Ex-soldiers protest in Guatemala to get civil war payment
By Associated Press
Today at 8:17 p.m. EDT
GUATEMALA CITY — Former soldiers who are demanding they be paid a war-time bonus for serving in Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war burst onto the grounds of the country’s congress building Tuesday and set several vehicles on fire.
The protesters broke down gates leading into the building’s parking lot and torched at least three vehicles. Some of the demonstrators apparently carried machetes, and some congress employees fled over a rooftop to escape.
Legislator Carlos Barreda wrote on his Twitter account that some of his colleagues were trapped inside the building. Another legislator, Luis Fernando Pineda, wrote that the ex-soldiers set fire to offices adjoining the parking lot.
Soldiers eventually showed up to force the protesters out. The civil war pitted the army and police against leftist rebels. It ended with the signing of peace accords in 1996.
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ex-soldiers-protest-in-guatemala-to-get-civil-war-payment/2021/10/19/15685fdc-313b-11ec-8036-7db255bff176_story.html
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Examples of their handiwork:
RIO NEGRO MASSACRES
. . .
In 1981, the Guatemalan government began destroying villages as part of the scorched earth campaign, and relocating communities in ‘model villages’ that could be easily controlled and monitored by the army and also provide cheap labor to neighboring towns. The government also created Civil Defense Patrols, made up of armed locals, often forcefully recruited. One such patrol was created in the village of Xococ, near Rio Negro.
In February 1982, villagers in Rio Negro were instructed to bring their identification cards to Xococ. When the villagers reached the town they were murdered by the Xococ Patrol. One woman escaped and returned to Rio Negro to warn the other villagers. The men of the village decided to flee and hide in the hills leaving the women and children in the village, under the assumption they would not be harmed. The next month Civil Patrols from Xococ arrived in Rio Negro, under the pretense of guerrilla activity in the area, and massacred the women and children, killing 177.
Two months later, 84 more people were killed in ‘Los Encuentros’, Rio Negro, and fifteen women were abducted. Then, in September, 92 villagers were burned alive, including survivors of previous massacres. Of Rio Negro’s almost 800 Maya-Achí inhabitants, 444 were killed in the massacres between 1980 and 1982.
More:
https://www.ghrc-usa.org/our-work/important-cases/rio-negro/
Loved ones of murdered indigenous people carrying remains from a mass grave to be buried in personal graves.
You've done a heck of a job, death squad soldiers.
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