The following are quotes from a survivor of a massacre that occurred in La Union, the Ixcan Mayan region of Guatemala’s El Quiche province. The survivor, who is now living in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, escaped across the border from Guatemala in May, 1982.

“They killed about 400 people inside a church. They didn't let anyone leave. If they left, they made them return: men, women and children, and old people. They locked them in and then threw three grenades inside the church. Not everybody died, so they shot the rest dead. Outside, in the market, they killed more people. They didn't count how many. Who knows how many? The soldiers had a plane and a helicopter and they landed in the street. There were about 400 soldiers.”

“...The small children, even though they are defenceless, not old enough to think, or run and escape, were thrown into the fire, into the ashes, into boiling water.”

“There they tortured them; they stuck needles in them and in their eyes. They crushed their heads and cut them off with machetes. They hanged some people with ropes. They set fire to the animals. The soldiers forced people into a bathroom, a huge bathroom inside the church. And later they murdered them. They collected the seats, benches, tables and all the church furniture and used it to make a fire.”

“They burned everything, The helicopter brought three loads of gas, so that everything could be burned. When there was no one left alive, they went looking for more people."

The violence from the massacres forced more than 100,000 individuals to seek refuge in Mexico, commonly retreating to the southern border state of Chiapas. Around 700,000 to 1 million individuals were exiled within their own region.

Quotes from interviews with several anthropologists, all of whom affirmed the incident of the genocide.

Beatriz Manz :

“This trial is a transcendent milestone internationally as well as for Guatemala despite the fact that the entire proceedings may have to be redone.”

Elizabeth Oglesby :

“This is especially important for Mayan communities who have never really believed that the Guatemalan justice system could work for them”

“Internationally, the hope is to set a precedent to show that crimes of this magnitude can be tried in domestic courts.”

“The judges’ verdict put particular emphasis on this aspect, showing that sexual violence was not just a consequence of war but was a weapon of war and a central part of the intention to destroy the ethnic group.”

Victoria Sanford :

“...the conviction of Ríos Montt in a domestic court is the first time in history that a domestic court tried and convicted a former head of state for genocide. The genocide conviction along with trials of others responsible are necessary for Guatemalan society to reconcile itself with its own history and break the structures of impunity (begun with the genocide) that continue today.”

“There was a genocide in Guatemala. It was intentional, and Ríos Montt had command responsibility.”

“There is sufficient evidence to indict others responsible for the Guatemalan Genocide, including former General Otto Pérez Molina, the current president of Guatemala.”

A personal account of Tiburcio Utuy, specifying what he endured during a guerilla raid and a faulty accusation projected onto him. He later presented his testimony during the hearing, directly confronting Montt and Rodriguez Sanchez. He is often referred to as Don Tiburcio, a title to bestow respect.

"This is why I am telling this to the eyes and ears of the world, this is the suffering we felt. They [the military] shut me up in a room larger than this one. This room was full of blood...The shoes, the belts, were piled two meters high and wide, you could see the traces of people who had been killed there. They tied me up and left me sitting in the blood...This pain, this suffering, I was there in the blood of my dear brothers and sisters who had been killed."

“I was accused of being a guerilla. They tied my feet and hands behind me, and pulled my head back, leaving my stomach exposed, like a round ball. When I felt I could no longer breathe, they brought the fire, setting it upon me, upon my stomach, my neck, my eyes. My intestines started to fall out, forming a pile on the floor, and I managed to reach out, and push them back in again. Look, these are the scars where the military burnt me.”

Utuy narrowly escaped his own death, enduring inhuman atrocities for almost a year

“The soldiers realized that they couldn’t kill me, not with knives, not with bullets, no matter how hard they tried; this scared them, made them concerned. And then in time, I finally escaped them.”

The significance of the personal accounts that victims courageously presented, demonstrated a historical victory in not only Guatemala, but other nations with repressed governmental crimes. By finally acknowledging the serious violence and injustices that were committed against innocent people, the verdict legitimized the rights of hundreds of thousands that had been violated and ill-protected.

"The trial verdict filled us with profound happiness; we proved that there had been genocide in Guatemala. We changed history."

Don Tiburcio worked with the Association for Justice and Reconciliation to mobilize over a hundred survivors, seeking necessary retribution from Montt. The AJR represents 22 communities from 5 regions in the country and helped with leading the genocide investigation

The following is a detailed account (day by day) of a raid provoked against an innocent civilian community. Guillermo Morales Perez, identified as an Indian Peasant, recounts events 20 days after Montt became president.

“After 20 days, he began to massacre, kidnap, and torture, according to the radio, and we heard that our brothers were being kidnapped and tortured.”

“The shooting lasted from July 20 to July 22, almost three days.”

Perez states that they had just been working the land, not committing any unlawful act.

“[They] set up camp in the village of Bullaj; we remained in our homes and continued working. On July 24 they began to bombard, bombard, bombard. They shot bullets all over, it was a noise like one hears when it rains on the coffee trees, like one hears in the charunales [trees that are used to provide shade for the coffee trees]. We heard the shots very well, and they fell like a light rain. We ran away in fright, in terror, because we had never heard so many shots before.”

Regina Hernandez, a member of the Guatemalan Committee for Justice and Peace, Refugee Program, provides another testimony, having spent time with the refugees before leaving Guatemala.

“The majority have no place to go and continually flee from one place to another.”

“Some [the survivors] are entire villages or communities who scattered to hide in the mountains when they heard that the army was near, to avoid being massacred like neighboring villages.”