74 320. With regard to indigenous peoples’ right to equality and non-discrimination, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides that: Article 2. Indigenous peoples and individuals are free and equal to all other peoples and individuals and have the right to be free from any kind of discrimination, in theexercise of their rights, in particular that based on their indigenous origin oridentity. Article 9. Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right to belong to an indigenous community or nation, in accordance with the traditions and customs of the community or nation concerned. No discrimination of any kind may arise from the exercise of such a right. 321. Article 3(1) of ILO Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribunal Peoples in Independent Countries, which Guatemala ratified in 1996, provides that “[i]ndigenous and tribal peoples shall enjoy the full measure of human rights and fundamental freedoms without hindrance or discrimination.” The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called upon the States to “[e]nsure that members of indigenous peoples are free and equal in dignity and rights and free from any discrimination, in particular that based on indigenous origin or identity.”404 322. The Commission considers that because of the racism and structural exclusion 405 prevailing at the time of the armed conflict in Guatemala, the Maya people were the most cruelly affected sector of the Guatemalan population. It is the Commission’s view that racial discrimination was the basis both of the State policy of stigmatizing and then exterminating the Maya people, and of the “demonization” of the Maya people in order to de-sensitize the aggressors. It also explains the brutality with which the massacres and persecution were conducted, the enslavement of some surviving children and the authorities’ subsequent failure to react to these events.406 323. Thus, Guatemala’s armed conflict led to multiple, egregious violations of the cultural integrity of the Maya people, and systematic, brutal attacks on Maya individuals, families and communities, for the mere fact that they were Maya, all part of a state policy of racism and genocide.407 404 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, General Recommendation No. 23, The Rights of Indigenous Peoples, August 18, 1997, par. 4(b). 405 The IACHR has previously noted that “indigenous people in Guatemala have been historically discriminated against due to ethnic reasons.” IACHR, Justice and Social Inclusion: The challenges of democracy in Guatemala, December 29, 2003, par.210. See, also: IACHR, Fifth Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala, April 6, 2001. 406 IACHR, Report No. 86/10, Case 12,649, Merits, Community of Río Negro of the Maya Achí People and Its Members, Guatemala, July 14, 2000, par.357. 407 The IACHR has previously described the situation as follows: “The dramatic exclusion and discrimination to which Indigenous populations in Guatemala were subjected, became evident during the armed conflict, when 83% of the victims were Mayans, and against whom acts of genocide were performed. (…) The Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) said in its report that racism, which materialized in the form of a doctrine of superiority and manifested itself in the Guatemalan State’s conduct, was one of the causes of the armed conflict. It “was also a fundamental factor in explaining the particular brand of brutality and indiscrimination with which the military operations were carried out against hundreds of Maya communities in the western and northwestern sectors of the country, especially between 1981 and 1983, when over half the massacres and scorched-earth operations were perpetrated against them.” According to the CEH, the response to the guerrilla movement was so disproportionate because the counterinsurgency policy sought not only to destroy the social bases of the guerrilla movement, but also to destroy the cultural values that gave the indigenous communities their sense of cohesion and collective endeavor.” IACHR, Justice and Social Inclusion: the challenges of democracy in Guatemala, December 29, 2003, paragraphs 216217.