10 social organization was upset. Displacement and refuge exacerbated the difficulties of practicing 26 their own culture. 1.2.3. Massacres against communities 49. The massacres committed during the armed conflict in Guatemala were characterized by excessive cruelty and brutality calculated to wipe out the persons or groups previously identified as the target of military operations.27 Specifically, the massacres were a mechanism used against the Mayan people for the mere fact that they were Mayan.28 The massacres exterminated, as enemies, as many members of the group as possible, after which the properties and homes in the communities were destroyed and burned.29 50. In the IACHR’s second special report on Guatemala, published in 1983 and titled “The Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala,” reference was made to the indiscriminate attacks that the rural population endured, where no distinction was made between civilians and insurgents or between adults and children; all were attacked indiscriminately.30 51. As for the strategies that the Army used when executing the massacres, the CEH found that: The CEH has noted particularly serious cruelty in many acts committed by agents of the State, especially members of the Army, in their operations against Mayan communities. The counterinsurgency strategy not only led to violations of basic human rights, but also to the fact that these crimes were committed with particular cruelty, with massacres representing their archetypal form. In the majority of massacres there is evidence of multiple acts of savagery, which preceded, accompanied or occurred after the deaths of the victims. Acts such as the killing of defenseless children, often by beating them against walls or throwing them alive into pits where the corpses of adults were later thrown; the amputation of limbs; the impaling of victims; the killing of persons by covering them in petrol and burning them alive; the extraction, in the presence of others, of the viscera of victims who were still alive; the confinement of people who had been mortally tortured, in agony for days; the opening of the wombs of pregnant women, and other similarly atrocious acts, were not only actions of extreme cruelty against the victims, but also morally degraded the perpetrators and those who inspired, ordered or tolerated these 31 actions. 26 Annex 1. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume V, Conclusions and Recommendations, par. 88. 27 95% of the massacres were perpetrated between 1978 and 1984; during this period, 90% were executed in areas inhabited mainly by the Mayan people, such as the departments of Quiché, Huehuetenango, Chimaltenango, Alta and Baja Verapaz. CEH, Memory of Silence, Chapter III, paragraphs 443, 460, and Chapter II, par. 42. 28 Annex 1. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume V, Conclusions and Recommendations, paragraphs 85-88. 29 Annex 1. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume V, Conclusions and Recommendations, paragraphs 85-88. 30 IACHR, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala. OEA/Ser.L/V/II.66, doc.47, October 5, 1983. Available at: http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/Guatemala83eng/TOC.htm. 31 Annex 1. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume V, Conclusions and Recommendations, par. 87.