Tuesday 20 October 2009

Guatemala: Reopening Old Wounds

People in the town of Ixcán in northwestern Guatemala could relive the pain of the country's 36-year civil war if the army reopens a military base in the area, where more than 100 massacres of indigenous villagers were committed during the armed conflict.
[...]
"Seeing them (the soldiers) on the streets again brings back everything that happened," he added.

The town and surrounding rural villages of the frontier municipality of Ixcán, which is bordered by the Mexican state of Chiapas to the north, were among the areas that bore the brunt of the 1960-1996 armed conflict.

Between 1979 and 1988, 102 massacres were committed in Ixcán, with a total of 2,500 victims, and a full 96 percent of the population was forcibly displaced from the municipality, according to the United Nations-sponsored Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH).
Town that Suffered Military Terror Fights Reopening of Base (IPS)

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