6 June 2008: The recent convictions of five Guatemalan paramilitaries for their role in the 1982 massacre of 177 indigenous women and children is an important step toward finding closure for the victims of the country’s 35 year long civil war. It remains to be seen, however, whether or not these convictions are little more than a token attempt at justice.

On March 13, 1982, almost 200 women and children from the village of Río Negro were marched into the highlands surrounding their small community, and systematically raped and murdered. The bloodbath, carried out by Guatemalan armed forces and civil defense patrols, was only one of four cruel massacres executed against the indigenous peoples of the Chixoy valley between February and September 1982, in which 369 people lost their lives.

The senseless brutality of the Río Negro massacres was part of a relocation campaign in preparation for the government-sponsored Chixoy Hydroelectric Project, a project funded by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. It was hailed as a development miracle providing increased power for Guatemala’s growing electricity needs. In order to construct it, however, the government forcibly displaced more than 3,500 Maya community members, and more than 6,000 families living in the area also suffered loss of land and livelihoods. When indigenous community members resisted, they were massacred, tortured and kidnapped. The viciousness of the relocations highlighted the savagery of Guatemala’s decades-long civil war, and shed considerable light on the abuses of Guatemala’s then president, Efrain Ríos Montt and his repressive military dictatorship. 

The Guatemalan Civil War, virtually unknown in the developed world, was particularly fierce. The conflict, lasting from 1960 until 1996, was often characterized by the indiscriminate targeting of civilians. The army commonly practiced torture and rape in an effort to terrorize. In fact, it is estimated that of the some 200,000 deaths and disappearances that resulted from the war, 90% were civilians.

The conviction on May 28th of five paramilitaries, former members of the Civil Patrols, for their role in the 1982 Río Negro massacre, is an important step towards finding justice for the victims of the conflict, yet it may be too little, too late.

The reality is that these most recent convictions, in which each man received a sentence of 780 years in prison, are a mere drop in the bucket. The Rio Negro massacre, although undoubtedly brutal, was just one of over 400 similar massacres spanning the 35 year conflict. The long-delayed arrest and conviction of five guilty men, while admirable, will do little to alleviate the pain felt by those most affected by the conflict. The truth is that most of the men responsible for the human rights abuses in Guatemala will go unpunished. Those most complicit, like Ríos Montt himself, who served in the Guatemalan Congress until his electoral defeat in 2004, will almost certainly remain untouched.

This is not uncommon in countries that have emerged from long civil struggles. From genocide and ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, to the injustices of Apartheid and the Jim Crow south, the pursuit of justice and reconciliation for victims who were often helpless in the face of armed and organized violence, are often hard fought, and usually distressingly superficial.

Guatemala is no different. The families of the murdered are still left without fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. Asking the victims and their families to forgive is sometimes asking too much, and asking the perpetrators to admit their crimes is equally difficult. 

This is not to say efforts at finding closure for those most grievously affected are without merit. Since 1992, teams of forensic anthropologists have discovered over 200 clandestine burial grounds, as well as some 2,000 previously unaccounted for bodies.  These discoveries are slowly helping lay the conflict to rest, and certainly provide a degree of closure for those victims’ families. 

The Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission, established in 1994 by the Oslo Accords as a means of assisting in achieving justice and reconciliation, was not authorized to name names, or to seek criminal prosecution, though it did identify responsible agencies and institutions. It helped remove the blanket of silence over the events of the darkest of years. However, there remain thousands of Guatemalans who are still in the dark about the fates of their loved ones, and most will never know the truth.