Idioma

On the Guatemalan Genocide

Enviado 8 de diciembre de 2005 - 13:40 por Jeremy Gordon
I agree Dan, and another thing . . .

Some quick facts from the CEH Report, also available here at conclusions

626 villiages massacred - all Maya
1.5 million people displaced
150,000 people fled to refuge in Mexico
More than 200,000 people dead or disappeared

83% of the victims were Maya
17% of the victims were ladino

93% of acts of violence committed by the military
3% of acts of violence committed by guerrilla
link for these figures

Genocide is defined under the Genocide Convention as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, 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 calculated 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."

In my opinion, genocide was clearly committed against the Maya of Guatemala during the period of 1980-1996. Add to the physical violence, the forced participation in in the PACs (civil patrols), forced resettlement in militarized "model villiages," and the "reeducation camps," and you get a straight-up nazi style genocide.

Maybe I'm still a little pissed about the US funding of Guatemala's military during this time period, but Dan, I think the events are more than "arguably the closest thing we have seen to genocide..."  

I think it was obviously a genocide and that is something we should recognize.  Those who would deny it, have only to look as far as the bones unconvered in Plan de Sanchez, or Rio Negro, or Ixil, or Acul, or any of the 626 other villages that were massacred. When you find a skeleton buried with its hands still bound behind its back, or the skeleton of a woman in a fetal position still holding the skeleton of her baby, it becomes very difficult to deny.

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