9 Mayan indigenous people expressed as a doctrine of superiority and made manifest in the Guatemalan State’s actions.22 45. The CEH also documented the fact that: In the years when the confrontation deepened (1978-1983), as the guerrilla support base and area of action expanded, Mayans as a group in several different parts of the country were identified by the Army as guerrilla allies. Occasionally this was the result of the effective existence of support for the insurgent groups and of pre-insurrectional conditions in the country’s interior. However, the CEH has ascertained that, in the majority of cases, the identification of Mayan communities with the insurgency was intentionally exaggerated by the State, which, based on traditional racist prejudices, used this identification to eliminate any 23 present or future possibilities of the people providing help for, or joining, an insurgent project. 46. Specifically, the Victoria 82 Plan provided that: […] The great indigenous masses on the Guatemalan Altiplano have embraced the claims made by the subversive movement, because their main issues are the scarcity of land and enormous poverty; because of the years of brainwashing they have received, they view the Army as an invading enemy (only some areas have been brought under control), a problem compounded by the considerable number of mistakes that the troops have made, such as vandalism, rapes, robberies and destruction of harvests, which national and international subversive elements have 24 ably exploited. 1.2.2. Scorched-earth operations 47. The massacres and scorched-earth operations decimated entire Mayan communities. As a consequence of the State’s policy: [the] indiscriminate massacres were accompanied by the razing of villages. […] In the north of Huehuetenango, in Rabinal and Zacualpa, whole villages were burned, properties destroyed and the collectively worked fields and harvests were also burned, leaving the communities without 25 food. 48. The CEH also documented the effect on Mayan identity and culture as follows: The Army destroyed ceremonial centers, sacred places and cultural symbols. Language and dress, as well as other elements of cultural identification, were targets of repression. Through the militarization of the community, the establishment of the PAC and the military commissioners, the legitimate authority structure of the communities was broken, the use of their own norms and procedures to regulate social life and resolve conflicts was prevented; the exercise of Mayan spirituality and the Catholic religion was obstructed, prevented or repressed; the maintenance and development of the indigenous peoples’ way of life and their system of 22 Annex 1. CEH, Memory of Silence. Volume V, Conclusions and Recommendations, par. 33. 23 Annex 1. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume V, Conclusions and Recommendations, par. 31. 24 Annex 1. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume III, Human Rights Violations and Acts of Violence, par. 2985. 25 Annex 1. CEH, Memory of Silence, Volume V, Conclusions and Recommendations, par. 116.