A Guatemalan judge ruled Sept. 8 that three soldiers charged in connection with a 1982 peasant massacre that left more than 260 dead will face trial. Of the 17 soldiers accused in the case, three were captured in Guatemala and four others have been detained in the US by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for illegally concealing their past military service and involvement in the killings on US immigration forms. The charges against the soldiers are based on the findings of a Truth Commission investigation monitored by the UN and completed in the late 1990s, which uncovered vast human rights abuses. The trials are the first for massacre crimes committed during the civil war years.

Other officials have faced judicial proceedings for crimes committed during the war years. Last December, a retired Guatemalan colonel was sentenced to 53 years in prison for his role in the disappearance of eight indigenous Guatemalans. In 2005, Guatemala formally apologized for the government-ordered peasant massacre that occurred in July 1982, where special forces soldiers are accused of killing 268 men, women and children of mostly Mayan descent in the village Dos Erres (Petéñ department). Vice President Eduardo Stein made the acknowledgment in a small town north of Guatemala City, expressing remorse for the army's action that "wipe[d] out an entire community." The apology came in response to an order from the Inter-American Human Rights Court, part of the Organization of American States, requiring an apology and payments to survivors totaling almost $8 million.

From Jurist, Sept. 9. Used with permission.

See our last posts on Guatemala and Central America.