The cases analyzed here are inter-related to the extent that they form part of the policy of terror that the Guatemalan State planned and implemented in various forms in order to control all aspects of social life. This technique has been used historically by economically dominant sectors and by the Guatemalan government in order to remain in power.

Structural in nature, but with variations during different time periods, terror has been applied in regions with very different socio-cultural and geographical characteristics, as is the case with the three municipalities included in this study. Studies conducted on terror in the sixties and early seventies found that it was applied in regions of greater capitalist development in response to the disparities produced in production relationships, especially in the agricultural sphere (CIDCA: 1980). This interpretation, valid in its context, implied that regions populated heavily by people of Mayan origin were beyond the scope of repression, given the scarcity or non-existence of capitalist-style production. These regions have been characterized by a subsistence economy and by the seasonal participation of significant segments of the population in production for export elsewhere in the country.

Nonetheless, the deteriorating standard of living of the majority of this population prompted new social processes which, although economic to start with, developed political and ideological characteristics. In this regard, some studies on the subject have mentioned the emergence and development of phenomena such as "sociological awakening," "consciousness-raising," or "spiritual renewal" among rural populations of Mayan origin, which enabled them to construct a political vision more in tune with their reality and, with this vision, define their role in ongoing processes.

In contrast to the sixties when the detonators of popular struggles were economic in nature, in the eighties, in addition to extreme poverty, subjective conditions and political factors prompted the growth of key adversarial movements expressing their demands in the countryside and urban centers. And it was government intransigence and repression that radicalized some of these movements, leading to their decision to politically support or join the armed insurgency.

As has been apparent throughout this study, the government response spared no social cost to stem growing grassroots involvement in processes for change. The counterinsurgency strategy of the eighties spread to every sector of the country, especially to those who demonstrated a real or presumed potential to support the armed insurgency, namely, the peasants and indigenous populations.

The government counterinsurgency war against the civilian population had economic, political, and ideological components, in addition to military. The immediate impact is reflected in the figures presented in this study. The long-term effects on most of the population have yet to be revealed, perhaps for deliberate reasons such as the denial of the existence of internally displaced persons for many years, or simply because the symptoms of the social and psychological effects of terror are still unknown or confused.

The tables and graphs that follow compare the quantitative results of the repression in the three municipalities studied. The figures presented indicate the magnitude the psychosocial effects of terror may reach, given the number of direct and indirect victims in each of these communities.

Table 4.1 includes figures of fatalities from individual or multiple murders and corpses discovered.

Table 4.1
Number of Homicides by Municipality and Semester

Note: this table includes only victims identified by at least one name and one surname.
Source: testimonies given to the CIIDH, based on tables 1.1, 2.1, and 3.1

Graph 17 shows the differences in the use of terror in the three municipalities. In the case of Nebaj, they are presented by semesters, during which the number of victims rise and fall. In other words, repression is a constant that most likely reacted to organizational levels in the community: the more intense and widespread, the more difficult to eliminate in time and space.

In the case of Rabinal, the line indicates a progression that ranges from the use of selective terror tactics to the concentrated application of mass terror between July and December 1982 during which all organization existing in the municipality was, in fact, eliminated. Finally, the line representing Santo Domingo Suchitepéquez, although much lower, also illustrates a process and defines a trend that remains constant for a specific period of time, during which repressive acts were possibly concentrated in order to eliminate all attempts to organize.

Graph 17
Number of Homicides by Municipality and Semester

* homicides include individual murders, multiple murders, and corpses found
Note: only the perpetrators with the most victims in the three municipalities appear.
Source: CIIDH, based on Table 4.1

Table 4.2 presents figures for victims of kidnapping, forced disappearance, and torture. These cases are classified separately since, although it is assumed that most cases led to death, no confirmation exists due to the characteristics of this type of violation. These figures are linked to a process of selective terror in the three municipalities, although the possibility that these types of actions were used in conjunction with mass, indiscriminate terror is not discarded.

Table 4.2
Number of Victims of Kidnapping, Disappearance, and Torture, by Municipality and Semester

Note: this table includes only victims identified by at least one name and one surname.
Source: testimonies given to the CIIDH, based on tables 1.1, 2.1, and 3.1

Finally, Graph 18 shows the correlation in space and time of the different types of violations. In Nebaj, for example, the trend is nearly identical to the case of murders, although quantitatively less. In the case of Rabinal, the line also indicates an evolution, although in this instance it reaches its peak six months before the period registering the highest number of deaths.

Graph 18
Numbers of Victims of Kidnapping, Disappearance, and
Torture by Municipality and Semester

Note: this table includes only victims identified by at least one name and one surname.
Source: testimonies given to the CIIDH, based on table 4.2

A previous stage of "cleaning out" of leaders can be envisioned, to be followed by the mass extermination of specific communities. In the case of Santo Domingo, a different sequence appears, in which these kinds of violations are more extended in time, as indicated earlier, with the probable goal of "preventing" the social involvement of the community.

It is hoped that with this analysis, the possibility will remain open of expanding our knowledge about this history which has, up until now, remained hidden. But it is also to deepen our knowledge of what is happening now, and will continue to happen as a result of the terror that characterized the past that many contrive to forget. As Ignacio Martín-Baró wrote:

It is not only alive among people and groups -- victims and victimizers -- but also continues to operate in unchanged social structures. Of course, that is the vacuum left by all of those thousands of people murdered, or ‘disappeared,’ a vacuum that continues to cause anguish to their relatives; but there is also the living wound of all those, probably equivalent to or surpassing the dead, who survived....

All of this damage is of such a magnitude that it becomes almost naive or cynical to pretend that it is forgotten over night. Because, underneath it all, it is not a problem of isolated individuals, few or many; it is a problem of a strictly social nature. The damage caused is not merely that of personal life destroyed; the damage has been done to the social structures themselves, and the rules that govern living together, and the institutions that govern the life of citizens, and the values and principles which were used to educate, and in the name of which they have tried to justify the repression (Martín-Baró: 1989).

Table of Contents