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Guatemalans Commemorate Massacre Victims
The New York Times
July 20, 2004
Plan De Sanchez, Guatemala (AP) -- Guatemalans remembered 184 people who were killed in this small village 22 years ago, and called for punishment of those responsible.
The ceremonies, which began Sunday and ended Monday, commemorated the victims of an attack on the village on July 18, 1982, part of a military campaign to wipe out support for rebels in a civil war that continued until 1996.
Those killed included women, children and the elderly. They were among an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans who died in the country's 36-year civil war.
An Achi Mayan priest burned incense and prayed for peace for the village, 50 miles north of Guatemala City. Mourners gathered around him murmured their own prayers.
Buenaventura Manuel, a lumberjack who survived the massacre, said the ritual was partly meant to pray for punishment of those responsible.
``They shut the women in a house, they shot at it and finally they set it on fire. They separated out the young women and at the end of the massacre, they raped them and then killed them,'' Manuel said.
Those who died included Manuel's grandmother, mother and three sisters.
A human rights group has filed a criminal complaint of genocide that focuses on the Plan de Sanchez massacre along with several others. Prosecutors are weighing whether to bring charges against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who was in power at the time.
Rios Montt has denied ordering such massacres.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in March that the Guatemalan government was to blame for the July 18 massacre and a number of others. It is currently considering what action should be taken.
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