By Emily Willard and Laura Perkins
[Updated]
This past Tuesday marked a landmark event for human rights in Guatemala with the sentencing of Daniel Martínez Hernández, Manuel Pop Sun, Reyes Collin Gualip, and Carlos Antonio Carías to a total of 24,246 years in prison, for their roles in the 1982 massacre in Dos Erres, El Petén, Guatemala. Each defendant faces 30 years in prison for the murder of each of the 201 victims identified in the trial, with an additional 30 year sentence for crimes against humanity, bringing the total to 6,060 years each. Carlos Antonio Carías faces an additional six years for committing grand theft.
The massacre, which occurred in December 1982, was perpetrated by a company of 40 Kaibiles, Guatemala’s elite Special Forces unit. The group, including the four defendants, entered the village in search of 21 rifles lost in a previous ambush by guerrillas, and proceeded to methodically kill more than 250 men, women, and children. The villagers were beaten, raped, and thrown into the community’s well.
While the immediate response of those in the court room was of relief that justice had finally been served, critics point out that justice was only acknowledged for 201of the more than 250 victims.
Ana Lucia Cuevas*, sister of disappeared student activist Carlos Ernesto Cuevas who appeared in the Death Squad Diary, commented on the news of the Dos Erres Conviction, (and the recent success in the court case of the people of Choatulun, and Fernando Garcia):
“… these are evidence that some small cracks are appearing in this wall of impunity that has plagued the democratic process in our country for so long like some an endemic disease.”
The National Security Archive has a number of declassified U.S. documents relating to the Dos Erres case. You can access this electronic briefing book on the Archive’s website to see the documents and analysis, “Ex-Kaibil Officer Connected to Dos Erres Massacre Arrested in Alberta, Canada.”
For more information about other Kaibiles that have been arrested, see Kate Doyle’s two previous blogs here and here.
*Ana Lucia Cuevas is in the process of creating a documentary, “To Echo the Pain of Many”. The documentary is about the story of searching for evidence to find out what happened to her brother Carlos Ernesto Cuevas who was disappeared by Guatemalan security Forces in 1984. The Spanish-language version of the film is expected to be released this fall, see the trailer here.
