car.
In a press statement of 12 August 1984, the AEU
(Association of University Students) declared that 64
students had been the victims ofdisappearancesand killings
this year,throughoutthe country.According to an article in
The New York Times, 12 July, in May 'death squads
kidnapped the entire 11-memberleadership ofthe university
studentgovernment.Only one ofthe victims hasreappeared
— severeiy tortured and ciose to death.' Although we were
unable to meet with representatives ofthe AEU,the wife of
one of the leaders of the AEU asserted that more than 60
students had been kidnapped in 1984,the majority ofthem
in the spring. A high official in USAC confirmed that 12
students from the university had disappeared this year,and
two professors have also been kidnapped who were iater
released and left the country.
We personally received details of 13 cases of students
or professors who had been kidnapped in 1984(see appendix
4). We spoke with relatives often of these cases and it was
their opinion that it was the security forces and especialiy
the DIT(Department ofTechnical Investigations)who were
responsibie for the disappearances.
Six days after our visit, it was reported in the
international press that the Dean of the Faculty of
Economics at USAC, Vitalicio Gir6n Coronado, and a
professor from the university, Carios de Le6n, were kiiied
on 26/7 October 1984.
2.2.3.3 Activists oftoierated poiiticalparties
'The army and the police impede political parties'efforts to
attract members,' protested Jorge Carpio Nicolle, UCN
presidential candidate, on 15 October. He noted that one
UCN activist had been killed and another kidnapped
recently and that military authorities are harassing UCN
organisers all over Guatemala.'We are centrists; we are not
radicals,' insisted Carpio Nicolle. (Enfoprensa News
Agency,26 October 1984)
Even leaders and activists of the tolerated political parties
risk assassination or kidnapping. As we have remarked,the
fact that the perpetrators are rarely brought to justice
suggests that the criminals operate under the protection of
the security forces. On occasions, there is evidence that
organs of the state are directly responsible. On 11 October
Domingo Ochoa, branch secretary of the UCN in El
Jocotillo, was violently seized from his home by three
officers of the DIT (Department of Technical
Investigations). The three officers were identified by Sra
Ochoa, and were also known to be activists in the MLN
(National Liberation Movement). Jorge Carpio Nicolle,
leader ofthe UCN and owner ofEiGrdfico,had personally
intervened at the highestieveltoseekSrOchoa'sreiease,but
without success. If well-known public figures cannot
intervene successfully for thelaw to be applied,there islittle
hope for the relatives of poor campesinos who have been
kidnapped.
In another incident, on 11 August, Elder Anibal
Sesam, son of Elder Gabriel Sesam L6pez, Christian
Democrat member of the Constituent Assembly, was
kidnapped aiong with three other companions from La
Florida,zone 19, Guatemala City, by four policemen from
the substation of the colonia Primero de Julio. One of
Anibal Sesam's three companions escaped and was able to
testify as to the responsibiiity of the four officers. On 17
10
August the bodies of Anibai Sesam and one of his
companions were found on the banks of Las Guacamayas,
already putrefied, with signs of having been tortured and
hooded. The father, Gabriel Sesam, who had publicly
accused the police,stated on 30Augustthathe had received
a number of death threats.
On 12 September, the Christian Democrat party
denounced the illegal detention of Henry Cabet Castillo by
thesecurity forces.Sr Cabet wasa witnessofthekidnapping
of Elder Anibal Sesam. While this case may not be a
political crime(the official response was that Anibal Sesam
was involved in drug trafflcking), it clearly proves the
responsibility of the police in the kidnapping and torturing
of two young men.
2.2.3.4Prisoners in PavAn
There have been several killings of both common and
political prisoners in 1984. The evidence for this is press
reports and the personal testimony ofa prisoner who wasin
Pavdn and was released in July.
On 18 February 1984,Byron Roberto Luna M6ndez,a
24-year-old prisoner who had been given a 20-year sentence
under the Special Tribunals, was found murdered with 37
stab wounds and his throat cut in the grounds ofone ofthe
main Guatemalan prisons, the Pav6n prison farm. A
relative of his, who had recently been making
representations on his behalf, had been warned by a high
military official notto continue with inquiriesasit would be
dangerous for Roberto.(The names of the relative and the
official are withheld.)
Lt.-Col. Oscar Recinos Portillo had recently been
appointed as Director ofPav6n at the time ofthe murder of
Sr Luna M6ndez. Colonel Portillo had previously been
director ofthe prison in Escuintla,whereitis alleged that 12
murders had taken place in less than a month while he was
director. It is also alleged that before his appointment there
had been no murders in Pavdn.
On the night of 3 July 1984, three prisoners, an
infantry sub-lieutenant,and twoINDE(National Electricity
Board)security police who had been accused ofkidnapping
the industrialist Angel S&nchez were taken to the judicial
department of the prison. Colonel Portillo Is said to have
been present at the prison that evening when normally he
would have gone home. It is also alleged that military
vehicles and plain-clothed men arrived the same night. The
bodies of the three prisoners were found next morning
behind the church in the prison, with their throats cut and
with signs of having been tortured and handcuffed.On the
sameday(4July),there wasa protest bythe prisonerson the
discovery of the bodies. Colonel Portillo is said to have
ordered the prison wardens to open fire on the prisoners
with machine guns and carbines. The result was that one
prisoner (Alvaro Garcia Ramirez) was killed and two or
three others wounded.
On 12 July, a letter was published, signed by 1,500
prisoners from Pavdn, demanding the sacking of Colonel
Portillo and Higinio Laz (the warden of the prison) for
being 'the inteilectual authors of what had happened on 3
July'. On 18 July, Sr Camilo Dedet Rosa, the director
general of all Guatemalan prisons, admitted that 18
prisoners had been held in a secret cellar in sub-human
conditions in Pavdn and said that they had now been freed.
A second statement signed by 700 prisoners asserted that
these 18 were being held with the aim ofeliminating them in
the same way as the three killed on 3 July. According to
some reports,the cellar was also used as a torture centre.Sr
Dedet Rosa stated that he had been told about the secret
prison not by the officials but by the prisoners themselves.
He added that the 18 had been treated sub-humanly not by
the authorities but by fellow prisoners. His comments
aroused speculation that a death squad had been operating

19. EiWlPlSli
|tfierw9rds api
■„ -- -— Can you say how many people were kidnapped? .
— On that occasion there,were flve, but afterwards
prapie who'^disappeared
corpses in the str^ts,^';^
Iam^ah'TMigehpur'^^^^ one of the
5. highland departments,: My name is Domingo. Ail my
'^iifeihave jmieponlybeansandtpirtillgs.1spentmost of
^.piy childhoodgndadolescence ontii^cogstaip|a|nnear
;'Escuihtla,!r|lneYeV;forg^ live Witli your
'^od^niea^r^lpuf. ypuj,iit^bd!gjVei!^
linnnnriil nf hWrfc fnr hrAnVfinet ^ tiinnh tinH ciinnAr ~nnH
,'n^erbegbleto forgethisdeath.He was workingon the
';hot coastal plain and caught typhoid — there was no
hospital there, notiting. You know,Ididn't mourn the c
Vunderstand why it was rogysr ^wlietber it wgs aitpther"i;
member who named pie td-tbe authoridt^ or soroeonb
who didn't like me,Ihad actually bcep warnied by an^
iSw^fWhy^werd ydufgr^^ run, taking shelter one tiind|ifre,'anotiieti.t|ni? tbere,-?
asking people to take me in^^ gnd blde mej It was'ap'
b^agse of die ^iayIhad to live, the way so . ;.indescribable sensat|oh^ypu cQuldn't kpPW ifiY'ithbut
l^mapy pf us Opgt^alans^faaye;to:J^^ tried to solve v/;.experiencing it for ypufseli^^ypuibgn't fd^
;;'our .probiOTs iby^^^^^ cooperative these r you think that maybe you dnly haVpg few days }eft to
^^mutdalheip^iip^^we try fohelp eacbpiher;^,that's klive, or maybe only minutesi^^att'dl fryingIQ,sayis^
■ what we feeicobperativismis abbutfl'velearnt that our - . . . . ,that there comes a mbtnem when you are compietefy^^obperativismis abbuf/I'velearnt thatour
immobilised; youcan do nothingmore to improve your,
social conditions,, apd^ypu are just trjdpg tPJlc^p/
yourself alive,nothingmore,Iwas finallycappefi^ thisl
i:tmapagrajsilarget>Ianfat^
;ancestors the Mayans alsb worked together.iike this, T
5'andcreatediplpe^lihe/Tlkair-thoughmignyofushavep
'^':never beCp there^ Seyeralbf us arranged to dp thehard ;;
;^worh together^ But we'ye hadbiffer experiences within t year [19841in Ouafemala City by thC T^agury Police,>
f.fbecpppi|raiiy|m.pyemenf,Qu|hepps wlip hand ' ■ ■ -
•:]certainly:■bencirited^,fr0id;|'the;= pieasb^ .fpf.forking' rf'
'I'together ■ aS'^tpthwI.'But'; then^wp;Cam
22 days in a clandestine prisonvIf cpuld be
ihep for a schopi^hir ahipoitifgctptyl
is from what;htdeil^bpuld- sef^
j - ordinary-looking prisphideflhiteiy a secre|onc.vTheyi?
lii took me severai times inVcarswhich-lopked just-U^
I:|bread delivery vaps;;It,yifa|a dfcadfui fdberS
i^ iiri that prisbnV when'th|^;ppeh' thf dp
?Iknow 'What they are'; going fp dp; tb;ypuf^^
' handcuffed on the floor for seyeraldayaand th^'Weref
S;j^!WhemWas'ypur cpbp^
. sniall farmerS:
farmi
r^diempspUal^pj^^htigu^^ idea was thaf
inpersfwhbjiyed inyhe yi^nity of the hospital
uldworkitslaiid^-ahdWith'tlme wewouldhopeTirr • T"" TT. T'TTZt — 'r "7" ""'"T ^ -7—«
j::to buy:it andpay hack its value to the hospital,
^rr?:Spwhat happened?' Oj; j ><
; torturing me hprribly,Iwas bleeding.frpm everyWh^te:;!
If — from the eyes, from the pose,;everywhere;.*^l the*'
mre;actually having g meeting about how,to-^,44 should giye^uP WY armsiiSut what-arihSl^!^^^
^ :Qur,%op$;and produce mPre,' wheii we were^.^'|telling me to copperatey^th;tHemvJQipe.C^^^
:^|8urrpupdedby a.group pffinore than 200soldiers. Jhls';/|i me what was in it fpr mC to be suppprtlpg.a gerta^
^wasf8s4Y^^983J,:ahd|heleaderspf the cpbperativeSy| j organlsatlpn,Andofcbuf^jtyj'ash'ifrhe.pieY
^Werd kidnapped,^flaht-hlpthes coordinate |;4hat the situation in.Nicaragua wm bp'thCjyerge of
|^th^'(aprt;.p^dperailbn^fbr^thf arniy, so .that; it's^not ^ 4 1xohepse because the Americans were;ai^rea^ipc.. _v.j-;.:. 1. i. n-t;^ - |filial Offensive;'and.;hpw^:Useld^, if^ wasj?tp-.VtruitgleS
pr;Spwhat happened?
|hbvipm whP^;ig4^ppn$ibl(^:fpr.it army radips for
police suppbri,.who arrive in private cars, hoping this
will. fool .witnesscsr;.Then they. make, out that the ',
'^perpetratprspf theic cHnfeslafe guerrillas. But the truth'.!;
'ils'thatIsawjp^iyahdiam-absoiutel^ abput what .'
^ W it)|ie,d;r~,dpehadhis
Ws te^^ and
i
against such odds. He wanted me to betray my friends
and cooperative leaders tohim, And so1saidtohim, 'It
would be a pleasure to.cppperate with yPUi^bUf lmuytjl
tell you sincerely?.and■ Capdldly;!that "ThV^^^
guerrillas -r- they are simply ff|endSi^;ThfP'fb^^^
me a Ipad'pf ptheciphcifipdgi^fyingf^^^^
withplectric shpcifsyhreili by^
^aboutynndb^dlljl^^f^^ ppt^Qf the
— Maledi8oenVia«iiffas^f| hflSVel
^hgel ;iiThese'were
.—.Yes, 22 days. TcanstiU,rcmemher,SpmcfpftCp.f^^^
they gaveme,spmcmbnltiYinee,andtheyheldagUPfP
my peck whileIwas if;:Eating.bfcau?e,ihad^
j^lfiyio|gfi^p|
m
11

20. *— And were there other people in that jail?
Yes,there were,but youcouldn'tsee them,only hear
their noises, or rather their sobs. Yes, of course there
were others. But it appears not to suit them at times for
us to see each other, and at other times, yes, because
sometimes we were taken to another room to see what
awful things were being done to the other prisoners,to
make you afraid.
— Were you kept blindfolded all the time?
— Only when they take you outside so you get no clue
as to where you are. They made a bandage out of
newspapers fixed on with insulating tape. Oolng along
like that in a car, you can only guess whether you're on
an asphalt or a dirt road,judging by the bumpiness of
the road.
— So you couldn't Identify the location of the prison?
— When you are in a secret jail you don't know where
you are or how long you are going to be there. You
don't know anything, whether they'll kill you with a
buUet or leave your body in a ravine. This is what
happens when you fall into their hands — you are a
total prisoner.
Later I was taken to one of the police stations.
After what I'd been through, that was quite an
improvement.At leastsomeone may discover where you
are and you can make contact again with the reality you
were once familiar with. Someone could find out
something about my fate.If they had killed me,people
would have known who had done 1(1
— Were you tortured by the police?
— Physically no, but psychologically yes. When the
police arrive they are always ordering you about — get
up,do this, do that, hands up and so on.They tell you
that you're here to be reformed because you didn't i
manage to be better outside.The truth is that I was not a
prisoner in need of reform. I knew I had done nothing
wrong, so what was I supposed to be reformed into?.
When I was a prisoner I used to think that 1 might just
as well be where 1 was,because you arc not free in your.
villages, in your fields, in the city. In other words,the
Guatemalan people have always been prisoners. The
only difference for me was that I was a prisoner in a
smaller place than usual. Truly, our people have been
prisoners since the time of the Spanish conquisladores
and we are still prisoners in the strategic villages. ..
Perhaps my experience had helped me to realise just
what our basic situation is like — and what it means to
be a prisoner.
within the prison.
On 4 August, a second disturbance took place in the
prison, as a result of which one prisoner died and three
others were wounded. At the time of writing. Colonel
Portillo, the warden of Pav6n, and a number of prison
guards are reported to be awaiting triai for their alleged
involvement in the killings.
2.2.4 Thefate ofthe disappeared
2.2.4.1 Secret prisons
Many ofthose who have disappeared and whose bodies have
not turned up by the banks of some river or by the side of
12
some road are thought to be held in secret prisons. The
wives of four men who disappeared this year told us that
they had received information from an ex-prisoner who had
left Guatemala that he had seen their husbands alive in a
secret prison. Another wife had been told by a member of
the army that her husband had also been seen alive in a
secret prison.
Another example is provided by the case ofSra Leticia
Ch&vez Castillo de Rodriguez and her efforts to find her
son, Jos6 Antonio Rodriguez Chivez. He had been
kidnapped on 18 February 1982 two blocks away from the
4th Police Corps in San Juan Street, Guatemala City. Sra
Rodriguez had had to leave Guatemala when she received
death threats soon after making inquiries about the
disappearance of her son. Six months later,she heard from
a man who had escaped from the old Army Polytechnic
School that he had been with her son in a secret prison in(he
same building. He had brought the neck chain belonging to
her son to prove that he had indeed been with him. We were
shown a copy of a photo of her son wearing the chain and
the chain itself. Sra Rodriguez returned to Guatemala, but
after exhaustive inquiries she was still unable to locale her
son.
A paid advertisement appeared in El Grifico of 3
January 1984, placed by the relatives of liana Del Rosario,
which stated that Maria Cruz L6pez Rodriguez, before
being ascribed to the Special Tribunals, had said that she
had been in the same secret prison as liana.
The Guatemalan Commission for Human Rights
(CDHG) believe that secret prisons exist in the following
locations: (1) the old building of the Army Polytechnic
School, Guatemala City;(2)the main barracks of the army,
Matamorros Castle,zone 6,Guatemala City;(3)the military
base, Mariscal Zavala, Guatemala City;(4)the Casa Crema
army head office, Av. La Reforma and 2a Calle, zone 10,
Guatemala City; the military bases at(S)Mazatenango,(6)
Quezaltenango,(7)Santa Ana Berlin, Coatepeque, and (8)
Huehuetanango. Of these, the delegation received personal
testimony which would strongly support the existence of(4),
(6), (7), and (8) supra. In addition, secondary evidence
would suggest the existence of prisoners in the military bases
at RabinnI, Bajn Verapaz, and Nebaj and San Juan Cotzal
in the ixil triangle, Qulch6(see map 11, p.17). Other secret
prisons were said to be in the buildings ofthe Agrupamiento
T^ctico, zone 13, Guatemala City, and in private houses in
Guatemala City.
It is widely believed that the old Polytechnic building
had been closed down after the denunciations made by Dr
Garcia Borrajo, vice-president of the International
Federation for the Rights of Man. in Guatemala City in
November 1983. Dr Borrajo had had to leave the country
after receiving death threats. At a press conference he had
publicly named those responsible for the disappearance of
agronomist Jorge Alberto Rosa! Paz in August 1983, and
had announced the existence of eight secret prisons in
different parts of Guatemala.
2.2.4.2 Secret cemeteries
There are regular reports in the press of secret cemeteries
being found, where (he bodies of people previously
disappeared are discovered. For example, since the
beginning of August:
On 3 August,a clandestine cemetery was discovered at
the bottom ofa ravine near the town ofSan Josi Pinula,31
kilometres east of Guatemala City. The bodies of four men
were found with their throats cut and with signs of having
been tortured.
On 28 August, another clandestine cemetery was
discovered containing several human skeletons near Av.
Hincapi6, in the southern part of Guatemala City.
On 2 October, ten bodies were found on Rio Bravo

21. mii
farm, near Mazatenango, Suchitepiquez. They were
discovered when an inhabitant of the area tripped over
something which turned out to be a partially-buried head.
Four of the victims may have been buried alive, as the
autopsy revealed dirt up the nostrils. The bodies were of
indigenous peasants from S0I0I&. Twenty-five people had
been reported kidnapped from that area a few days before.
2.2.4.3 Thefate ofthosepreviously held under the Special
Tribunals
Under decree law no.74-84, on 18 July General Mejia
Victores offlcially pardoned all prisoners convicted of any
crimes by the Special Tribunals. When Minister of Defence
under Rios Montt,Mejia Victores had spoken of458people
being held underdecreelaw no.46-82referring totheSpecial
Tribunals.Fifty-six were released under decreelaw 74-84on
or around 20 July 1984, and IS were known to have been
executed after their appearance before the Special
Tribunals. Another was killed in the Pav6n prison in
February 1984. A substantial number therefore are still
unaccounted for.
13

22. S.THBCQNTIHH.Oi'THE
commmaDE
'[The people]live in slavery.They perceive absolutely no alternative and
every day they get hungrier.'(Guatemalan priest speaking of the civilian
patrols, quoted in The Times,30 July 1984)
1981-3 were the years of mass carnage and burning ofcrops
and homesin the conflict areas,as the army sought to wipe
out the civilian support for the armed opposition. After the
military offensives that drove over 100,000 refugees into
Mexico and left between a half and one million internally
displaced, the army forced many of the survivors to join
civilian patrols and to construct and repair villages, roads
and bridges that had been destroyed in the war. 'Civic
action' schemes were initiated under General Rios Montt
with sloganssuch as'Fusiles y Frijoles'('Beansand Bullets')
and 'Techo,Tortilla y Trabajo'('Roof, Work and Food'),
which in effect amounted to forced labour as the survivors
received food and some degree of'security* in exchange for
work.Such schemes were alwaysseen within the framework
of a counterinsurgency model aimed at winning the'hearts
and minds' of the civilian population, controlling their
movements and their food supplies,and using their forced
labour to rebuild the devastated areas and improve the
military infrastructure in the conflict areas.
While thecivilian patrolsystem has been consolidated
and expanded, the major emphasis in 1984 has been on
'reconstruction'. At the beginning of July 1984, General
Mejia Victores passed law no.6S-84, which established a
'plan of action' for relocating all the displaced under
military control and attracting back the refugees from
Mexico.The key elementofthis plan is the creation offour
so-called 'poles of development' at the centre of the
devastated areas. Within these poles of development the
army is putting huge amounts of resources into the
construction ofatleast40'model villages'for the use ofthe
displaced,the refugees returning from Mexico,the refugees
hiding in the mountains,and former guerrillas or guerrilla
sympathisers who have been captured or given themselves
up underthetermsoftheamnestylaw.Politicaleducation is
part and parcel ofthe new life-style that awaits them in the
prison-like conditions of the model villages. At the same
time, 'inter-institutional coordinators' have been set up
throughout the country under the direction ofthe Ministry
ofDefence.Theirfunction is to coordinate the work ofstate
agencies and non-governmental organisations towards the
distribution of food and supplies, especially in the
development poles.
Fundamentally,the system of development poles and
model villages appears to be complementary to the civilian
patrol system in that its basic aim is one of tighter military
control within thegeneralcounterinsurgency model.Itexists
to congregate and regulate the rural population, to check
and hinder their movements,as well as to build composite
areas,in which military facilities are installed side by side
withthe modelvillages,from which thearmycan coordinate
its own activities and conduct its counterinsurgency
offensives. Witnesses justifiably compare the Guatemalan
model to the strategic hamlet strategy used during the
Vietnam and other counterinsurgency wars.
14
3.1 Civilian patrols
'They're voluntary — but you're dead if you don't joini'
(Roman Catholic priest, Guatemala,October 1984)
The civilian patrol system, initiated in its present form in
1981, has expanded continually since then. By the time of
our visit, there were an estimated 800,000 adult males
between the ages of IS and 65 performing regular patrol
service. Once a fortnight,once a week or on rare occasions
even more frequently than that — exactly how often
depended on the size of the adult population in each village
— villagers had to patrol throughoutthenight,checking for
signs of unusual or 'subversive' activity, and reporting on
any unknown individuals who entered the neighbourhood.
In addition, if a guerrilla presence was detected in the
region,they might havetocombthesurrounding hillsidefor
days on end, often acting as 'shock troops' patrolling in
front of the regular soldiers.
The civilian patrol system is not used exclusively for
monitoring local movements of the population. We were
told of many instances where the patrols are still used for
multifarious tasks on the army's behalf, especially the
construction ofroads and buildings.They would sometimes
receive food in return for their labour, but very rarely
money.
The very suggestion that participation might be
'voluntary'wastreated aslaughable by ourinformants.The
patterns of coercion were described, with some variations,
as follows. Individuals who failed to show up might be
merely reported to the military base for a first 'offence'.
After that the reprisals would become harsher. Offenders
could be kept for days in the infamous pozos de agua
(water-filled wells) or hoyos (pits) near to, or within,
military compounds. For more outspoken resistance, the
reprisals wereseverer still — asin thecaseofan elderly man
whospokeoutagainstthe patrolsystem ata public meeting,
and disappeared without trace after that.Then thereare the
rare cases of entire communities, such as Cantel in
Quezaltenango department, which have refused altogether
to participate in the patrol system. These have been
subjected first to the soft arm of persuasion — in the form
of army officers urging them to defend themselves against
the guerrilla threat;then to the more predictable harder arm
— in the form of an increasing number of abductions and
killings that the villagers themselves attribute to the army.
The notion that the Indian population had joined the
civilian patrols outof politicalconviction wasalso regarded
as ludicrous.They are faced with virtually no other option.
As The Times reported on 20 July 1984, quoting a priest
from the Western highlands, 'Failure to participate is
assumed to be a sign ofsympathy for the guerrillas...Ifa
patroloutin thecountrysidedecided togo uptothehillsone
day with the guerrillas, they would do so in the full

23. a
avilian patroldrilling on NationalDay, Solata'. Jenny Maiihews/Formai
knowledge that their families would be killed and,probably,
their whole village razed.'
The whole system is implanted by means ofterror,and
is designed also to sow terror. In section 2.1.3 we have
described atrocities committed by civilian patrol members
(reportedly acting under army instructions) against their
fellow villagers. Above all in the southern Quiche region,as
several informed persons told us, a pattern has emerged
since late 1983 in which the killing of suspects is carried out
by the civilian patrols rather than by the army itself. Nor
was this true for Quich6 alone. Informants from Cobdn,
Alta Verapaz,for example,also stated that in recent times it
is the civilian patrols that have done the army's'dirty work'.
People who go out at night, who purchase more than the
customary amount offood, who refuse to do patrol service,
in short people who do anything out of the ordinary,come
under immediate suspicion and are taken by the patrols to
the army's nearest base. Interrogation will be done by the
army, but the killing of murdered suspects often by the
civilian patrols.
In the words of many of our informants, the civilian
patrol system, and the forced labour exacted from the
inhabitants of the model villages, can be compared with
slavery. These practices are certainly in violation of
international law to which Guatemala is a signatory.
Guatemala has ratified convention lOS of the International
Labour Organisation on the abolition of forced labour. All
states party to this convention undertake not to make use of
any form of forced or compulsory labour which is (a) a
means of political coercion or education or a punishment
for holding or expressing political views or views
Ideologically opposed to the established political, social or
economic system, (b) a method of mobilising and using
labour for purposes of economic development,(cj a means
of racial, social, national or religious discrimination. The
methods utilised by the Guatemalan army in its counter-
insurgency campaign violate at least the last two — and
arguably also the first — of the clauses of this convention.
3.2 Model villages and development poles
Whilethe civilian patrolsystem is not a new development,as
it has already been in operation for over three years, the
construction of development poles and model villages has
been a major new army project during 1984. As with the
civilian patrols,the essential objective is the desire to control
Model village at Acui, Quiche.
the highland departments.Thefour main development poles
are situated in the Ixil triangle in Quich6, Chisec in Alta
Verapaz, Playa Grande in Quiche and Chacaj in northern
Huehuetenango (see map 1). Their specific objectives vary
slightly according to their location. Chacaj is specifically
designed for resettling the refugees who are presently across
the border in Mexican territory, while Playa Grande is
aimed at those Indians who are still fighting with, or
sympathetic to,the guerrillas in IxcSn and the refugees from
the zone of Marques de Comillas in the south of Mexico.
Chisec is meant to accommodate the internal refugees in
Alta Verapaz, while the Ixil triangle is to resettle the

24. Map I
The Development Poles
MEXICC
Et P&t€n
Las Margarlcas
ElchupKj^ CHACAJ
^PLAYA GRANDE
tCHISEC
Ruefiueteitaunc
r
j
ACta Venapaz
IXIL TRIANGLE
"X
QiUcki
"N.
RaluSMcampf In Mtxlco.
J Oawtlopmentpol«
Source: Bulletin of the Guatemalan Church In Exile(IGE),Sept.-Oct. 1984.
^ Nibaj
2 Chajut
3 Cotzat
displaced and attract the population stiil resisting in the
surrounding areas. However,all four ofthe poles share the
common purpose of consolidating army control over areas
previously regarded as'insurgent territory', and ofcreating
an infrastructure from which to launch military raids or
offensives.
Within these development poles, various model
villages have been built, are planned, or are under
construction, usually by the civilian population under the
orders ofthearmy.Six have already been inaugurated in the
Ixil triangle — Acul in December 1983, Tzalbal in May
1984,and Juil,Rio Azul,Xolcuay and Pulay in August 1984
(see map II). At least another 40 are planned for the near
future — including another IS in the Ixil triangle, eight in
Playa Grande, and five in Chisec. Other villages have
already been established at Acamal and Las Pacayas in Alta
Verapaz,and Yanchi near the Mexican border in El Pet6n.
The new villages have been inaugurated with a fanfare
of publicity. The president, or other leading army and
government offlcials, make highly publicised visits
accompanied by a retinue ofjournalists and photographers.
The army is depicted as the benefactor, providing new
housing and extensive facilities for those indigenous
peasants who have sought its protection and escaped the
clutches of the guerrillas. Some of this publicity is clearly
intended to improve the international image ofthe country.
As the pro-government newspaper Diario de Centra
America reported on 29 June 1984, in an article entitled
'The army contributes to the development and progress of
Guatemala',
'The Guatemalan army is rebuilding44towns which were
destroyed by subversive groups, is attending to 11,700
displaced persons, as well as 832 refugees who have
returned from Mexico; it is preparing to receive
thousands of peasants who were obliged to emigrate
through the criminal persecution of which they were
victims through the extremist armed groups. This
patriotic and humanitarian work is carried out by the
Institutional Coordinators that function under the civil
affairs directorate ofthe ChiefofStaffofthe Ministry of
Defence...'
The army is certainly devoting immense resources to
this new system. The state and parastate development
agencies(the national housing bank,agricultural credit and
loan institutions, and the rest)now find their development
activities subordinated directly to the Ministry of Defence
through the coordinadoras institucionales. Non
governmental agencies too can only operate with military
permission, and in most cases have to channel their
resources as and where it suits the army'sstrategicinterests.
While official propaganda speaks of the help and
support the army is giving to the previously neglected
Indians,most other observers talk oftheslave-likeexistence
in the model villages, the coercion of the inhabitants, the
excessive monitoring of their movements and the breaking-
down ofthe traditional Indian life-style.Indian villagesthat
had enjoyed strong community and ethnic identity are
strongly encouraged by the army to identify with the
'Guatemalan nation', as they regularly emphasise at
ceremonies theimportance ofthe Guatemalan national flag,
national Independence Day, the national flower and the
national anthem. The army also organises civiiian patrol
rallies on what were traditionally Indian feast days, while
Indian women are encouraged to take part In beauty
contests with titles such as 'Miss Civilian Patrol' or 'Miss
Military Zone'.Indian communityeldersand electedleaders
are no longer the local chiefs,but have been replaced by the
army or army appointees. One journalist told us that the
'de-Indianisation' was an essential part of the counter-
16

25. Map II
The Ixll Triangle Development Pole Qulch6
to lxG4n
to Ixcdn
Chscalts
Sslqull Grand*
Chemal
XapUTuI
CHAJUL
Tkftlbal
Xolcuov
y^'Ajtxunub'al
Ble»ibaU
'*/ /
/f
Santa Aballna
XelalvintA
ChanU' San Francisco
p Pulay
Rio AsulI .■ nebaj
Ojo da Aouato Huenuotananoo
to Cobin
Aguacatan
CUNEN
SACAPULAS
USPANTAN
to Sonta Crui« Quichd
o
o
X
model village
development pole
extension of development pole
military barracks
military post
prison camp (these are referred to as 'refugee' or
're-education' camps)
military airstrip
Source: BuUstIn of the Guatemalan Church in Exile (IGE), Sept.-Oct. 1984.
17

26. Thecivilian population work underarmysurveillance. Tzalbal model village, Quiche.Joe Fish/Peop!es Pictures
insurgency plan. Replacing identily with the Indian ? , -T-T-.- . -r
community or ethnic group with identity with the'nation', ; ' 3 ;! •,
the army and central government argue, will make the 'v
Indians more 'manageable*.
We paid brief visits to one of the model villages in the
presence of the army,and had little expectation that people
could talk freely of their conditions. Elsewhere, we received
accounts of rigorous work schedules, followed by
compulsory drill and then patrolling at night;ofcompulsory
political education; ofserious food shortages and miserable
health conditions, including widespread malnutrition. One
person, recently arrived at the camp of Chacaj, had fled a
regime where work began at 6 a.m., followed by drill
between 4and 6 p.m.and then regular patrol duty at night.
We were also particularly concerned by the extreme
insecurity facing those peasants who have handed
themselves over to the protection of the army(see box). As V t
already mentioned, we heard mutually consistent accounts "''jjlft (''J
that persons who surrendered to the army might at first be M
unmolested and in someca.ses given new housesin oneofthe ^
model villages, but then the abductions and disappearances .Z"'
would begin.So widespread had these become at the time of 3
our visit that many people expressed a real fear that the
ultimate policy ofthe government would be to eliminate all 3 sv
those persons who had surrendered under the amnestylaw. ^gSr • 5
The fears may turn outto beexaggerated,but in the light of ^'3' >'0
recent events they are certainly understandable. WWSw'A
I AveU'VA
[iau*Po winr/vuVco
3.3 Food within the counterinsurgency model
Food shortages, control of food and the ensuing serious
malnutrition are a very major problem in Guatemala today.
As in so many conflicts ofthis kind,food has become a vital
weapon. When the civil war was at its most intense two years
ago, and large areas of the alliplano were under guerrilla
control, subsistence plots were regularly burned as part of
the government's scorched earth strategy. As some people
fled to the mountains, others left their country and tens of
thousands more were killed, subsistence plots were
progressively abandoned, and serious food deficits were
certain to occur sooner or later. Late last year one North
American agency, under contract to AID to examine needs
in the conflict areas, warned that 50,000 people could be
seriously at risk and widespread hunger could break out
unless a multi-million-dollar aid package was made
available to finance tools and seeds for the next harvest
venue ofthe Guatemalan soldier', Acul model village. Quichi
Hunger and malnutrition,it may be said,will be a sad
fact of life for the Guatemalan peasant for as long as the
appalling misuse of land prevails. Land distribution is at the
root of Guatemala's problems. In recent years, tens of
thousands of indigenous peasants have been evicted from
their subsistence plots, to make way for the increased
cultivation of agro-export crops. Land under subsistence
crop cultivation declined markedly from the early 1970s, as
the acreage under export crops rose by some 50%. Part of
the problem lies in food shortages, but another part in the
distribution of available foodstuffs. The structural
problems have been compounded by the army's tendency to
suspect anyone who attempts to purchase food stocks over
and above immediate subsistence requirements. The
determination of the army to control food supplies,so as to
distribute to those peasants under its directcontrol and deny
the means of subsistence to those presently outside its
control, could ultimately lead to famine. The problem is
made worse by the location of many of the plots of land
where the Indians have traditionally grown their corn and
beans. These are often situated above the villages on the