PBI-Guatemala accompanies Human Rights Law Firm at Caso Dos Erres hearing
On May 6, PBI-Guatemala posted:
“Last Wednesday, PBI accompanied the Human Rights Law Firm to the hearing of the presentation of evidence of the #casodoserres, during which two experts proposed for the accusation presented their expertise. One expert was a forensic analysis and the other treated the state of the land. Both experts were interrogated alone, while their expertise were not accepted for typos.”
The Massacre
The BBC has reported: “More than 200 people were killed in the village of Dos Erres in 1982, one of the most violent episodes in Guatemala’s brutal 36-year conflict.”
That article explains: “The Kaibiles [were] a US-trained counter-insurgency force fighting left-wing guerrillas. …The special unit of the Guatemalan army stormed the village in the north of the country on 6 December 1982.”
“The Kaibiles suspected the villagers of sympathizing with left-wing guerrillas who had two months earlier carried out an ambush on a nearby army patrol, leaving 21 soldiers dead. Even though the soldiers’ search of the village did not uncover any of the weapons the guerrillas had seized during the ambush, the Kaibiles proceeded to kill the village’s inhabitants.”
That article further notes: “Over several days, the soldiers systematically shot or bludgeoned to death hundreds of men, women and children. They disposed of most of the bodies by throwing them down a well.”
And the Associated Press has reported: “The slaughter [at Dos Erres] went unpunished for years — even after Guatemalan authorities issued 17 arrest warrants. In 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights demanded the country prosecute the perpetrators.”
PBI-Guatemala began to accompany Human Rights Law Firm (BDH) lawyer Édgar Pérez Archila in August 2010 due to several security incidents. In 2013, PBI-Guatemala extended the accompaniment to the other lawyers of the BDH who work on high-profile trials.
We continue to follow this case.
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