At almost 92 years old, the retired general, Benedicto Lucas García, appeared this Friday, April 5, via videoconference at the beginning of the trial once morest him in which he is accused of crimes during the internal armed conflict in the area. Ixil. The debate takes place in the High Risk Court A.
Prior to the start of the debate, lawyer Karen Fisher requested to be part of the legal team that would defend Lucas García; however, she was denied participation. The Court argued that one of the reasons is that in the previous hearing that was suspended, the general requested to be defended by the Public Criminal Defense.
When the request was denied, Fisher left the courtroom. Judge Gerbi Sical Guerra began the trial and gave the Public Ministry (MP) space to begin the opening arguments for the trial.
Lucas García has house arrest and appeared at the hearing via videoconference. According to the court, the crimes for which he faces trial are duties once morest humanity, genocide and forced disappearance.
The soldier served as chief of the Army General Staff and according to the investigation, he would have ordered military operations where more than 1,400 people were murdered in the Ixil area, in the department of Quiché.
“The municipalities of Chajul, San Juan Cotzal and Santa María Nebaj form a triangle that, for the operations system of the Guatemalan Army, is called the Ixil Triangle. They are people who share the same Mayan language, clothing and customs and who were persecuted for the reason of living in this occupation,” the MP prosecutor explained in court.
The allegations continued on the part of the MP and he detailed that they will be presenting different means of evidence between testimonies, documents and video reproductions.
You may be interested in: “We will flourish”: Virtual memorial remembers stories of victims of the internal armed conflict in Guatemala
“It is thus, honorable members of the court, that the debate will be developed according to the corresponding rules and in which the Public Prosecutor’s Office will prove its accusatory thesis and that at the appropriate procedural moment it will request the sentence that corresponds by law.” concluded the prosecutor.
Lawyers defending Lucas García also raised their allegations. “From now on, I indicate that, at the appropriate procedural moment, the technical defense of General Manuel Benedicto Lucas García will request an acquittal sentence with immediate freedom,” one of the lawyers began her intervention.
Plaintiffs in the case also participated in the hearing, although their participation was protested by the defense. During the debate, an expert proposed by the MP appeared, during his intervention he confirmed the conclusions of the expert reports carried out.
The trial once morest Benedicto Lucas García will continue next Monday, April 8.
Keys to the trial
These are the five keys to understanding the accusations attributed to the retired general, who served as chief of the General Staff of the Guatemalan Army during the military dictatorship of his brother, Romeo Lucas García (1978-1982).
1. The crimes
Between 1981 and 1982, the Guatemalan Army implemented military detachments and deployed task forces in regions of the country considered a “guerrilla threat”, mainly in the Ixil Mayan municipalities of Santa María Nebaj, San Gaspar Chajul and San Juan Cotzal, in Quiché. , 202 kilometers north of the capital, according to the Human Rights Office of the Archbishopric of Guatemala (ODHAG).
In these municipalities, the application of the new military strategies caused the death of a minimum of 1,771 people, among which 1,072 were identified, with children, the elderly and pregnant women among the victims, according to the same source.
The murders occurred during 32 different massacres concentrated in at least 23 villages that were devastated with the burning of homes, crops, destruction of work tools, aerial bombardments, and all these factors forced the indigenous people who survived to flee towards the mountains. The attacks.
2. The accused soldier
Lucas García, 91 years old, is considered by the Guatemalan MP as the author of the military strategies that caused these massacres.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, which has presented testimonies, forensic evidence and official documents, Lucas García is supposedly responsible for planning and ordering the Army’s counterinsurgency strategy and identifying the municipalities mentioned as “enemy zone”, causing the elimination of more than a thousand civilians.
The general, specialized in counterintelligence, parachuting and with studies in France, deployed the armed forces mainly in the areas of Quiché near the Transversal Strip of the North, a region of Guatemala that crosses important areas of oil, agricultural and commercial interest, whose Land tenure was disputed in the midst of the internal armed conflict.
Currently, Lucas García is serving a 58-year prison sentence because in May 2018, along with four other high-ranking soldiers, he was convicted of the crimes of failing to comply with the duties of humanity, aggravated rape of a student, and the forced disappearance of the child Marco Antonio Molina Theissen, in October 1981.
3. More than 40 years of waiting
42 years have passed since these massacres occurred in northern Guatemala and the start of the trial in the High Risk Court A, this Friday, is an event awaited by the survivors and relatives of the murdered or missing people who have testified in search of Justice.
At least 50 indigenous families hit by the 32 massacres committed in these towns in northern Guatemala are part of the criminal process once morest Lucas García through the Justice and Reconciliation Association (AJR).
To read more: Molina Theissen Family: “We have closed a chapter in the search for justice”
4. A sentence annulled
In 2013, General Efraín Ríos Montt, who led a military dictatorship between 1982 and 1983, was sentenced for genocide of the Ixil Mayan people for the continuity of the counterinsurgency policies that Lucas García began a year earlier.
However, the 80-year sentence imposed once morest Ríos Montt was annulled a few days later by the Constitutional Court, Guatemala’s highest court, due to alleged errors of form and following statements by the main economic groups once morest the sentence.
5. A bloody conflict
The internal armed conflict in Guatemala was one of the bloodiest on the continent and left at least 240,000 people murdered or missing, according to figures from reports released by the United Nations.
The war ended on December 29, 1996 with the signing of the peace agreements between the Government of Guatemala and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity, ending the conflict that lasted 36 years. EFE
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