Abstract
Chapter 5, War in the Rebel Heartlands, is based upon extensive fieldwork carried out in the Ixil and Ixcán. The chapter details the evolution of the armed conflict and the accompanying political violence in the two case-study regions of the Ixcán and the Ixil respectively during the Lucas and Montt years. The discussion details the specific development of counterinsurgency strategy in the regions, focusing, in particular, upon the changing nature of political violence and the forms through which the civilian population became increasingly implicated in the violence and subject to military control. The discussion of each respective region will close with a detailed description of a single specific massacre perpetrated there, as a means of evidencing the systematic nature of the operative mechanisms of the genocide.
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Notes
- 1.
Interview with a campesino in Cantabal, Quiché.
- 2.
Interview, Santa María Tzejá, Quiché, October 2003.
- 3.
Interview, Guatemala City, September 2003.
- 4.
Interview. Cantabal, Quiché, October 2003.
- 5.
According to interviews, between December 1980 and January 1981, the guerrilla executed at least five informers. The most polemic execution was that of Victoriano Matías, a cooperative leader in Mayalán who had also directed cooperatives when Father William Woods was alive. In February 1981, the EGP ambushed and killed Héctor Pineda, a residente of Cocales, and also attempted to murder the deputy mayor, Jorge Fortunato Funes Argueta, in Santa María Candelaria.
- 6.
Interview, Cantabal, Quiché, September 2003.
- 7.
During this period, the Church was constantly harassed and threatened by the Army. Father Luis Gurriarán went into exile in Guatemala City after receiving death threats and on 19 December 1978, Carlos Stetter, a German priest who worked in the región, was deported from Guatemala.
- 8.
Interview, Cantabal, Quiché, October 2003.
- 9.
Runways were built in the following villages: Los Ángeles, Cuarto Pueblo, Samaritano, Mayalán, Pueblo Nuevo, Xalbal, San Luis Ixcán, Santiago Ixcán, Kaibil Balam, Playa Grande, Santa María Tzejá, San Antonio Tzejá, Finca Ascensión Copón, Finca Chailá and Santa María Dolores.
- 10.
Interview, Santa María de Tzejá, Quiché, October 2003.
- 11.
Bishop Gerardi was subsequently executed in April 1998, after the publication of the Church’s truth commission, Guatemala: Nunca Mas. In June 2001, three military officers, Colonel Byron Disrael Lima Estrada, Captain Byron Lima Oliva and José Obdulio Villanueva, were convicted of Gerardi’s murder, and sentenced to thirty year prison terms. A Catholic priest, Mario Orantes, was sentenced to twenty years as an accomplice to the murder.
- 12.
Interview, Cantabal, Quiché, October 2003.
- 13.
Interview, Santa María Tzejá, Quiché, September 2003.
- 14.
It is important to note that during this period, the National Security and Development Plan was implemented (on 5 April 1981).
- 15.
Interview, Cantabal, Quiché, September 2003.
- 16.
Interview, Cantabla, Quiché, October 2003.
- 17.
Interview, Santa María Tzejá, Quiché, October 2003.
- 18.
Xalbal, Mayalán, Pueblo Nuevo, Los Ángeles, Cuarto Pueblo, Piedras Blancas, Malacatán and Ixtahuacán Chiquito.
- 19.
The entire region of Ixcán was unified and incorporated into the municipality of Ixcán Grande on 21 August 1985.
- 20.
Interview, Cantabal, Quiché, October 2003.
- 21.
“La URNG Cumple 22 Años” (The URNG’s 22nd Anniversary). Interview, Alba Estela Maldonado, URNG, El Periódico, pp. 12–13 (01.02.2004).
- 22.
This is corroborated in the report of the CEH (1999 Vol. VII, Appendix I).
- 23.
Interview, Guatemala City, November 2003.
- 24.
Interview, Guatemala City, November 2003.
- 25.
Interview, Cantabal, Quiché, October 2003.
- 26.
Interview, Nebaj, Quiché, April 2002.
- 27.
Anonymous interview, Nebaj. Quiché, April 2002.
- 28.
Anonymous interview with a campesino from Tuchubuc, del Municipio de Santa Maria Nebaj, April 2002.
- 29.
Stoll posits a distinct interpretation of this incident, reporting that several of the protesters were guerrillas disguised as women who had infiltrated the demonstration as a pretext for attacking the military (1994: 78–80).
- 30.
Interview, Guatemala City, June 2002.
- 31.
According to interviews, the guerrilla again attacked the Cotzal military base seven months later, on 19 January 1982. Allegedly, three officials and an undisclosed number of soldiers died during the attack.
- 32.
Anonymous interview, Nebaj, Quiché, April 2002.
- 33.
Anonymous interview, Nebaj, Quiché, April 2002.
- 34.
Anonymous interview, Nebaj, Quiché, April 2002.
- 35.
Whilst massacres represented the most common modality of counterinsurgent violence, the insurgency also committed massacres. For example, in June 1982, the EGP slaughtered 125 people in the village of Chacalté, because they were regarded as ‘reactionaries’ for not supporting the insurgency (ODHAG 1998 Vol. 3: 175–177). This massacre, reportedly committed by the Ho Chi Minh Front, is one of the CEH’s illustrative case studies (see Illustrative Case Study 110 CEH 1999 Vol. 5). The guerrilla also committed massacres in Batzul, Chajul and Cotzal, between May and June.
- 36.
During the killing spree, massacres were also perpetrated in Juá (thirteen people), Covadonga (thirty-four people), Caxixlá (ten people), Ilom (110 people), San Francisco Javier and Vivitz. The military also destroyed the village of Tzalbal and its surrounding districts, including Batzuchil, Tzjulche, Canaquil, Vicoxo, Corralcay, La Vega, Nepecbalam, Xecoco, Majal, Janlay, Chuche, Xoloché, Vipacna and Tuchabuc (ODHAG 1998 Vol. 3: Chap. 4; Schirmer 1998; CEH 1999).
- 37.
The massacres did in fact continue beyond 1982, although with less frequency. In December, for example, soldiers killed twenty-three campesinos in Sumal Chiquito, Nebaj, and 300 people in Parraxtut, Sacapulas.
- 38.
In relation to the Chel massacre, see Illustrative Case Number 60 (CEH 1999).
- 39.
In his monograph on the Ixil, Stoll (1993) incorrectly attributes support to the rebels in the area as deriving exclusively from coercion of the non-combatant population by the EGP. Whilst direct coercion most certainly played a role in pushing the civilian population towards the guerrilla, as did fear of their reprisals and the search for protection from military repression, individuals and communities did develop a revolutionary exhilaration during the armed conflict. In some cases, Ixil did support the rebels voluntarily, as McAllister (2010) has cogently evidenced for the case of the Chupol community in El Quiché. From the perspective of Elisabeth Wood (2003: 259), Stoll’s conclusions are questionable, given that research was carried out when the region remained under military control. Wood also charges that the research suffered from selection bias, given that a third of the Ixil population at the time of research remained displaced or in exile from the region and those that would have been more likely to support the guerrilla were either dead or absent.
- 40.
Between 50,000 and 60,000 indigenous peoples populated the model villages (ODHAG 1998 Vol. 2: 141).
- 41.
In the Ixil region, Development Poles were situated in the municipality of Nebaj, Aldea Acul, Tzalbal, Juil-Chacalté, Río Azul, Pulaj, Xolcuay, Ojo de Agua, Santa Avelina, Bichibalá, Salquil-Palop Atzumbal, Juá-Ilom, Chel, Xemal/Xeputul, Chiché, and San Felipe Chenlá (ODHAG 1998 Vol. 2: 145).
- 42.
Interview, San Francisco Javier, April 2002.
- 43.
Interview, San Francisco Javier, April 2002.
- 44.
Interview, San Francisco Javier, April 2002.
- 45.
Interview, San Francisco Javier, April 2002.
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Brett, R. (2016). War in the Rebel Heartlands. In: The Origins and Dynamics of Genocide: . Rethinking Political Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39767-6_6
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