By Samuel Miller
Impunity Watch Desk Reporter, North America and Oceania
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — Guatemalan authorities have detained 14 former military officials on charges of human rights abuses during the country’s 36-year armed conflict. The prosecutors brought charges against officials suspected of involvement in the 1982 massacre at Plan de Sanchez, Baja Verapaz department, in which soldiers and militia members tortured, sexually abused, and killed local residents.
Many of those who were detained had allegedly worked where a mass grave was unearthed.
Among those detained was Manuel Benedicto Lucas Garcia, a former general and brother of former president Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia. Manuel Benedicto Lucas Garcia is a former army commander said to have been involved in founding Guatemala’s paramilitary groups.
The Guatemalan attorney general, Thelma Aldana, said the officials were being detained in connection with the disappearance of at least 558 indigenous people between 1981 and 1988 in a military zone. Military Zone 21 currently houses a military training center, but in 2012, four mass graves were found containing the bodies of “non-combatant civilians identified by survivors”, said Mrs. Aldana.
According to prosecutors, survivors said the army had killed, in one massacre alone, 256 indigenous people. This group was comprised mostly of women, children and old people from the Mayan Achi ethnic group.
Guatemala’s 36-year armed conflict ended in 1996 after a peace agreement. During the last 10 years, Guatemala has attempted to prosecute human rights violators, but only a few high-level officials have actually been jailed. After over a decade following the Civil War, violence continues to be a major problem in both political and civilian life.
U.S. involvement in the country was also one of the key factors contributing to human rights violations, which included the training of officers in counterinsurgency techniques, as well as providing assistance to the national intelligence apparatus.
A UN-backed truth commission said the armed forces carried out more than 80% of the human rights abuses during the conflict.
For more information, please see:
BBC News — Guatemala ex-military officials held over massacres – 7 January 2016
JURIST — Guatemala prosecutors arrest 17 accused of civil war abuses – 7 January 2016
Latin One — Guatemala Detains 14 Ex-Military Officials – 7 January 2016
NY Times — Guatemala Arrests Former Military Officers in Connection With Massacres – 6 January 2016
