Chapter 1: A Few Essential Concepts
The CIIDH divides this category into two types of deprivation of life and, although juridical aspects are not examined here, it takes into account the method of commission, the existence of premeditation, perfidy, profit, etc. from a socio-political standpoint: in other words, based on criteria reflecting the counterinsurgency dynamics at play in the Guatemalan context during the period studied.
Is the act through which the death of a single individual is caused and in which it is assumed that the decision to eliminate that individual was made using a criterion of selectivity.
Is the act through which the death of more than one person is caused, in most cases, presumably, with massive or indiscriminate criteria. The terms massacre and mass murder (masacre y matanza) are considered to be equivalents for the purposes of this study.
This consists of discovering the lifeless body of one or more people who were killed in a single incident. In these cases, the exact place and time of death is not known, nor is there a description of the perpetrators since, in most cases, the victims were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in places other than where they were found. Using this criterion, CIIDH accepted all cases of discovery of corpses, especially those in which there were signs of torture or capture (evidence of having been tied up with sophisticated equipment -- handcuffs -- or rudimentary equipment -- wire, cord, etc), or corpses which were found with a point-blank gunshot wound to the head. In this study, this category is identified in the tables with quantified data as "Corpse(s)."