Confused About Genocide in Guatemala? Apparently You're Not Alone
Wednesday, 29 May 2013 12:42By Laura Powell, Council on Hemispheric Affairs | News Analysis
The former Guatemalan military dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt at a hearing in Guatemala City, Jan. 31, 2013. (Photo: Victor J. Blue / The New York Times)Amazingly enough, there seems to be some confusion about whether or not genocide actually occurred in Guatemala’s lengthy civil war (1960-1996). This unlikely debate has come to life due to the ongoing trial of former dictator General José Efraín Ríos Montt, charged with genocide and crimes against humanity committed during his brief but highly violent reign (1982-1983). The Council on Hemispheric Affairs recently published a number of articles regarding the Ríos Montt trial and the genocide in Guatemala.
These articles sparked debate both on COHA’s website and social media outlets, with some users declaring that genocide did not occur in Guatemala. As one reader has pointed out, ‘killing’ and ‘genocide’ are not, in fact, synonyms (so we cannot talk about the ‘genocide’ in Guatemala because what occurred were really just mass ‘killings’). According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, genocide “goes beyond a crime against life since it constitutes a crime against humanity by someone who intentionally seeks to totally or partially destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Moreover, Article II, Paragraph 109 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948—which, we must stress, was ratified by the Guatemalan State Decree 704 on November 30, 1949—states“genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious groups, such as:
a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
On this basis, the two fundamental elements of the crime are: intentionality and that the acts committed include at least one of the five previously cited in the [list] above.”
So now that we have a better idea of what ‘genocide’ actually entails, let us be very clear: the authors of COHA’s recent analyses on Guatemala have not come to the conclusion, arbitrarily and independently, that genocide occurred in Guatemala. The United Nations—an international organization with a stated aim of facilitating the protection of human rights—determined that genocide occurred in Guatemala. Through the Accord of Oslo on June 23, 1994, the United Nations with the cooperation of the Government of the Republic of Guatemala formed the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) in order to “clarify with objectivity, equity and impartiality” the acts of violence and potential human rights violations connected to the armed conflict in Guatemala; “the Commission was not established to judge…but rather to clarify the history of the events of more than three decades of fratricidal war.”
The commission included two Guatemalans who survived their country’s period of brutal violence, so it is not possible to argue that the commission itself was unfamiliar with on-the-ground situations. The commission heard thousands of testimonies, listened to former heads of state as well as military and guerilla leaders, and read documents from a variety of civil organizations. The commission’s 1999 report, titled “Guatemala: Memory of Silence,” represents nearly a year of research and investigation.
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