PBI-Guatemala observes the court hearing of army-paramilitary violence against Achi women, sentencing on May 30
On May 20, PBI-Guatemala posted:
“Yesterday #PBI observes the continuation of the hearing of conclusions of the #mujeresachi [Achi women] case in which the court gave them the floor:
“I represent the Achí women, I ask the court to pass sentence against the accused. I recognized them, I suffered in my own flesh what they did. It would not be possible for them to go free. For the people of Guatemala, for the women, I ask that they be sentenced.”
“I did not come here to lie, I have only told the truth. I already learned that we women have rights, so if justice is not done then they are going to violate our rights as women. Now I am bitterly living my life because of what they did to us.
La continuation of the findings will follow on May 30 at 8:30 am.”
On May 19, Agence France-Presse reported: “Two indigenous Mayan women recounted in court on Monday the suffering they experienced after being raped by paramilitaries who collaborated with the Guatemalan army in the 1980s, during the civil war.”
Prensa Libre also reported:
“On May 19, in the High Risk Court B, the debate continued on the Achí Women case, where a group of women accuses three former members of a paramilitary force of the crime of sexual violence, which they would have committed during the time of the Internal Armed Conflict.
The court gave the floor to the aggrieved parties in the process, who requested a conviction against the three defendants. However, due to the non-appearance of a lawyer for the defendants, the court postponed the continuation of the debate to May 30. It will be the turn of the defendants to give their last word before the debate closes and a sentence is handed down.”
Agencia Ocote further confirms: “On May 30, the three accused of committing sexual violence and other crimes against humanity could know the final sentence of the High Risk Court B.”
The Internal Armed Conflict
In September 2018, Aljazeera reported: “Over the course of the war, which began in 1960 and formally ended in 1996, more than 200,000 people were killed and another 43,000 were forcibly disappeared. More than 80 percent of the victims were indigenous Maya people. The worst of the atrocities took place in the Maya Ixil region, 225km northwest of Guatemala City.”
Human Rights Watch has also noted: “[Former Guatemalan president] Rios Montt was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the crime of genocide and 30 years for crimes against humanity in a sentence that was handed down on May 10, 2013, by Judge Yassmin Barrios in Guatemala City. In her decision, Barrios said Rios Montt was fully aware of plans to exterminate the indigenous Ixil population carried out by security forces under his command [during his 17-month rule from 1982 to 1983].”
Who armed genocide?
LaHora.gt has noted that the three members of the Civil Self-Defense Patrols (PAC) allegedly committed crimes of duty against humanity and rape against women from the Achí community of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, during the Internal Armed Conflict between 1981 and 1982.
In December 2023, Professor Mark Lewis Taylor wrote:
“In Guatemala of the 1980s, a counterinsurgency by U.S.-backed military governments slaughtered Maya indigenous and tens of thousands of other dissidents and suspects. There was no social media to cover it.
The period [of 1981 to 1983] is often called a “hidden/silent holocaust,” the “Guatemala holocaust” or the “Maya holocaust.”
I knew something of Israel’s history of war and repression in Palestine, but I did not know then, in 1987, of its connections to supplying police and military equipment as well as advisors in technology and surveillance to Guatemala.”
Lewis Taylor also specifies: “In an infamous massacre, one of many, the Israeli connection was clearly present. At the village of Dos Erres on December 6, 1982. Israeli-trained commandos left the village completely burned down, after shooting, torturing and/or raping over 200 villagers. A UN investigative team reported: “All the ballistic evidence recovered corresponded to bullet fragments from firearms and pods of Galil rifles made in Israel” (Trans. of Spanish report, volume 6, appendix 1, p. 410).”
His full article can be read at Israel and Genocide: Not Only In Gaza (CounterPunch).
Accompaniment
Peace Brigades International is accompanying processes related to both the paramilitary assaults against Achi women and the Dos Erres massacre.
The Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) is a coalition of survivors from 22 communities in five regions of the country that suffered as a result of the scorched earth policy between 1978 and 1985. Peace Brigades International began accompanying the AJR Board of Directors in April 2024.
FAMDEGUA was accompanied by PBI from 1992 until 1999, when PBI’s Guatemala Project was temporarily closed. PBI began accompanying FAMDEGUA again in April 2024.
Peace Brigades International is also now accompanying Maya Q’eqchi’ frontline journalist Carlos Ernesto Choc. He has posted on social media: “#FreePalestine “Colonization is the same everywhere. Indigenous people carry this trauma and we’re watching it recreate it over and over again, but that’s where the most intense solidarity comes from – this should not happen to anyone,” Landsem told @hyperallergic.”
Nipinet Landsem is a nonbinary, queer, Anishinaabe and Michif illustrator. They are a descendant of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota and an enrolled citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation in Manitoba, Canada.
Further reading:
PBI-Guatemala accompanies Famdegua at hearing on Inter-American Court ruling and acquittal of three soldiers in Dos Erres massacre (April 27, 2024)
PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) at #MujeresAchí trial (January 30, 2025).
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