PBI-Guatemala accompanies FAMDEGUA and survivors at commemoration of the Los Josefinos massacre
PBI-Guatemala has posted:
“Today and tomorrow (April 29 and 30) #PBI accompanies the annual commemoration of the massacre that occurred in the village Los Josefinos, Petén, Guatemala on April 29 and 30, 1982 during the internal armed conflict (CAI).
We accompanied the members of the Famdegua [the Association of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared of Guatemala] and survivors of the massacre in the commemoration act, which included several talks, a presentation of photos of community people made by anthropologist Alejandro Flores and a walk to the Los Josefinos cemetery.
Although there has been a sentence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights holding the State responsible for enforced disappearance and forced displacement and for violations of rights to the family, childhood and judicial guarantees, the survivors are still waiting for the reparations considered by the sentence.”
The massacre
FAMDEGUA has explained: “On April 29 and 30, 1982, at the beginning of the de facto government of General Efraín Ríos Montt, a unit of the Guatemalan Army massacred at least 42 people, including 28 adults and 14 minors, in the village of Los Josefinos, La Libertad, in the department of Petén. During the time that members of the army were in the village they tortured and murdered several community members; later, the bodies were buried in a mass grave. Several survivors were forced to flee to the mountains, while others managed to escape. Nevertheless, some members of the community were pursued in their attempts to save their lives, and during their escape several minors were separated from their parents and to this day are still missing.”
The Associated Press adds that the massacre took place when the Guatemalan army was “conducting a scorched-earth campaign to wipe out any support for leftist rebels.”
The armed conflict
The Center for Justice & Accountability notes: “Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Guatemala’s military rulers continued to liquidate their political opponents, and with the reform movements defeated, the Left grew increasingly militarized and launched a full-scale civil war against the government. The new leftist guerilla movements initially obtained the support of some indigenous Maya, who viewed the guerillas as the last hope for redressing the economic and political marginalization of the indigenous communities. However, this link between the Maya and the guerillas eventually became an idée fixe for the government, who promulgated an ideology that perceived all Maya as natural allies of the insurrection, and thus as enemies of the state. The natural extension of this belief was the deliberate targeting of the civilian population, in order to ‘starve’ guerilla forces of their popular support. This essential tenet of counterinsurgency strategy found fertile ground in Guatemala, which soon became a laboratory for ‘dirty war’ tactics.”
They add: “In 1982, General Efraín Ríos Montt replaced Lucas García as head of state. Ríos Montt enjoyed close ties with the Reagan administration and with Christian conservatives in the United States. His reign from March 1982 to August 1983 was the bloodiest period in Guatemala’s history. During that time, the Guatemalan government led a campaign to wipe out large portions of the country’s indigenous populations: an estimated 70,000 were killed or disappeared.”
Inter-American Court ruling
On December 22, 2021, the Associated Press reported: “The court said criminal investigations into the massacre didn’t start until nearly 14 years after the events. The court said Guatemala should pay indemnities and court costs and speed up legal proceedings, as well as building a monument in the area where victims were buried in a mass grave and create an audiovisual documentary of the massacre.”
Edgar Perez, the director of the PBI-Guatemala accompanied Human Rights Law Firm (BDH) has previously commented about this massacre: “The State must reflect because there are more than 600 massacres that were committed during the internal armed conflict. We hope that the State assumes its responsibility and does not leave this type of atrocities unpunished.”
Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH)
In 1999, the Commission for Historical Clarification found that more than 200,000 people were killed or disappeared during the conflict (1960 to 1996) and attributed 93% of the violations to state forces and related paramilitary groups.
The commission noted that during the conflict the distinction between combatant and non-combatant was not respected. The commission also found that 83% of “fully identified” victims were Mayan and 17% Ladino (persons of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent). 93% of the violations were attributed to state forces and related paramilitary groups and 3% to insurgency groups.
Accompaniment
FAMDEGUA was accompanied by PBI from 1992 until 1999, when PBI’s Guatemala Project was temporarily closed. After receiving a renewed request from the organization, PBI began accompanying FAMDEGUA again in April 2023.
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