14 64. The CEH found that rape was part of a pattern of behavior in massacres; women were raped before being killed. The CEH concluded that: [i]n general, individual or selective rapes occurred when the victims were detained and were often followed by the victim’s death or disappearance. The massive or indiscriminate and public rapes occurred in areas with a large indigenous population, and became common practice once military outposts and the PAC moved in, occurring as a preliminary to a massacre or as part of 51 scorched-earth operations. Pregnant women were also killed and their fetuses destroyed. 1.2.7. Genocide 65. Given the context described above, the CEH concluded that in the counterinsurgency operations conducted between 1981 and 1983, agents of the Guatemalan State committed acts of genocide against groups among the Mayan people, including the Maya-Achí in the municipality of Rabinal. In this connection the CEH found that: In 1981 and 1982, there were reports of Army specialists who were natives of Sacapulas and other municipalities in Quiché and who had access to the command personnel at military base number 20 in Santa Cruz del Quiché (…) concerning an order that the first and second commanders had issued to kill all indigenous persons. Some pilots and members of the commanding officers’ security details took their families out of Quiché to protect them, since the 52 order was real. 66. The CEH’s finding was based on evidence that, under the provisions of Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, showed that i) members of Mayan groups had been killed; ii) serious bodily or mental harm had been done to members of the groups, and iii) living conditions had been deliberately inflicted on the group calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part. The CEH’s conclusion is also based on the evidence that all these acts were committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part" groups identified by their common ethnicity, by reason thereof, whatever the cause, motive or final objective of these acts may have been.”53 2. Situation of the village of Chichupac and neighboring communities during the armed conflict 67. The village of Chichupac is in the municipality of Rabinal, 14 kilometers from its 54 municipal seat. The municipality of Rabinal is one of the eight municipalities in the department of Baja Verapaz, located in the central sector of the Guatemalan State.55 Rabinal consists of an urban center or 51 Annex 3. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume III, Human Rights Violations and Acts of Violence, par. 2352. 52 Annex 3. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume III, Human Rights Violations and Acts of Violence, preamble to Chapter 53 Annex 1. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume V, Conclusions and Recommendations, paragraphs 108-123. 54 Annex 6. Communication from the petitioners dated December 13, 2007. 55 Annex 3. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume III, Human Rights Violations and Acts of Violence, par. 3362. XXI.