Acts of Genocide

Commission for Historical Clarification

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The Commission for Historical Clarification (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento
Histórico, ceh) was established as part of the peace negotiations between the reb-
els and the government that finally brought Guatemala’s internal armed conflict
to an end in 1996. The ceh ’s mandate was to investigate human-­r ights violations
and acts of violence and to write a report detailing the causes, methods, and con-
sequences of the violence. The ceh and its three-­hundred-­person staff worked for
nearly two years, receiving more than eight thousand testimonies in closed sessions
around the country, interviewing key witnesses and analyzing hundreds of pri-
mary and secondary sources, including declassified us government documents. Its
twelve-­volume report, Memory of Silence, estimated that two hundred thousand
people were killed or disappeared during the span of the conflict and documented
669 cases of massacres. Ninety-­three percent of these crimes were committed by
forces linked to the Guatemalan state, three percent were committed by guerrilla
groups, and four percent were of other or unknown origin. Eighty-­three percent of
identified victims were Maya. The selection below focuses on the legal and histori-
cal reasoning the commission used to conclude that the Guatemalan government
committed “acts of genocide” against Mayas in 1981–1983. The ceh describes how
the army came to define entire Maya communities as “internal enemies”; thus, the
annihilation of Maya populations was intentional, even though the military’s over-
arching motivation was to defeat the insurgency.

In the wake of the Second World War and the Nazi atrocities committed
against European Jews, the international community recognized the need
for a global guarantee to safeguard the right to existence for ethnic, racial,
or religious nationalities or communities. As a result, under the rubric of
the United Nations, the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide was elaborated. Adopted by the General Assem-
bly through Resolution 260 (III) on December 9, 1948, the Convention took
effect on January 12, 1951. . . . Guatemala ratified the Convention on Jan-
uary 13, 1950. Therefore, the Convention was in effect during the entire time
of the armed conflict. . . .
 Acts of Genocide 387

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“Never again this savagery.” A mural in a chapel depicts a massacre in the village of
Plan de Sánchez, Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, on July 18, 1982, in which Guatemalan army
troops killed 268 people. Photo by James Rodríguez, 2007. Used by permission of the
photographer.

Article II of the Convention defines the crime of genocide and its re-
quirements in the following terms:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group,
as such:
(a) killing members of the group;
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life intended to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. . . .
The subjective element, or the intent to destroy the group, has been in-
terpreted in international jurisprudence in the following way: “The inten-
tionality specific to the crime of genocide does not need to be expressed
clearly; it can be inferred from a certain number of facts, such as the ‘gen-
eral political doctrine’ from which the actions arise . . . and the repetition of
destructive and discriminatory acts.” [The ceh is quoting from, and basing
its arguments on, proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia (icty)—Eds.]
It is very important to distinguish between the “intent to destroy the
388 Commission for Historical Clarification
group, in whole or in part,” that is, the positive determination to do this,
and the motives for this intent. In order to determine genocide, it is enough
to intend to destroy the group, whatever the motive may be. For example, if
the motive for destroying an ethnic group is not racist, but strictly military,
this is still a basis to determine the crime of genocide.
An act fulfills the requirements of a genocidal crime as defined by the

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Convention even if it forms part of a broader policy that is not directed at
physical extermination as such. In this sense, it is relevant to distinguish
between genocidal policy and acts of genocide. A genocidal policy exists
when the final objective of the actions is the extermination of a group, in
whole or in part. Genocidal acts exist when the final objective is not the
extermination of the group, but other political, economic or military ends,
in which the means that are utilized to achieve this goal contemplate the
extermination of the group in whole or in part. . . .

Methodology
The period of analysis was 1981 through 1983, when the highest levels of
violence were registered. The analysis centered on particular regions, and
specifically on certain ethnic groups, where the ceh had evidence that the
brunt of human rights violations took place: 1) Maya-­q’anjob’al and Maya-­
chuj, in Barillas, Nentón, and San Mateo Ixtatán, northern Huehuetenango;
2) Maya-­ixil, in Nebaj, Cotzal and Chajul, department of Quiché; 3) Maya-­
k’iche’ in Zacualpa, department of Quiché; and 4) Maya-­achí, in Rabinal,
Baja Verapaz. . . .
The ceh sources were analyzed exhaustively. In each region, regular and
“illustrative” cases were examined, as were individual and collective testi-
monies, declarations from key witnesses, including agents or ex-­agents of
the state, and regional context reports. This data was compared with other
sources, such as the army’s military campaign plans, communiqués from
the guerrillas, press reports, declassified documents from the United States,
and field investigations. . . .

General Policy
The human-­r ights violations described in this section occurred within the
framework of the counterinsurgency or “counter-­subversive” war, which
was guided by the National Security Doctrine. . . . In accordance with the
National Security Doctrine, the army defined the “annihilation of the in-
ternal enemy” as a strategic objective of the counterinsurgency war. The
 Acts of Genocide 389
army understood the internal enemy to include two categories of individ-
uals, groups, and organizations: those who tried to undo the established
order through illegal actions and who were represented by “Communist
revolutionaries,” and those who, without being Communists, tried to undo
the established order.
This doctrine also affirmed that the “counter-­subversive” war should

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take as its “object” the population, since the “subversive” war (the guerril-
las) sought to achieve its ends through the active participation of the popu-
lation. . . . It would therefore be necessary to maintain or regain the popula-
tion’s loyalty and make people participate actively in the war, on the side of
the government.
As early as the 1970s, when the guerrillas operated in the eastern region
of the country, with a majority Ladino [nonindigenous] population, the
army was already identifying the highland population (primarily Maya)
with the enemy. The Military Intelligence (G-2) Manual of 1972 expresses
this clearly: “The enemy has the same sociological characteristics as the
inhabitants of our highlands.”
In the 1980s, the army outright identified the Indian with the internal
enemy. [According to its “Victoria ’82” military plan] the army considered
that the guerrillas had been able to tap into the historical problems of the
primarily indigenous populations in the highlands, [such as] land scarcity
and poverty, appropriating their demands:
The great Indian masses of the nation’s highlands have heard them-
selves in the subversion’s proclamations, with their banners of land
scarcity and immense poverty, and due to the long years of conscious-
ness raising, [these populations] see the Army as an invading enemy.
...
The army considered that the “great Indian masses” of the highlands
made up the social base of the guerrilla movement:
Strong points . . . of the enemy . . . its social base, resting on the Indian
peasant. . . .
The perception of the armed forces was shared by civilian government
functionaries. Francisco Bianchi, secretary of then de facto president Efraín
Ríos Montt, not only identified the Indian with the guerrillas, but also af-
firmed that the consequence of this identification was elimination: “The
guerrillas won over many Indian collaborators, therefore the Indians were
subversives, right? And how do you fight subversion? Clearly, you had to kill
Indians because they were collaborating with subversion.” . . .
390 Commission for Historical Clarification
Racism has polarized Guatemalan society, dividing it into two main
groups, Indians and Ladinos. Racism has occupied a central position in the
thinking and practice of dominant sectors of Guatemala society toward “los
indios.” Racism is also present among members of the armed forces. The
consideration of the “other” as separate, inferior, is expressed in the follow-
ing statement from the former de facto president Efraín Ríos Montt: “Natu-

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rally, if a subversive operation exists in which the Indians are involved with
the guerrilla, the Indians are also going to die. However, the army’s phi-
losophy is not to kill Indians, but to win them back, to help them.”
In the imagination of a sizable Ladino sector, racism feeds the belief that
“the indios are going to come down from the mountains and kill Ladinos.”
This fear exists because some Ladinos think that the indigenous popula-
tions feel an historic rancor toward them, for the hardships faced since the
Conquest. The ideological context of racism thus favored the army’s equa-
tion of the indigenous populations, a sort of ancestral enemy, with the in-
surgents. At the same time, racism nourished an attitude toward Indians
as different, separate, inferior, almost less than human and outside of the
universe of moral obligations, making their elimination less problematic.

Final Conclusions
In the four regions examined, the violence was massive and overwhelm-
ingly affected the Maya population. In the Ixil and Rabinal areas, the per-
centage of the population killed was 14.5% and 14.6%, while in northern
Huehuetenango and Zacualpa, the percentage of the population killed was
3.6% and 8.6%. Likewise, the victims of massacres and other human-­r ights
violations documented by the ceh were mainly Maya, in a much greater
proportion than the ethnic distribution between Mayas and Ladinos. In
the Ixil area, 97.8% of the human rights violations were against the Maya
population; in northern Huehuetenango 99.3%; in Rabinal 98.8%; and in
Zacualpa 98.4%.
These overwhelming proportions indicate that the Maya populations of
these regions were the target of human-­rights violations, in an objective
and discriminating way. . . . Within this general discrimination in the se-
lection of victims, in which Maya groups were affected most of all, those
responsible for the killings made no distinction by age, sex, or condition of
the victims. For example, in the four regions, in the period from February
to October 1982, killings of children, women, and elderly people, as well as
men, were carried out. The army acted against the community, rather than
 Acts of Genocide 391

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Mr. Nicolás Chen, a survivor of a 1982 massacre in the village of Río Negro, visits a
community memory museum in Rabinal. Here he touches a photograph of his daugh-
ter, Marta Julia Chen Osorio. The photograph’s caption reads: “She was murdered
when her gestation period was about to be completed. The soldiers, acting as medics,
induced a forced cesarean with machetes. The assailants, who wanted to see how a
child grows inside a mother’s womb, accomplished their feat. How is it possible that
someone can take the life of defenseless human beings so unjustly?!” Photo by James
Rodríguez, 2007. Used by permission of the photographer.

making accusations—­founded or unfounded—­against individual commu-

nity members. . . .

First Conclusion
. . . . The ceh concludes that the repetition of destructive acts directed sys-
tematically against Maya population groups, including the elimination of
leaders and criminal acts against minors who could not have been military
targets, makes clear that the victims’ only common factor was belonging
to specific ethnic groups, and that such acts were committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, those groups. . . .
Among the most significant actions directed at the destruction of Maya
groups, identified by the army as the enemy, were killings. . . . According
to testimonies and other compiled evidence, the ceh has established that in
392 Commission for Historical Clarification
these killings, which had characteristics of massacres, both regular and spe-
cial military forces participated, as did members of the civil-­defense patrols
and military commissioners. In many cases, survivors identified the heads
of the nearby military detachments as the leaders who commanded these
operations.

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Second Conclusion
The analysis of these acts has allowed the ceh to form the conviction that
in nearly all these cases, the perpetrators’ purpose was to kill the maximum
number of members of the group.
In nearly all these killings, the army carried out some of the following
preparatory acts: either diligently rounding up all villagers before killing
them; or surrounding the entire community; or taking advantage of situ-
ations where the population was gathered already, such as celebrations or
market days, to carry out the killings.
In its study of the four regions, the ceh establishes that, together with
the killings, which by themselves were enough to eliminate the groups de-
fined as enemies, members of the army or patrollers systematically com-
mitted acts of extreme cruelty, including torture and other cruel, inhuman,
and degrading treatment, whose effect was to terrorize the population and
destroy the foundations for social cohesion, especially when people were
forced to watch or carry out these acts themselves. Especially frequent were
collective rapes of women, done publicly to leave an indelible impact on
social reproduction in the community.

Third Conclusion
The ceh concludes that among the acts perpetrated with intent to destroy
numerous Maya groups, in whole or in part, multiple actions were also
committed that constituted grave injuries to the physical or mental integ-
rity of the affected Maya groups. . . . The investigation also showed that
killings, especially those that took the form of indiscriminate massacres,
were accompanied by the razing of villages. The most notable case is the
Ixil region, where between 70% and 90% of the villages were razed. Also,
in northern Huehuetenango, Rabinal and Zacualpa, entire villages were
burned to the ground, goods were destroyed, and crops were burned, leav-
ing these populations without food.
Moreover, in the four regions studied, people were persecuted as they
fled. . . .
 Acts of Genocide 393
Fourth Conclusion
The ceh concludes that, among the aforementioned acts perpetrated with
intent to destroy numerous Maya groups in whole or in part, some [actions]
meant deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life that could bring
about, and in many cases did bring about, its physical destruction, in whole
or in part. . . . The analysis of the ceh demonstrates that coordination of

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military structures occurred at the national level, which permitted an “ef-
ficient” deployment of soldiers and patrollers in the four regions studied.
For example, operations that included aerial support required high-­level
authorization and coordination with ground actions. . . . For example, the
“Victory 82” plan establishes that “the mission is to annihilate the guerril-
las and the parallel organizations,” and the “Firmness 83” plan resolves that
the army should support “its operations with the greatest number of civil
defense patrols, to be able to raze all of the collective cultivations that the
subversion possesses in determinate areas, where it is plainly proven that
there is an active participation and collaboration of compromised villages
that sympathize with and are organized by the subversion.”
All of this has convinced the ceh that the acts perpetrated with intent to
destroy numerous Maya groups, in whole or in part, were not isolated acts,
nor excesses committed by out-­of-­control troops, nor were they the result
of improvisation by low-­ranking officers. With great consternation, the ceh
concludes that many of the massacres and other human-­rights violations
committed against [Mayas] responded to a broader, strategically planned
policy, whose actions followed a sequential and coherent logic.
In addition, the ceh has evidence that similar things occurred repeatedly
in other Maya regions. Given all the options for combating the insurgency,
the state opted for the one with the highest toll on human life among the ci-
vilian, noncombatant population. Refusing other options, such as a political
rapprochement with the civilian, noncombatant population it considered
disaffected, the state opted for the annihilation of those it deemed enemies.
...

Fifth Conclusion
Therefore, the ceh concludes that agents of the Guatemalan state, in the
framework of counterinsurgent operations conducted in 1981 and 1982,
carried out acts of genocide against the Maya people in the Ixil, Zacualpa,
northern Huehuetenango, and Rabinal regions. . . .
394 Commission for Historical Clarification
Sixth Conclusion
The Guatemalan state did not take any action to investigate and punish
those responsible, even though many of the responsible parties were pub-
licly known. . . .

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Seventh Conclusion
The ceh concludes that the Guatemalan state failed to comply with its ob-
ligations to investigate and punish the acts of genocide committed in its
territory, violating Articles IV and VI of the Convention for the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Translated by Elizabeth Oglesby