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WORLD NEWSWednesday 3 January 2018
Bodies emerge from Guatemala’s war-era ‘model villages’
By MOISES CASTILLO
Associated Press
SANTA AVELINA, Guatema-
la (AP) — It wasn’t only bul-
lets and violence that killed
thousands of indigenous
people during Guatema-
la’s 1960-1996 civil war.
The government forced
tens of thousands of farm-
ers into so-called model
villages under strict army
control to isolate them from
the guerrillas. They were
promised health care and
other services, but instead
were left to die from malnu-
trition and treatable illness-
es. They weren’t included
in the casualty count in the
brutal conflict.
Now, in the hamlet of San-
ta Avelina, their bodies are
being unearthed, identified
and reburied. Among the
bodies are scores of indig-
enous children who died
from measles in the for-
mer model village, where
residents lived in small, dirt- Their bones and tattered
floor houses and sermons
and Christian hymns were
played from loudspeakers.
Miguel Torres, a 67-year-old
farmer, recalled how the
army occupied his commu-
nity and, under the threat
of accusing locals of being
guerrillas and then killing
them, made them live in
the model village.
“We were afraid every day.
They said if we weren’t
there in a week they would
burn the house. ‘We will
leave it in ashes,’” Torres re-
called soldiers saying.
The strategy unfolded dur-
ing the hardest years of the
decades-long war. In 1979
the army began relocat-
ing people who had been
displaced from the west-
ern mountains by fighting.
The army had identified
the Ixil indigenous region
as the support base of the
Guerrilla Army of the Poor,
one of Guatemala’s four
guerrilla groups. Thus the
99 inmates at large after prison riot in Brazil
SAO PAULO (AP) — Police
say 99 inmates are at large
following a prison riot that
left nine dead and 14 in-
jured in central Brazil.
The two-hour uprising oc-
curred Monday at the
Colonia Agroindustrial
Ixil region became a test-
ing ground for the kind of
‘strategic hamlet’ program
used by the United States in
In this Nov. 30, 2017 photo, villagers place the remains of their recently identified relatives killed
during the civil war, in niche graves at the cemetery of Santa Avelina, Guatemala. During the war,
villages like Santa Avelina were taken over by the army, with government funds, support from
U.S. evangelical churches, when then-dictator Efrain Rios Montt ruled Guatemala. About 250,000
people were killed or disappeared, overwhelmingly at the hands of soldiers.
Vietnam.
In 1980 the army formed
one of the first model villag-
es in Santa Avelina, located
in the heart of Ixil territory in they get scared they die.
Quiche department. But
without access to doctors,
a healthy diet and free-
dom, people began to die.
Exhumations in Santa Ave-
lina started in 2014 and in
late November forensic an-
thropologists handed over
the remains of 172 people
who perished during the
years of military control.
bits of clothing were re-bur-
ied individually by surviving
family members after over
more than three decades
in anonymous mass graves.
Torres recovered the re-
mains of his daughter Mag-
dalena, who died at about
prison in the Aparecida de
Goiania Complex in the
state of Goias.
The state’ Public Safety
and Prison Affairs Depart-
ment said Tuesday the riot
broke out when inmates
from one cellblock invad-
age 1 ½.
“The children were fright-
ened because the soldiers
came. The people ran up
the mountain to hide. They
thought they were going
to die, that they had had
come to kill them. When
Sometimes they got diar-
rhea, fever, and they died.”
That’s how Torres explains
the death of his daughter.
There is no official figure of port explains that besides
how many people died of
hunger and untreated dis-
eases in the model villages,
but there were more than 45
such villages, according to
a report titled Recovery of
Historic Memory prepared
by the Roman Catholic
Church, and Santa Avelina
was just one of them. Yeni
De Leon of the Foundation
for Forensic Anthropology,
which was in charge of the
exhumations, said about 45
percent of the 172 bodies
ed three others where pris-
oners from rival gangs are
housed.
The attackers set mat-
tresses on fire when they
entered the neighboring
corridors and burned the
bodies of those killed.
exhumed in Santa Avelina lived in the model villages.
correspond to children age An estimated 250,000 peo-
12 and under. Many died ple were killed or disap-
from a measles outbreak in peared during Guatema-
la’s civil war, overwhelm-
ingly by violence at the
hands of soldiers, accord-
ing to the United Nations.
But in Santa Avelina the
vast majority of the bod-
ies presented no sign of
(AP Photo/Luis Soto) violent injuries, indicating
the victims perished from
the early 1980s. illness, malnutrition and
Of the 7,000 bodies from other causes, said founda-
the war the foundation has tion anthropologist Danny
exhumed, about 1,000 are Guzman. The army was try-
of displaced people who ing to regain control over
died in or as consequence northern Quiche from the
of the model villages, said guerrillas and prevent lo-
its executive director, Jose cals from joining their ranks.
Suasnavar. The Catholic re- “Putting them in the mod-
el villages was a perverse
a lack of medical care, strategy” to attain these
hunger may have played goals, said activist Mario
a role in what happened Polanco of the Gam Mu-
in Santa Avelina and other tual Support Group, which
model villages, which were works to locate people
under control of the army, who disappeared during
whose responsibility it was the war. “The villages were
to provide food for the in- like an urban colony with
habitants. streets, small, simple homes
“The basic diet consisted (of wood and sheet metal
of three tortillas and some with dirt floors), highlighting
beans for all three daily symbols of national unity,
meals, on occasion a bit values of Western culture.
of rice,” the report reads. The way of life was like in
About 60,000 people likely a barracks,” said Edgar
Gutierrez, former coordina-
tor of the Catholic report.
Gutierrez recalled that the
villages had schedules for
inhabitants to sing the na-
tional anthem in the morn-
ing as well as the hymn
of the quasi-military civil-
ian patrols. “All manner
of freedom was restricted
and you could leave the
community only with spe-
cial permission,” Polanco
said. The villages were
created with government
funds and support from
U.S. evangelical churches,
which maintained close
relations with then-dictator
Efrain Rios Montt.
With the signing of peace
accords in 1996, the model
villages were gradually dis-
mantled.
Today little has changed in
Police say 143 of the 242 Santa Avelina and poverty
prisoners who fled during here is extreme. There are
the riot had been recap- still homes of wood, sheet
tured by Tuesday morning. metal and wood floors built
Nearly 130 inmates fled on the hillsides, though oth-
during the violence but ers have been upgraded
returned voluntarily when with block construction.
the riot ended q There are three paved
roads while the rest are dirt.