Abstract
In Chap. 5, Brutality Unhinged: The Counterinsurgent Response, we examine the evolution of the counterinsurgency strategy aimed at defeating the guerrilla during the government of General Romeo Lucas García (1978–1982) and the de facto presidency of General Efraín Ríos Montt (1982–1983). As we shall see, counterinsurgency strategy evolved over time, evolving from low-intensity repression, including intimidation, kidnapping and selective killings, to the massacres that represented the blunt instrument of the genocide. In the aftermath of the massacres, elaborate institutional frameworks were adopted to subject the population to military control, frameworks that reinforced the impact of the massacres. In this regard, military strategy gradually assumed a dual logic characterised by direct confrontation with the guerrilla and the destruction of the rebel’s social base through a campaign of mass, organised killing. The chapter plots the evolution of the counterinsurgency within an historical framework, detailing how the political and economic context, the emerging guerrilla threat and the increasing protagonism of indigenous and peasant populations shaped the military’s response.
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Notes
- 1.
The four guerrilla factions unified on 19 January 1980, within the National Guatemalan Revolutionary Unity (URNG). According to Garrard-Burnett, the alliance had been encouraged by the Cuban government, which subsequently provided it with additional training and support, including automatic weapons. The alliance mirrored the unification process undergone by insurgent forces in El Salvador years previously (2010: 40).
- 2.
See Garrard-Burnett’s monograph on the Montt years for an excellent analysis of the early years of the armed conflict.
- 3.
According to Rosada-Granados, objective conditions in the 1970s intensified the causes of the armed conflict. Said conditions included overpopulation; lack of land distribution; the adoption of new agricultural technologies; the impact of external actors, such as the church, guerrillas, the state and political parties, upon indigenous communities; the crisis in the peasant economy; frustration with electoral frauds; and expropriation of land, particularly in Franca Transversal del Norte (2011: 137).
- 4.
The embargo on military and economic aid to Guatemala remained in place until the Reagan presidency in 1980. In this context, the Guatemalan Army sought alternative sources of finance during this period, receiving aid and arms from Switzerland (airplanes), Israel (Galil assault rifles and airplanes), Belgium (arms), the former Yugoslavia (arms), Spain (mortars), Argentina and Chile. Under Reagan, pilots belonging to the Guatemalan Air Force were trained at the Bell Corporation in Fort Worth between January and March 1982. It is alleged that Reagan approved secret military and economic assistance until the prohibition was lifted in 1982. Shortly after Ríos Montt came to power, the Reagan administration removed Guatemala from its ‘black list’ of countries responsible for human rights violations (Black et al. 1984: 119–130; Ball et al. 1999) Between 1980 and 1981, the Reagan administration provided $10.5 million worth of Bell helicopters and $3.2 million worth of military terrestrial transport vehicles to the Guatemalan military (Ball et al. 1999). According to Schirmer, the CIA also covertly provided the Guatemalan military with ‘technical assistance…special firearms, and collaborative use of CIA-owned helicopters’ (1998: 170).
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
As Kemp has correctly observed, the DSN proposed that a ‘state may legitimately employ military force against an ideological threat within the national territory with the aim of protecting national security’ (p. 107).
- 8.
Lucas García, speech to the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Powers, 1 July 1981, cited in Kemp (unpublished document, p. 105).
- 9.
See Schirmer (1998: 43) for a similar argument.
- 10.
Anonymous interview, Nebaj, Quiché, April 2002.
- 11.
Interview, Juan Francisco Forno, Guatemala City, 10 June 2013.
- 12.
See Mc Cleary (1997, 1999) and Kemp (unpublished document) for a detailed analysis of the fragmentation within the establishment. Kemp argues unequivocally that the regime was highly corrupt and self-serving, in particular through its endorsement of Angel Anibal Guevara as presidential candidate for the 1980s elections.
- 13.
- 14.
Interview, Guatemala City, 5 June 2013.
- 15.
Kemp cites the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ estimation that, in 1982, the Guatemalan Armed Forces was composed of 18,550 individuals. Schirmer estimates that during Ríos Montt’s regime, this was increased to a total of 36,000 (p. 407). For the latter, military bases throughout the country, including highland, central, northern and coastal Guatemala, were utilised; the military was mandated to coordinate with the National Police.
- 16.
These villages included Santa Anita las Canoas, San Francisco Javier, Plan de Sánchez, Chipastor, Petanac, Vivitz, San Francisco Nentón, Rancho Bejuco, Puente Alto, La Plazuela, Xeucalbitz, Sumal, Nebaj, Tzalbal, Palop, Río Azul and Agua Fría (Brett 2007).
- 17.
The officers belonging to the High Command or the Senior Campaign Staff in the field included lieutenants, colonels, majors and captains. The commander of each military zone was usually a colonel and received direct orders from the military high command under the command of Montt.
- 18.
The CEH documented a total of 626 cases of massacres committed by the Guatemalan Army, security forces and paramilitary structures (1999: 46). In this framework, the CEH estimates that between 70 % and 90 % of the communities there were razed in the Ixil region (1999). The Ixil population was reduced by 26 % as a result of the combination of massacres (5 %) and displacement (21 %) (Brett 2015, forthcoming).
- 19.
According to REMHI, between 50,000 and 60,000 indigenous peoples populated the model villages in the Ixil region alone (ODHAG 1998: Vol. 2. 141).
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Brett, R. (2016). Brutality Unhinged: The Counterinsurgent Response. In: The Origins and Dynamics of Genocide: . Rethinking Political Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39767-6_5
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