Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Guatemala massacres in the 1980s: My soul will not die!

ab | 18.03.2005 01:13 | Education | Globalisation | Repression | World

Guatemala has seen over 36 years of military dictatorship, initiated and supported by the US with technical advisors, equipment and funding, and 250 000 civilians, particularly children and women, were massacred by the paramilitaries during the civil war. Thousands of clandestine mass graves are still all over the country.
1996 the peace accords were signed, before only the armed struggle was an alternative to oppose the military dictatorship.

Today atrocities are still not talked about, the paramilitary forces and the intellectual authors of massacres not convicted nor do they stand in court, and many mass graves have not yet been exhuminated.

Jesus Tecu Osorio is one of the few human rights activists in Guatemala who has been able to give evidence against and the only one to thereby convict three paramilitary perpetrators of some of their crimes - linking them directly to at least one of the five massacres occuring to his community during 1981 and 1982.
He spoke at an event hosted by Amnesty International in Edinburgh, on Thursday, 17th of march 2005.


Jesus Tecu Osorio is a Maya of the Achi speaking people, he is one of the few survivors of the Rio Negro massacre, at which 70 women and 107 boys and girls were killed on the 13th of March 1982.

In 1975 INDE, the state elecricity company planned to build an hydroelectric dam on the Rio Negro River over the next 5 years, supported by the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank. The communities there were then subject to general state repression as they opposed the construction of the dam due to the fact that their land was taken from them without any compensation.

In March 1980 the first massacre took place. The community leaders were kidnapped for a meeting with the electricity company NDE, and their bodies were found on a road site some days later with marks of torture.

On the 4th of March 1981 the army arrived in Rio Negro, and started to raid houses and arrest people. 75 village leaders were massacred on the 13th of february 1982.
On the 13th of march 1982 the army and the PACV massacred 70 widows and 107 orphans. The survivors took refuge in Los Encuentros, but the army followed them and captured 90 people. 40 women and children were taken away -never to be seen again, and 40 people were tortured and killed on the spot.

On the 14th of september 1982 a neighbouring community, in which the survivors of previous massacres took refugee, was attacked and 90 more people massacred including children who were originally from the Rio Negro community.

At the beginning of 1990 skeletons were still lieing all over the place.

Jesus Tecu Osorio then started the legal process to begin the exhumination of the remains of the Rio negro massacre.

"EL ALMA NO MUERTE" - My soul will not die

Many survivors were and are still scared about the legal proceedings against the army and fearing consequenses.
Then international journalists arrived during the exhumation and though Jesus Tecu Osorio was at this point not yet ready to talk to them about his experiences, he later valuated the possibilites the international media intrests provided to press for legal proceedings.

The exhumation was not only a possibility to gather evidence, but also for the survivors to organise a christian burial, which took place on the 24th of april 1994.

"This tragedy drove me to fight on, to speak to people sharing with them everything I lived through during the massacres."

On the 14th of june 1994 an arrest warrant was issued against 3 ex-paramilitary officers.
The death threats increased with the fight against those responsible for the massacre, including the intellectual authors of the massacrs.

Research was started on who adopted the orphans of the massacres, to which families they were handed over and some subsequently lived with paramilitaries.

The state fiscal wanted to close the case, because of the death threats he received.
Support fro, the Human Rights Ombudsman and MINUGUA (UN) helped to put pressure to proceed.

After 5 years the hearing began 9th of november 1998, and from the 13th onwards evidence was heared. Survivors and ex paramilitaries all attended the hearing.
15 victims, 18 paramilitaries and 5 experts were heard, and the 3 accused paramilitaries were sentenced to death, and army captain was accused of being the intellectual author of the massacres.

On the 25th of february 1999 the Appeal Court overturned the judgements.
On the 7th of septembre 1999 the case was heared again. After 35 days the ex military commanders and paramilitaries put pressure on the court.

On the 1st of february 2000 The Appeal Court changed the sentence to 30 years without parole for each murder, 60 year for each prisoner.

Now others are brought to justice.

The arrest of the Colonel who is conbsidered to be the intellectual author of the massacrs has been issued, the adopted orphaned children in the US, Sweden, Italy and Germany are tracked down.

From the 177 massacred, only the remains of 143 people have been found, and only 3 could be positively identified, becuase of missing teeth pattern, pregnancy or ID papers. The massacred were killed by hangings, gunshot or machete.


The video "Rainmakers", director Robbie Hart, 20 min, documents the story of Jesus Tecu Osario in Rabinal, who then founded a human rights organisation, liasing with the Guatemala Solidarity network and the Legal Aid and Advice Centre in Rabinal.
Today the main tasks worked on are to dennounce the hidden graves, help people to get back their land and resolve land issues following the massacres and trying to defy the culture of violence against women by challenging the legal impunity and supporting victims of violence.

ab

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech