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

  • 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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