Guatemala:
Report blames US-backed army for deaths

A truth commission set up to seek reconciliation after Guatemala's 36-
year civil war has blamed the US-backed army for most of the 200,000 deaths 
and disappearances that occurred during the conflict.

The commission, created under 1996 peace accords, found the army 
responsible for 93 percent of the deaths. The Guatemalan National 
Revolutionary Unity was blamed for three per cent, while four per cent 
remain unsolved. The commission looked into about 42,000 deaths from the 
war.

About 150,000 people were killed in the decades of fighting, and 50,000 
disappeared — many of whom are presumed dead.

The report by the Commission for Historical Clarification was Guatemala's 
first major step in healing the division in the country since a US-backed 
coup put rightists in power in 1954.

The report also noted that "the Government of the United States, through 
various agencies including the CIA, provided direct and indirect support 
for some state operations."

That support helped Guatemalan military and paramilitary units take part in 
executions as well as kidnapping and torture, The New York Times 
quoted a staff member of the commission as saying.

The panel also found evidence that the US had knowledge of the genocide.

However, American Ambassador Donald Planty downplayed the US role, saying 
the abuses were "committed by Guatemalans against other Guatemalans ... (as 
a) result of an internal conflict."

The commission has no power to bring those responsible for the killings to 
trial or impose sanctions. But the report recommended the Government begin 
a formal investigation into the army's actions and remove military officers 
found to have participated in the killings.

Protesters outside Guatemala City's National Theatre jeered army officers 
who arrived to hear the presentation of the report with chants of "killers, 
killers! We want justice."

Defense Minister General Hector Barrios Celada refused to comment on the 
commission's findings.

A Roman Catholic Church report released in April 1998 blamed the army for 
80 percent of the killings. The bishop who headed the church investigation 
was bludgeoned to death at his home in Guatemala City two days after its 
release. An investigation into the slaying continues.

The truth commission's report, based on testimony from 9,200 people from 
all sides in the conflict, found that most of the war's victims were 
civilians and Mayan Indians, whom the army considered "natural allies" of 
the democratic forces.

"They completely exterminated Mayan communities, destroyed their dwellings, 
livestock and crops", the report said. It recorded 626 massacres, of which 
only 32 were the fault of the anti-government forces.

Christian Tomuschat, a German citizen who heads the three-member 
commission, said it was "clearly genocide and a planned strategy against 
the civilian population. The army provided direct and indirect support for 
some state operations."

Rigoberta Menchu, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, said she was satisfied 
with the report.

"I am very happy. I feel that I have accomplished a mission, that we who 
have worked for justice have accomplished a mission", she said.

But Menchu said she would not forgive those responsible for the killings 
until the army concedes that such massacres were part of a planned strategy 
of intimidation. Army officials have said the massacres were excesses on 
the part of individual officers.