Las Dos Erres Massacre
| La Libertad | |
|---|---|
 La Libertad
|
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| Coordinates: 16°47′N 90°07′W / 16.783°N 90.117°W | |
| Country |
 Guatemala
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| Department |
.png){kind=small} El Petén
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The Dos Erres massacre of 6 December 1982 took place in Dos Erres, a small village in the municipality of La Libertad, in the northern Petén department of Guatemala. The name of the village, occasionally given as "Las Dos Erres", literally means "two Rs", originating from two brothers called Ruano who received the original land grant.
On 6 December 1982, during the de facto presidency of General Efraín Ríos Montt, over 200 people – including women, the elderly, and children – were killed there by commandos working as government forces as a part of the government's scorched earth policy, in which up to 200,000 indigenous and Mayan people died.
In December 2011 President Álvaro Colom made a formal apology for the massacre on behalf of the Guatemalan government, and months after four soldiers were sentenced to 6,060 years prison for their part in the massacre. In March 2012, a fifth soldier, Pedro Pimentel Rios, was further sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for his participation in the events. Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes, "one of the lieutenants" of the commandos, was found guilty in Fall 2013 of immigration fraud in a court in California.
In October 1982, guerrillas ambushed an army convoy near Palestina, in the vicinity of Dos Erres. They killed 21 soldiers and took 19 rifles. On 4 December, a contingent of 58 Kaibiles (the elite special forces commandos of the Guatemalan Army) was flown into the area. The following day, they received orders to disguise themselves as guerrillas, deploy to Dos Erres and kill the inhabitants, who were considered guerrilla sympathizers. Dressed as guerrillas, the Kaibiles arrived in the hamlet at 02:30 hrs on 6 December. They forced the inhabitants out of their homes, corralling the men in the schoolhouse and the women and children in the hamlet's two churches. A subsequent search uncovered no sign of weapons or guerrilla propaganda. At 06:00, officers consulted superiors by radio, then informed the commandos they would be "vaccinating" the inhabitants after breakfast.
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Wikipedia