Guatemalan ex-soldiers sentenced to jail for 1982 massacre

[News_Editor]

Guatemalan ex-soldiers sentenced to jail for 1982 massacre

2011-08-04 12:06:26 GMT+7 (ICT)

GUATEMALA CITY (BNO NEWS) -- A Guatemalan court sentenced four former soldiers to jail on Wednesday for the killings of 201 peasants in 1982 during the country's civil war, the Prensa Libre newspaper reported on Thursday.

On December 7, 1982, a patrol consisting of 40 soldiers, including those sentenced, stormed the village of Las Dos Erres in the northern province of Peten, killing the 201 peasants. The army divided the population, sending the men to a nearby school and women and children to the evangelical church. There they blindfolded their victims before killing them and throwing them into a well.

Girls and women were reportedly raped before they were killed while those who were pregnant were forced to abort. According to the court, the attack began at noon and by the end of the evening all the 201 victims had been killed.

The newspaper reported that the soldiers were sentenced to 30 years in prison for each of the 201 killings they committed, totaling 6,030 years. The soldiers, who were members of the Kaibiles special unit of the Guatemalan military, also received 30 additional years for crimes against humanity.

It took 29 years for the victims' families to hear the convictions and the courtroom erupted in applause after the judge had finished reading the verdicts, the newspaper reported.

The court concluded that the motive for the massacre was that the military was seeking to recover 21 rifles which had been lost in a guerrilla ambush in October 1982. The military also suspected that the villagers were collaborating with left-wing guerrillas.

An estimated 200,000 people were killed during the 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996 after a peace agreement was signed.

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