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Ixil Genocide Trial: There was “a clear intention to exterminate”
By Simón Antonio Ramón, Prensa Comunitaria, June 10, 2024
(Translated by Rights Action)
https://prensacomunitaria.org/2024/06/juicio-por-genocidio-ixil-existio-una-clara-intencionalidad-de-exterminar/
From June 4 to 7, during the 30th to 33rd days of the trial for genocide and crimes against humanity between 1981 and 1982, against former Army Chief of Staff Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, four people presented their expert reports.
Their expert testimony and evidence indicate that the Ixil population became a military objective and therefore had to be exterminated.
The expert reports indicate that the population was the victim of physical and sexual torture, extrajudicial executions, forced disappearance and forced displacement, crimes that fulfill the objective of genocide. These actions were carried out with the full knowledge of those at the top of the Army, including the President of the Republic at the time, Romeo Lucas García, and of U.S. officials.
Day 30, Tuesday, June 4
The crime of genocide
“The victims were victims of physical and sexual torture, extrajudicial execution and forced disappearance of their relatives -both individually and collectively-, threats, forced displacement... crimes that, in the opinion of this expert witness, comply with the elements of the crime of genocide.”
On the 30th day of the oral and public trial against Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, the Spanish lawyer Arsenio García Cores presented an expert report on international standards of credibility of testimonial evidence.
Benedicto Lucas García, interned in the Military Hospital and who is following the trial via videoconference, is accused of the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity, forced disappearance and sexual violence. The expert report was presented at the hearing on Tuesday, June 4 at the High Risk Court A, presided over by Judge Gervi Sical.
The military officer is being tried for the death of more than 844 people between August 16, 1981 and August 23, 1982, when he was Chief of Staff of the Army, during the military regime headed by his brother, Fernando Romero Lucas García.
For the elaboration of the expert's report, the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) facilitated interviews with 83 people, 43 women and 35 men who are currently between 39 and 84 years old. Of the 83 people, only nine new how to sign their names. In addition, 24 people were identified as belonging to the Ixil people, 12 from the Q'anjob'al people and one Ladino person, gave testimonies of 14 separate massacres.
The expert pointed out that two aspects stood out in the testimonies provided. First, about the people extrajudicially executed and disappeared, and second, about the common facts gathered in the testimonies. When the persons interviewed were asked whether those responsible for the massacres were members of the army or guerrilla groups, they did not hesitate to point the finger at the army.
The events on trial also affected other peoples, as is confirmed in the testimony of María Pascual Mateo, a Mayan Q'anjob'al woman. "The army told us the day of the massacre that we should take off our clothes, that we had to wear different clothes. After the massacre we Q'anjob'ales stopped using our traditional red clothes. I believe that many of the Q'anjob'ales stopped using the traditional wear for fear of the army", she indicated.
When presenting his conclusions, the expert witness pointed out that he used the categories of credibility, coherence, congruence and verisimilitude as established by different international conventions, so the testimonies comply with the established parameters.
“Therefore, and for the purposes of this expert opinion, it can be considered credible, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the victims were victims of different serious crimes, including physical and sexual torture, extrajudicial execution and forced disappearance of their relatives -both individual and collective-, threats, and forced displacement,” said expert witness Arsenio Garcia.
The crimes pointed out in the testimonies were committed by the Guatemalan army between 1978 and 1982, during the military regime of Fernando Romero Lucas García, brother of the accused Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, “crimes that at least and in the opinion of this expert witness comply with definition of the crime genocide”, assured the expert.
The malicious litigation of the IDPP
Benedicto Lucas' lawyers, Teresa Martinez and Carmen Peralta, both appointed by the Institute for Public Criminal Defense (IDPP), filed two separate protests against the expert's report. The first request was against the extension of the expert's report and the second calling for the annulment of the expert's report because the expert is not affiliated with the Guatemalan Bar Association (Colegio de Abogados y Notarios de Guatemala - CANG).
Both requests were rejected by both the Public Prosecutor's Office and the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The Court rejected the requests because they did not meet the legal requirements.
Day 31, Wednesday June 5th
“Extermination intentionality when referring to the Guatemalan civilian population”
The Canadian expert Marc Drouin presented expert testimony on the doctrine of counter-subversive warfare, where he pointed out that the Guatemalan army followed to the letter the doctrine of the French Military School and the doctrine of the School of the Americas of the United States, which identifies the population as the enemy that must be eliminated.
On the 31st day of the trial, Drouin indicated that in the military plans he evaluated he found patterns of military doctrines used by France in the war in Algeria and also from U.S. military manuals, disseminated in several countries.
The now accused, Benedicto Lucas García, was part of a group of cadets who rebelled against members of the liberationist movement and who provoked a revolt and took over the facilities of the Roosevelt Hospital on August 2, 1954. As a result of that revolt, three were arrested and subsequently expelled from the Political School.
Doctrines of the French Military School
After his expulsion, Benedicto Lucas began working in the field and sometime later was notified that he would be sent to France on a scholarship to the Saint-Cyr School, which specialized in military studies.
Lucas Garcia specialized in the construction of bridges, roads and handling explosives. Upon his return to Guatemala, he trained elements of the army with new tactics and guerrilla, counter-guerrilla and operational exercises.
One of the concepts developed by the French School in the counter-subversive warfare doctrine was to focus on the internal enemy, identify the red zones and establish actions to eliminate them.
“The distinction of a counterinsurgency war that targets insurgents who have taken up weapons, the counter-subversive war is much broader since it considers the population and society as a whole, or any movement that could in the future potentially support an insurgent movement automatically becomes suspect: unionists, students, cooperative movements, catechists, etc.,” the expert affirmed.
Drouin pointed out that the French army developed concepts such as the Enemy's Political Administrative Organization that were later applied in Guatemala as the Subversive Administrative Organization (OPAS) and the Local Political Administrative Organization (OPAL), which were decisive in the Guatemalan military operations.
The Counter-Subversive Warfare Manual, delivered in 2006 to the Public Prosecutor's Office by the army, establishes among its purposes to develop this strategy to eliminate the entire enemy population and take war actions such as control, surveillance, detention and interrogation to annihilate the adversary and completely destroy the organization.
“There is an indication of an extermination intentionality when referring to the Guatemalan civilian population,” said the expert witness.
He pointed out that the operations began in Chimaltenango, Quiché and Ixcán. In the first phase, five thousand troops participated, later more joined.
US School of the Americas doctrines
In the case of the US doctrines, which appear in the Guatemalan army manuals, it is essential to identify vulnerabilities and disadvantages. The fusion of the two doctrines culminated in the strategy of “taking the water from the fish” as Víctor Manuel Ventura Arellano put it: “the water is to the fish as the civilian population is to the insurgency”, according to the expert.
Marc Drouin said that for the preparation of the expert report, he interviewed 176 people who gave testimonies of 13 massacres in 12 communities of the Ixil people, Santa María Nebaj, San Juan Cotzal and San Gaspar Chajul. He pointed out that during the period on trial approximately 35,000 people died in the Guatemalan highlands according to a US intelligence report.
Day 32, Thursday, June 6
“A clear intention to exterminate”
"At first there were assassinations and selective forced disappearances, then massacres and the destruction of foodstuffs such as corn and beans. That is a clear intention to exterminate."
The expert Marc Drouin pointed out that he found at least three documents that deal with the conceptual construction of the internal enemy. One of these documents is the Counter-Subversive Warfare Manual delivered by the army to the MP in 2006, which has no date of elaboration, but according to his references was written in 1980.
He also pointed out a thesis for promotion to the rank of colonel, which does not have the author's name but only a key on the cover titled “How to eradicate subversion in the department of Quiché”, in which he reflects on why the Ixil area has not been declared a red zone.
The document identifies the Ixil area as the place where the Ho Chi Minh Guerrilla Front of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) operated, and is identified as Vietnam in the publication.
The third document, although outside the time period under investigation, is in the Sofia Operations Plan. "The documents lead to identify that the internal enemy is any person who supports subversion. The region where he resides is considered a red zone."
Drouin pointed out that there was a change in the strategies of the operations. "At first there were assassinations and selective forced disappearances, then massacres and the destruction of foodstuffs such as corn and beans. "That is a clear intention to exterminate. That is why I mention the intention to substantially destroy the indigenous group that was 20 percent in the mortality rate,” said the expert.
Day 33, Friday, June 7
Declassified documents of the U.S. State Department
“They turned the civilian population of the Mayan Ixil ethnic group into a military objective by categorizing and identifying them as the internal enemy.”
On the 33rd day of the trial for genocide and crimes against humanity against former Army Chief of Staff Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, the Argentine expert witness with military rank, Edgar Benjamín Carloni, presented testimony related to military intelligence and operations. And expert witness Katerine Doyle of the National Security Archive (NSA) analyzed declassified US State Department documents on Guatemala from 1978 to 1982.
In his analysis, Carloni points out that the Army Chief of Staff, the chief of the second section of the Army General Staff and the chief of the third section of the Army were a single entity under the supervision of the General Commander of the Army, who is the President of the Republic.
Carloni stated that within the specific responsibilities of each of the section chiefs of the General Staff is to advise, plan, elaborate, disseminate, supervise all operations. Therefore, they, controlled and contributed to the development of the operations, so the Army Chief of Staff was informed all the time of how the operations were developing.
“They turned the civilian population of the Mayan Ixil ethnic group into a military objective by categorizing and identifying them as the internal enemy due to their support to the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EPG),” said the military expert in his conclusions.
The expert said that the characterization of the internal enemy was developed by the head of the intelligence section. “He makes an analysis with all his work team about individuals, groups or organizations and through illegal actions they try to break the established order,” Carloni said.
The United States always knew about it
The expert Katerine Doyle, international policy analyst of the National Security Archive (NSA), presented the expert report on the declassified documents of the US government on Guatemala from 1978 and 1981 during the period of Romeo Fernando Lucas Garcia, Manuel Benedicto's brother.
Doyle pointed out that her organization had access to 24 documents that have been classified into three groups: a first group related to the government's plans between 1980 and 1981, during which time Benedicto Lucas was named head of the Army General Staff, between August 1981 and March 1982.
A second is from 1982, the last months of Fernando Lucas García's government, which documents the level of operations in the communities of the Ixil people. A third group of documents date from after the fall of Lucas Garcia.
“The United States, with Ronald Reagan as president, wanted Guatemala to be its ally to stop communism in Nicaragua, but needed a change in the policies of combatting the guerrillas,” said Doyle.
The analyst confirmed the presence of different US government agents in Guatemala and the sources of the declassified documents. “Even though Guatemala is not a colony of the United States, there is always a presence such as the embassy, CIA stations and other agencies, to gather information for counterinsurgency reasons,” she said.
The government of Fernando Lucas García wanted the United States to be its ally in the anti-communist combat in Nicaragua, and to suspend the arms embargo imposed since 1977.
Military sweeping operations, known as scorched earth
The analyzed cables demonstrate knowledge of the military operations in the communities of the Mayan Ixil people, where the confrontations between the army and the guerrillas were few, but the Army Chief of Staff was happy because the sweeping operations, also known as scorched earth, were advancing.
After the fall of General Fernando Romeo Lucas García, the government of Ronald Reagan considered the incoming General José Efraín Ríos Montt as a new anti-communist ally in Central America.
The trial continues, with the presentation of more expert reports.
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