Plan de Sanchez Massacre

Four members of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation recently testified at the trial that resulted in 6000-year sentences for four kaibiles involved in the 1982 Dos Erres massacre. Since then they have been receiving death threats. (CNN) And as I mentioned last week, the Dos Erres massacre was just one of 669 documented massacres that occurred during the thirty-six year conflict.

Four men were arrested last week for their alleged involvement in another gruesome massacre from 1982. This massacre involved 268 men, women and children in Plan de Sanchez in the department of Baja Verapaz.. The massacre occurred on market day, July 19, 1982, so as to maximize casualties (BBC, AFP, Prensa Libre, Channel 6). In addition to killing as many people as possible, a massacre on market day was also designed to break down group identity and to send a message that it was not safe for the indigenous people of Guatemala to get together in large numbers or to engage in commerce.  

Witnesses said the victims were rounded up, had grenades thrown at them, and those who tried to flee were shot...

The survivors were forced to bury the victims, many of whom had been set alight.

The villagers were targeted because the military accused them of supporting the guerrillas in part because their men would not serve in the "self-defense patrols." More arrests are expected.

I still would rather see prosecutors go after the intellectual authors of these crimes. Sixty soldiers and an unspecified number of military commissioners and civil patrollers participated in this one massacre alone. Most patrulleros were forced to participate in these self-defense groups. The Plan de Sanchez massacre is an example of what happened to entire villages when male citizens did not volunteer to participate in the PACs. 

While that does not absolve them of their crimes, it really makes it hard to separate out those who joined and killed willingly from those who were force to kill or be killed. It’s easy for me to say that I would rather be killed than forced to kill someone else. It’s not so easy to say that I would rather my family and community killed than be forced to kill.

Many but by no means all of the patrulleros who participated in massacres were victims of one kind or another as well. They were victims and victimizers. The same cannot be said for the intellectual authors of the crimes.