Historic sentence against ex-soldiers tears veil of impunity in Guatemala
By Agencia Efe
Carlos Carías, Daniel Martínez, Reyes Collín y Manuel Pop, accused of the massacre in Dos Erres, Petén, in 1982, during the hearing held yesterday in the First High Risk Tribunal A.
Guatemala, August 2 (Efe). The historic 6,060-year prison sentence passed today against four former soldiers for the killing of 201 peasants in 1982 has meant the tearing of the veil of impunity in Guatemala, said spokespeople for humanitarian organisations in this Central American country.
“Today that wall of impunity has been broken and by good fortune we begin to savour the nectar of justice,” Aura Elena Farfán, of the Foundation of the Detained-Disappeared of Guatemala (Famdegua), told Efe, after learning of the sentence, passed unanimously, by the three judges who made up the High Risk Tribunal.
Farfán, who acted as a joint plaintiff in the process against the soldiers, representing the victims' relatives, said she felt “satisfied after a 17-year journey to obtain long-awaited justice for the slaughter in Dos Erres”.
“Justice has been done. The tribunal has given a condemnatory sentence for the vindication of all those who died in Las Dos Erres and for the 200,000 Guatemalans who were massacred during the armed conflict” which bled this country between 1960 and 1996, affirmed the activist.
The four ex-members of the Guatemalan Army's elite Kaibil group Daniel Martínez, Manuel Pop, Reyes Collín y Carlos Carías were found guilty by the tribunal of the crime of murder of the 201 peasants, for which it condemned each one of them to 6,060 years.
Judge Patricia Bustamente, who read the sentence, explained that it was the sum of the sentence of 30 years for the crime of murder, for each former soldier for each one of the 201 crimes, plus 30 years for the crime of failure of duty against humanity.
However, in the tribunal's decision, presided over by judge Jazmín Barrios presided in which Bustamente along with Pablo Xitimul also participated, set down that the sentences should only carry the maximum penalty of 50 years for the crime of murder, in accordance with that established in the current Penal Code.
To that sentence they were obliged to add another 30 years for the crime of failure of duty against humanity, as it had been proved that they acted against the population in a planned way, for a total of 80 years in prison for each of the accused.
For his part, six years of prison was also added to Carías' sentence for the crime of aggravated theft as it was proved that he looted the community after the massacre.
Judge Bustamente said that the testimonies of various witnesses, among them former Kaibil commandos, were the key to passing the sentence, the first in Guatemala for the bloodiest crimes against humanity committed by the army against civilians.
The former members of the Kaibil group César Franco and Flavio Pinzón, protected witnesses of the prosecution and settled in Mexico, confirmed the presence in Dos Erres of Pop, Collín and Martínez, and also the collaboration that Carías gave so that the military patrol might commit the massacre, said judge Bustamente.
Pop and another former kaibil identified as Gilberto Jordán, who served a sentence of 10 years in the United States for making false declarations to obtain his citizenship in that country, “threw children alive down a well”, according to the account of the prosecution witnesses.
Additionally, Bustamente pointed out, they also stated that the patrol raped the women and tortured the men.
The sentenced provoked prolonged applause in the viewing room of the Supreme Court of Justice, which was packed with relatives of the victims and humanitarian activists, as well as several dozen journalists.
“Justice has been done”, was the cry of some family members in the face of the despair of the former soldiers' relatives, who began to weep and in statements to Efe insisted on the innocence of their relatives and described the former kaibiles who spoke against them as “traitors”.
Outside the court, under a persistent drizzle, various relatives and humanitarian activists were also gathered before a carpet of pine and red flowers with the word “justice”.
Judge Barrios explained to Efe that the sentenced had to be confirmed by a penal execution tribunal in the next few days.
The massacre at Las Dos Erres is one of the 669 which the Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) documented in its 1999 report “Memories of silence”, after investigating the grave violations of human rights committed by the army during the armed conflict.
Translated by James Tweedie
Note: The Kaibiles commando unit exists to this day, and part of it is deployed as part of the UN's MONUSCO peace-keeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo.