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The Guatemalan government, using the Guatemalan Army and its counter-insurgency force, who called themselves 'killing machines' began a systematic campaign of repressions and suppression against the Mayan Indians, whom they claimed were trying to do a communist coup.
The Genocide
The two year killing spree was also called the Silent Holocaust. Working across the Mayan region, the army , including 'civil patrols' of forcibly conscripted local men, attacked 626 villages. Each community was rounded up, or seized when gathered already for a celebration or a market day. The villagers, if they didn't escape, were then brutally murdered; others were forced to watch, and sometimes to take part. Buildings were vandalised and demolished, and a 'scorched earth' policy applied, the killers destroyed crops, slaughtered livestock, fouled water supplies, and violated sacred places and cultural symbols.
Children were often beaten against walls, or thrown alive into pits where the bodies of adults were later thrown; they were also tortured and raped. Victims of all ages often had their limbs amputated, or were impaled and left to die slowly. Others were doused in petrol and set alight, or disembowelled while still alive. Yet others were shot repeatedly, or tortured and shut up alone to die in pain. The wombs of pregnant women were cut open. Women were routinely raped while being tortured.
Covert operations were also carried out by military units called Commandos, backed up by the army and military intelligence. They carried out planned executions and forced 'disappearances'. Death squads, largely made up of criminals, murdered suspected 'subversives' or their allies; under dramatic names, such as 'The White Hand' or 'Eye for an Eye', they terrorised the country and contributed to the deliberate strategy of psychological warfare and intimidation.
The State and Army commited 93% of the human rights violations in guatamala.
International Community
