GUATEMALA: ANTHROPOLOGISTS BEGIN EXHUMATION FROM MASS GRAVE IN RABINAL OF HUNDREDS OF VICTIMS OF MASSACRE ALLEGEDLY CONDUCTED BY ARMY AND POLICE IN 1981
Record ID:
647016
GUATEMALA: ANTHROPOLOGISTS BEGIN EXHUMATION FROM MASS GRAVE IN RABINAL OF HUNDREDS OF VICTIMS OF MASSACRE ALLEGEDLY CONDUCTED BY ARMY AND POLICE IN 1981
- Title: GUATEMALA: ANTHROPOLOGISTS BEGIN EXHUMATION FROM MASS GRAVE IN RABINAL OF HUNDREDS OF VICTIMS OF MASSACRE ALLEGEDLY CONDUCTED BY ARMY AND POLICE IN 1981
- Date: 12th August 2002
- Summary: (W1) RABINAL, GUATEMALA (AUGUST 12, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV/HAS: HILLS AND FIELDS AROUND EXCAVATION SITE (2 SHOTS) 0.12 2. WIDE OF EXCAVATION SITE 0.17 3. WS/SV/HAS: ANTHROPOLOGIST WORKING ON SITE (3 SHOTS) 0.41 4. HAS/TV: ANTHROPOLOGIST GOING DOWN INTO MASS GRAVE (2 SHOTS) 0.51 5. CU: MAYAN INDIAN WOMAN LOOKING TOWARDS GRAVE 0.59 6. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) (POOR SOUND QUALITY) JOSE SAMUEL SUASNAVAR, DIRECTOR OF ANTHROPOLOGIC FOUNDATION OF GUATEMALA, SAYING: "The allegation is that as many as 800 people are buried here. I am not saying that that is an exact number. There may be more. We are not sure how many are buried here." 1.09 7. PULL OUT/PAN DOWN: PEOPLE WATCHING THE SITE 1.21 8. CU: HUMAN SKULL BEING CLEANED BY ANTHROPOLOGIST 1.27 9. SCU: HUMAN REMAINS 1.38 10. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PEDRINA LOPEZ, SURVIVOR OF THE MASSACRE, SAYING: "According to family depositions, there are possibly one thousand people or more buried here because in Rabinal, the army massacred about 5,000 people." 1.52 11. SCU: MORE HUMAN REMAINS IN MASS GRAVE 2.00 12. SCU: BOARD SHOWING NAME OF SITE AND DATE 2.11 13. SCU: OLD MAN LOOKING INTO GRAVE 2.23 14. SV: TWO ANTHROPOLOGISTS WORKING IN GRAVE 2.33 15. SCU: REMAINS OF HUMAN BODIES 2.43 16. CU: HUMAN SKULL 2.49 17. SV: MAYAN PRIEST INSIDE GRAVE 2.55 Initials SEQ 6. POOR QUALITY ON SOUNDBITE Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 27th August 2002 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: RABINAL, GUATEMALA
- Country: Guatemala
- Reuters ID: LVA5KTYGMM85IZVJY1LH5FJT57IM
- Story Text: One of the darkest chapters of the civil war in Guatemala is being
exposed with the excavation of a mass grave where the bodies
of as many as 800 men killed by the army and police in 1981
were buried.
The bodies of hundreds of victims of a massacre allegedly
conducted by the Guatemalan army and police in 1981
are being exhumed from a mass grave in the town of Rabinal.
The excavation of the mass grave, some 160 kilometres
north of Guatemala City, exposes one of the darkest chapters
of 36 years of civil war in that country and one in which,
according to witnesses, the army killed as many as 5,000
civilians in Rabinal during an assault to that town 11 years
ago. The civil war ended in 1996.
The excavation is being conducted by the Anthropologic
Foundation of Guatemala, an independent entity financed by the
United States, Switzerland and Norway, among other donor
countries, with the tacit approval of the Guatemalan
government.
"The allegation is that as many as 800 people are buried
here. I am not saying that that is an exact number. There may
be more. We are not sure how many are buried here," said Jose
Samuel Suasnavar, director of the Anthropologic Foundation.
A survivor of the 1981 massacre, Pedrina Lopez, said that
"according to family depositions, there are possibly one
thousand people or more buried here because in Rabinal, the
army massacred about 5,000 people."
The mass grave is one of the five clandestine cemeteries
discovered in the Rabinal area. The Anthropological Foundation
plans to excavate all of them. One of them was found in a
private residence and the other four in the grounds of the
National Institute of Experimental Basic Education.
According to survivor Pedrina Lopez, on September 14, 1981
hundreds of troops, police and members of the paramilitary
group known as the Civil Self-defence Patrol assaulted
Rabinal, surrounded the main plaza and opened fire against the
civilian population.
The motive was suspicion that local residents were
protecting the rebels battling the government since 1960.
Lopez said that she witnessed the killing and kidnapping
of hundreds of men, among them her husband later found dead.
She said that the Guatemalan troops arrested about 800 men
and took them to a military camp, where they were finally
beheaded and buried in a nearby mass grave.
The excavation is the result of work initiated in 1992 by
a group of widows that presented to federal prosecutors more
than 1,800 testimonies supporting the theory of an army and
police massacre and demanded an investigation.
As part of the peace agreement of 1996, the Guatemalan
government accepted the investigation, conducted by an
independent body, the Anthropological Foundation, financed by
foreign donors.
Only four people have been charged and sentenced for the
deaths of thousands of Guatemalans during the 36 years of
civil war. They were sentenced to death, but the Guatemalan
Supreme Court suspended that sentence and commuted it to 30
years in prison.
LATAM/JRC
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