February 26, 1999
Guatemalan Army Waged 'Genocide,' New Report Finds
By MIREYA NAVARRO
GUATEMALA, Feb. 25--A truth commission report made public today concluded that the United States gave money and training to a Guatemalan military that committed ''acts of genocide'' against the Mayans during the most brutal armed conflict in Central America, Guatemala's 36-year civil war.
The report, by the independent Historical Clarification Commission, contradicts years of official denials of the torture, kidnapping and execution of thousands of civilians in a war that the commission estimated killed more than 200,000 people.
Although the outlines of American support for Guatemala's military have been well known, the nine-volume report confirms that the Central Intelligence Agency aided Guatemalan forces. [Excerpts, page A10.]
The commission listed the American training of the officer corps in counterinsurgency techniques as a key factor that ''had a significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed confrontation.''
Christian Tomuschat, the German jurist who headed the panel, said, ''The United States Government, through its constituent structures, including the Central Intelligence Agency, lent direct and indirect support to illegal state operations.''
That support helped Guatemalan military and paramilitary units engage in kidnapping, torture and executions, a staff member of the commission said. The aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the panel also found evidence that the United States had knowledge of genocide and still supported the Guatemalan military.
The commission, set up as a part of a United Nations-supervised peace accord that ended the war in 1996, concluded that either the Government or allied paramilitary groups were to blame for more than 90 percent of the 42,000 humans rights violations, 29,000 of which resulted in deaths or disappearances. That attributes a somewhat higher percentage of deaths to the Government and its allies than did a report last year by the Roman Catholic Church.
The commission, which conducted an 18-month investigation, specifically named military intelligence as the organizer of illegal detentions, torture, disappearances and executions, but it stopped short of identifying individuals responsible.
As the conclusions were read at a solemn ceremony at the National Theater, rights workers, relatives of victims and others among the 2,000 people broke into standing ovations, sobs, shouts and chants of ''Justice! Justice!''
The outbursts repeatedly interrupted the presentation as President Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen and Cabinet members sat silently in the first row.
While the scope of the bloodshed had been generally known, the report today is the first by an internationally supported panel to blame the Government and its military allies. In unexpectedly strong language, it describes the policy of the Government and military at the height of the war as genocide.
The report's estimate of more than 200,000 deaths is slightly higher than previous figures, and the number of documented massacres substantially exceeds previous figures.
The war, which began in 1960, pitted a rightist military-controlled Government against a classic Latin American left-wing insurgency. In waging a war largely in the hinterlands where Mayans lived, the military assumed that the Mayans sympathized with the insurgents and provided them with supplies, information and shelter.
As a consequence, entire Mayan villages were attacked and burned and their inhabitants were slaughtered in an effort to deny the guerrillas protection. The report said the Mayans paid the highest price when the military identified them as natural allies of the guerrillas.
The result, the report said today, was an ''aggressive, racist and extremely cruel nature of violations that resulted in the massive extermination of defenseless Mayan communities.''
Mr. Tomuschat, the chairman, said, ''The results of our investigation demonstrate that, in general, the excuse that midlevel commanders acted with a wide margin of autonomy -- an excuse used in an attempt to justify what happened as 'excesses' and 'error' not ordered by superiors -- is unsubstantiated and totally lacking any basis.''
The commission recommended a national reparations program and exhumations of ''hundreds'' of bodies from clandestine cemeteries, and called on President Arzu and the former guerrilla commanders to assume responsibility and ask all Guatemalans for forgiveness.
The three-member commission and an international staff of 272 made extensive use of declassified documents from the United States, and the documents showed that American agencies fortified the Guatemalan armed forces with training in their anti-Communist campaign, the panel said.
Mr. Tomuschat said the investigation also found that until the mid-1980's, American companies and Government officials ''exercised pressure to maintain the country's archaic and unjust socio-economic structure,'' and that the C.I.A. supported illegal counterinsurgency operations.
Besides Mr. Tomuschat, the commission members were Edgar Balsells, a lawyer, and Otilia Lux Coti, a leading Mayan educator, both of Guatemala.
The commission did not give specific names of human rights violators, the result of military opposition during the peace talks to pointing fingers at individuals. But some victims' families said no true reconciliation could be achieved without judicial accountability.
''There has to be an end to impunity,'' said Helen Mack, whose sister, Myrna, was killed in 1990, it is believed, for her research on the refugees driven from their homes by the army. The case resulted in the only conviction yet of an army official for rights violations, and Ms. Mack is pursuing the trial of three other officers for her sister's murder.
Today, the weight of nine years of struggle with Guatemala's ineffective judicial system seemed to fall on her as she broke into tears as the commission's conclusions were read.
''We the victims feel vindicated,' she said later. ''No one can now tell us we're following lies or ghosts anymore.''
Guatemalan officials said today that they would have a response after they study the report. The army leadership has remained defiant, accusing international and national ''actors'' for their roles in the violence and insisting that the military acted under a constitutional mandate to defend the state from Communism.
Asked about the accusations against the C.I.A. by the commission, the spokesman for the intelligence agency, Bill Harlow, said: ''Since we have not seen the report, it would be inappropriate for us to comment.''
Donald Planty, the United States Ambassador, said, ''I believe that the report's focus is appropriate, that these were abuses committed by Guatemalans against other Guatemalans, the result of an internal conflict.'' The report did not ask the United States for reparations.
Defense Minister Hector M. Barrios, who has promised his own report on the war dead and injured, said today, ''I see as positive any effort that is made on behalf of peaceful coexistence in Guatemala.''
President Arzu left without comment after shaking hands with members of the commission and those formally receiving the report: Alvaro de Soto, a senior United Nations official, and representatives of the Guatemalan Government and the former guerrilla group, Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity.
Aides said protocol prevented the President from personally accepting the report, but that decision was seen by many here as intentionally distancing the Government from the commission's findings. At several points today, people in the theater shouted for the President to get up on stage and receive the report.
At the ceremony, the nine volumes were provided only to the representative of the government, the rebels and and the United Nations. The commission issued only an 86-page summary to the public.
Foreign Minister Eduardo Stein said the Government was already carrying out some recommendations, including compensation for victims, judicial reform and changes in the military. Political repression has been greatly reduced, by most accounts, and the guerrillas have regrouped as a political party. There has also been a rise of groups promoting the rights of indigenous people.
The changing times were underscored today when scores of Guatemalans openly confronted Government officials in angry outbursts.
But the country is still wrestling with its transition to a full democratic state. Stark poverty and economic inequalities remain. Despite a requirement under the peace accord that the army's size and role be reduced, monitors say the army still has a hold on internal affairs.
Just how fragile the peace is was shown last year when a Catholic defender of human rights, Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi, was beaten to death with a concrete block just days after announcing the results of a three-year investigation of abuses during the war. That report identified specific military officers and guerrilla groups, and church and rights groups say they believe that the killing was meant to pressure them into remaining silent.