11
34.
Thus, the said massacres – authentic State crimes – were perpetrated with
“extreme cruelty,” in keeping with “the basic components of the national security
doctrine,” and a “strategy carefully planned by the State”; the principal object of this
repression was the Mayan population, particularly in rural areas. 41 The different
“counterinsurgency operations,” described in detail in the said Report, 42 were carried
out with extreme cruelty by the State’s security forces and the “self-defense
patrols.” 43 The population had to be for or against the repressive forces, “there was
no place for neutrality,” and “the involvement of the civilian population in armed
operations” formed “part of the State’s counterinsurgency strategy.” 44 The “massive
involvement of the population” revealed “the high level of militarization of
Guatemalan society.”; the mechanisms of informing against and handing over
neighbors and next of kin ruptured “the solidarity binding communities” and
introduced “widespread discord, which seriously affected the integrity of the
indigenous and rural communities” – and the State was responsible for all this. 45
35.
Confronted with these historically proven facts of the perpetration of State
crime, how can it continue to be denied? How can most international jurists continue
trying to elude this issue? It will become increasingly difficult for them to do so,
especially now that cases of massacres are being heard by a tribunal such as the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights. 46 The issue is also beginning to attract the
attention of specialized bibliography. 47 Moreover, before this Court, there have been
cases of defendant States acknowledging – although only partially – responsibility for
facts that constitute crimes of this type: this occurred in the cases of the Plan de
Sánchez Massacre, 48 the Mapiripán Massacre, 49 and the Ituango Massacres. Even in
the Moiwana Community case, when this did not happen, Suriname affirmed that it
had no objection “to issuing a public apology to the whole Nation, and to the
survivors and their next of kin regarding the facts that occurred in the village of
Moiwana." 50 If there have been cases of massacres, where the States in question
41
.
CEH, Guatemala - Memoria del Silencio, tome II, 1a. ed., Guatemala, CEH, 1999, pp. 19-21.
42
.
Cf. ibid., pp. 21-39.
43
.
Ibid., p. 38.
44
.
Ibid., pp. 21 and 226.
45
.
Ibid., p. 227. For an in-depth study, cf., e.g., J. Perlin, "The Guatemalan Historical Clarification
Commission Finds Genocide", 6 ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law (2000) pp. 389-413.
46
.
A.A. Cançado Trindade, "Complementarity between State Responsibility and Individual
Responsibility for Grave Violations of Human Rights: The Crime of State Revisited", in International
Responsibility Today - Essays in Memory of Oscar Schachter (ed. M. Ragazzi), Leiden, M. Nijhoff, 2005,
pp. 253-269; and cf. A.A. Cançado Trindade, "General Course on Public International Law - International
Law for Humankind: Towards a New Jus Gentium", 316 Recueil des Cours de l'Académie de Droit
International de La Haye (2005), chap. XV (to be published).
47
.
Cf., e.g., G. Citroni, "La Jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos en
Casos de Masacres", 21 Anuario de Derecho Internacional (2005) pp. 493-518.
48
.
ICourtHR, Judgment of April 29, 2004, paras. 2 and 35-37.
49
.
ICourtHR, Judgment of September 15, 2005, paras. 33-34 and 26.
50
.
ICourtHR, Judgment of June 15, 2005, para. 216.