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<< I. Background III. THE ACTS THAT FOLLOWED: MORE MASSACRES, DISPLACEMENT AND RESETTLEMENTThe day following the massacre, a person who had hidden in the mountains, returned to community to look for his wife and children: "I went crying and brought sheets since I thought my children were thrown somewhere. We only saw blood and bullets. We returned and grabbed our bags and we went to the mountains. We were left abandoned, spiritless that day for what had occurred." A group of survivors found refuge in the Los Encuentros community (located where the Salama and Chixoy rivers meet). The Army attacked this community with grenades on 14 May 1982, causing the death of 79 campesinos and the disappearance of 15 women. All the houses were set on fire. Other Rio Negro survivors went to the Agua Fria community, on the other side of the Chixoy River, in the department of Quiche. On 14 September 1982, soldiers and Xococ PAC members arrived in the community and proceeded to gather everyone in one of the houses. Under the accusation of feeding the guerrilla, they shot [them] from outside the house and then set fire to it. As a result of this action, 92 people died, among them elderly people, children and women. The remaining people who escaped the massacres fled to the mountain, where -- with EGP help -- they lived in mobile groups so they would not be detected by the Army. They were on permanent watch to avoid being surprised by the PAC and the soldiers. The Army destroyed the cornfields and any planted areas found. "The Army cut all of our harvest, cut it into pieces so that we would die of hunger." They had no medical assistance or medicines in the mountain. They ate vegetable roots, palm fronds, and hunted wild animals. An undetermined number of men, women, and children died victim to forced displacement. Many stayed in the mountains for five years. One declarant fought against leaving the mountains, he said: "Here I can die of hunger but not from bullets." Months after the 13 March 1982 massacre, the INDE started to fill the dam. As a declarant stated: "After the massacre, the people left and the dam was filled. It was that easy."
With the Amnesty declared in 1983 and under the protection of the Coban Dioceses, the survivors came down from the mountains. After passing through Coban, they dispersed throughout Guatemala. One part went to Escuintla, Retalhuleu and other areas in Guatemala, and other campesinos returned to Rabinal. This last group was resettled in the village of Pacux, located behind the military outpost in Rabinal. They were forced to form a PAC with the objective, according to what they were told, "to avoid that the guerrilla attacks, like those in Rio Negro, would occur again." The living conditions in Pacux were precarious and that land was not adequate for their subsistence agriculture. The lands were "poor, not useful for anything, not even for grazing for our animals." The INDE still has not complied with the promise to give equal or better lands to the affected. Neither have the lands, where the displaced people settled, been legalized. Currently in Rio Negro itself, twelve families live in extreme poverty. Furthermore, the inhabitants of Xococ still consider the Rio Negro survivors as guerrillas. And the latter consider the former assassins. On 23 August 1993, four members of the community, with the help of the Mutual Support Group (GAM), denounced these events in the justice system. On 25 July 1994, three members of the Xococ PAC that participated in the Rio Negro Massacre of 13 March 1982 were detained and accused. The exhumation began on 7 October 1994. On 27 May 1996, the oral case was suspended because the defense solicited the application of the 32-88 Amnesty, which was denied in all the judicial instances. After multiple diligences, on 9 November 1998 the oral trial begin. This trial ended with the condemnation, issued the 30 November 1998 by the Sentencing Tribunal of Rabinal, in which the first instance declared the death sentence against the three former PAC members, accused as the material authors of the Rio Negro massacre. The lawyer for the prosecution told the news media: "The judicial case will remain open so that in the same form, the intellectual authors of the Rio Negro and Agua Fria massacres will be brought to justice." On 19 December 1997, the CEH solicited information from the National Defense Ministry on the Rio Negro massacre and other petitions. The Minister of National Defense responded on 5 January 1998, that he would refrain from commenting since this was a judicial case. IV. CONCLUSIONSAfter analyzing the information in their power, the CEH came to the full conviction that members of the Guatemalan Army, with the Xococ PAC, arbitrarily assassinated 177 defenseless persons (including women and children) in Rio Negro, Rabinal on 13 March 1982 and thereby violated their human rights. This violation of the right to life cannot be justified by the collaboration that the victims might have given to the guerrilla. The CEH concludes that the killing of all the women and children of the Rio Negro community on 13 March 1982, the arbitrary assassinations of other members of the community (following the massacres), and the [harsh] life conditions [of] the survivors (which did occur in their forced displacement), demonstrate the intention of the Army to fully or partially destroy said community, independent of the motivations of the [material] authors, which makes this an act of genocide. Connecting this massacre with other acts of violence and human rights violations that proceeded or followed them, the CEH considers this case is exemplary of the cultivation of neighboring community feuds during the armed conflict, and in which the Civil Patrols were used for criminal acts. According to the CEH judgment, this case illustrates how the civilian population, that was not part of the armed conflict, ended up becoming involved in the guerrilla, due to their many acts of [pacific] resistance to the construction of the hydroelectric dam. [These acts of resistance] were conceived as instigated by the guerrilla and were responded to via violent repression. Dear friends, There is much public education and advocacy work to be done with this campaign. Along with the surviving victims of the Chixoy Dam massacres, WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL AND ADVOCACY SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGE YOU to take on this issue as one that your organization can work on. We will support your efforts in any way we can. For more information about this campaign, and our work, contact our offices. Thank-you. GENERAL INFORMATION CANADA Contact: Grahame Russell UNITED STATES Contact: Eva Morales GUATEMALA Annie Bird in the CZECH REPUBLIC E: anniebird@hotmail.com <<<
I. Background |
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