Paulina, a woman from the Mayan Achí indigenous people, was captured on September 25, 1983, while she was in the Rabinal market, Baja Verapaz, with her mother to sell their products. «They accused me of being a guerrilla and took me to the military detachment. They kept me there for 25 days. At night, several soldiers arrived, and there they took advantage. Then they took other women, they didn’t care at all.»

This was what Paulina declared as one of the three testimonies presented in the historic trial of the women of the Achí community, victims of sexual violence during the internal armed conflict in Guatemala. 

Small rooms, darkness, bathrooms under running water, sexual violence against all women, interrogations under torture and without access to food, were all part of the descriptions in the testimony of Paulina and three other witnesses who testified on February 19.  

During the hearing, they identified one by one the perpetrators of these events, among them the three accused in this trial: Pedro Sánchez Cortéz, Simeón Enrique Gómez and Félix Tum Ramírez, former civil self-defense patrolmen (PAC) accused of sexual rape and crimes against humanity, in the case of the Achí Women.

This case, which was promoted since 2011 by the Rabinal Law Firm Association, had its first results in 2018, after the capture of the three former civil self-defense patrolmen (PAC). However, Judge Claudette Domínguez ordered the dismissal of the accused in 2019, so they were released. 

The victims’ lawyers appealed the decision, and in 2022, the First High Risk Chamber ruled that the accused should face trial. In 2023, the High Risk Court B ordered that three former PACs be tried for crimes against humanity.

In the 1980s, the Guatemalan Army used sexual violence as a weapon of war against indigenous women. The strategy was based on accusing women of being part of the guerrilla, to capture them and keep them in captivity, under a large number of violations of their rights, torture, and mistreatment.

«For me, after that, life is no longer the same. I am not well. I got married years later, my family knew everything I experienced, it was difficult for me to tell it, but since it was true, I had to say it,» Paulina expressed in her statement. 

During the first day of the hearing, Pedro Sánchez was present. The three witnesses identified him as one of the perpetrators of the sexual assaults during his capture in the military detachment. When the judge asked him to provide his statement, he said: “No, I don’t want to talk.”

“Each one recognized their perpetrators.”

This second trial is in charge of the High Risk Court B, presided over by Judge María Eugenia Castellanos Cruz and made up of vocal judges Marling Mayela González Arrivillaga and Missulla Eunice Solís Rodas. The Rabinal Popular Law Firm Association (ABJP) and the survivors participate as joint plaintiffs and will be represented by the three indigenous lawyers who participated in the first trial: Lucía Xiloj, Gloria Reyes, and Haydeé Valey.

HoraCero spoke with Haydeé Valey, lawyer and coordinator of the Impunity Watch victim participation program, who highlighted that this is one of the most emblematic cases of sexual violence of the internal armed conflict because it illustrates the brutality with which the Army and paramilitary groups used sexual rape as a weapon of war, to attack women and subject the indigenous communities under their control.

Valey explained that the last hearing on February 19 was one of the crucial moments of this historic trial, since the testimonies of two experts who ratified their expert opinions were also presented. One of these key processes was linguistic expertise, which helps to understand the way in which victims express their experiences and the terminology used in the Achí language to talk about sexual violence. 

Two of the survivors’ testimonies were presented at the public hearing, including Paulina’s. While the third was held behind closed doors, in accordance with Guatemalan legislation and international standards on women’s rights, since the survivor requested that it be done privately for security measures in her community. 

«The survivors recognized their attackers, named their perpetrators, and described the brutal way in which they were treated. The three were transferred to the Rabinal military detachment in 1983, where they were subjected to continuous sexual violence by groups, compared to other detainees,» explains Valey. 

But this is not the first time that victims name their attackers by name and surname. They had already done so since 2011, when the Rabinal Law Firm began the process of collecting evidence to reach the arrest warrants for the former patrol officers in 2018. However, their testimonies had no value for the judicial authorities, according to the lawyer. 

“Due to different situations, three of those people who had been identified by the Public Ministry and linked to the legal process were acquitted in 2019. Under that figure, these three people were free, despite the fact that the survivors pointed them out, recognized them, said that they had been the material authors of the sexual violence, but at that time, the testimonies of the ladies were left as if they were not valid.”

The events of the case occurred between 1981 and 1985. In these years, the Achí women were subjected to the most brutal forms of sexual violence by the Army, military commissioners, and civil patrol officers, in their homes, around their homes, in the local military detachment, and a patrol camp located in the community of Xococ, Rabinal.

The three defendants were part of the Civil Self-Defense Patrols, which were created in 1981 during the military dictatorship of Romeo Lucas García, with the purpose of involving the civilian population in the counterinsurgency fight, and to monitor and control rural communities. In 1983, the de facto government of Efraín Ríos Montt legally recognized them, and in 1986, they became Voluntary Civil Defense Committees (CVDC). In many places, the Army gave them firearms, and they became paramilitary groups that committed abuses in their communities.

They not only carried out surveillance tasks but also participated in guerrilla combat operations and committed serious crimes against the civilian population. Regarding sexual violence, the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) noted that the PAC committed numerous sexual violations as part of the general terror strategy; «many of them were part of scorched earth operations or were carried out before massacres and in a public and massive manner. In some cases, they were carried out jointly.

Sexual violence as a weapon of war

In 1999, the CEH documented 1,465 cases of rape during the armed conflict; 89% of these events were against Mayan women and 35% of the victims were girls. The Commission determined that “cases of massive or indiscriminate and public rapes were recorded in areas of large indigenous concentration, as a common practice after the installation of military detachments and PAC, before massacres or as part of scorched earth operations.”

This has been confirmed in several cases of the armed conflict in Guatemala by the courts of this country. For example, in 2013, the High Risk Court A determined that sexual violence against women and girls was part of the genocide against the Ixil Mayan People. In 2016, the same court determined that a group of Mayan Q’eqchi’ women were subjected to sexual and domestic slavery in the military detachment of the Sepur Zarco community. Furthermore, in the first sentence of the Achi Women Case. In 2022, the High Risk Court A concluded that the Army used sexual violence as a weapon of war to subject Achi women and their communities to military control, with the participation of PAC.

The feminist anthropologist, Rita Segato, providing anthropological gender expertise for the trial of the Sepur Zarco case, points out that these events constitute an aggression against the community, on the woman, as a person, and through her, due to her position, to all the bonds of trust that stabilize a community, neighborhood and extended family relationship. That is, sexual rape seen as a new form of unconventional irregular warfare, which seeks to break, from the body of women, the community fabric. 

«And why towards women and why through sexualized forms of aggression? Because it is in violence carried out by sexual means that the moral destruction of the enemy is affirmed, when it cannot be staged through the public signing of a formal document of surrender. In this context, the woman’s body is the frame or support on which the moral defeat of the enemy is written,» says Segato. 

Women victims of sexual violence during the armed conflict, both in the case of the Achí women, as well as in Sepur Zarco and others, have stated that since then they have suffered from physical discomfort, weakness, psychological suffering, depression, great anxiety, among others. Many of them were unable to continue with their life plans.

«These events hurt them deeply, leaving emotional, psychological, family, and community damage. They were civilians, they were in their communities, they led a normal community life. They had plans, life projects, several of them wanted to get married, have children, and some women could no longer do so because they were marked, stigmatized at the community level, and were disowned by their families and the community. When they had husbands, they rejected them because they found out what happened to them. In many cases, the community gave them back,” Haydeé explained.

The lawyer also appreciates that, despite these difficulties, the survivors continue to be firm in their demand for justice, breaking the silence and maintaining hope that these crimes will not be repeated. Valey hopes there will be a favorable resolution.

February is a month dedicated to historical memory in Guatemala. The 25th is the National Day of Dignity of the Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict. On the 26th, 9 years passed since the sentencing of the Sepur Zarco case, which marked a historical precedent in the recognition of sexual violence as a war crime during the armed conflict in this country. For the people of Guatemala, the grandmothers of Sepur Zarco paved the way so that other cases of sexual violence against indigenous women do not go unpunished.