36
B.16. Death of the child Antonio Chen Mendoza in March 1983
114. Miguel Chen Tahuico and Vicenta Mendoza Alvarado and their four children left their home
in the village of Chichupac and fled to the mountains due to persecution by the Army. Owing to
exposure to the climate, one of their children, Antonio Chen Mendoza, aged six, “began to suffer
from diarrhea, fever and sores appeared on his little body; as a result of this illness […] he
died.” His body was buried in the mountains, but the date of his death is uncertain because, as
his father pointed out, “in the mountains you lose track of time.”
B.17. Execution of the siblings Eusebia and José León Grave García on October 22, 1983
115. On October 22, 1983, a group of soldiers and PAC members executed the siblings Eusebia
and José León Grave García (aged 18 and 17, respectively), children of Juana García Depaz.
Eusebia Grave was bathing in a stream and José León Grave was having breakfast. The latter’s
genitals, ear and nose were cut off, and his body was “cut open” prior to his death. Their bodies
were buried by family members and neighbors in a grave located in the Cumatzá mountain, in
the village of Xeabaj. In 2002, members of the FAFG identified the grave, which was part of a
clandestine cemetery, and in 2003 the remains of Eusebia and José León Grave García were
identified by their mother in a judicial identification procedure. 120
B.18. Situation of Juana García Depaz from October 22, 1983 and forced labor
116. On the morning of October 22, 1983, a group of “judiciales” and approximately two
hundred soldiers detained Juana García Depaz together with a group of women, girls and
children, they gathered the local residents and burned their clothes and food. Next, they took a
group of people, including Juana García, to a military post located in the municipal seat of
Rabinal, where they were held “without food” and “without water.” At night, the group was locked
in a room and for three nights the women were beaten and raped by soldiers and “judiciales.”
During that time Juana García received death threats, was hung by the neck with a noose and
was interrogated about the guerrillas. After three days, and after the soldiers had taken the
children “to the sanatorium of the Sisters of Charity,” they transferred the group of people to
the Pacux colony in Rabinal, where they were held. Between December 31, 1983 and January 1,
1984, a group of men and women, including Juana García, were taken by soldiers to the village
of Chichupac, where they lived in overcrowded huts. There, the women were starved, forced to
cook for three or four hundred soldiers of the detachment and were victims of rape. The rapes
carried out by soldiers in October 1982 and June 1985 against Juana García resulted in two
pregnancies, from which her children Edgar and Sandra Maribel García were born. 121
B.19. Execution of Medardo Juárez García on August 31, 1983 or 1984
117. On August 31, 1983 or 1984, a group of soldiers and members of the PAC arrived in the
village of Chichupac, entered the courtyard of the home of María Concepción García Depaz, her
husband and her five children and fired shots. At that moment her son Medardo Juárez García,
aged between 14 and 16, became frightened and ran out into the street. In response, one of the
soldiers shot him and he fell down dead. That same day, the soldiers burned down the family’s
house and stole all their belongings, along with property from other houses in the village.
Medardo Juárez’s relatives buried his body in a grave dug near his home. 122 In 2002, members
120
Cf. Record of exhumation of bodies of April 9, 2002 (evidence file, folios 1938 to 1941); Report of Forensic
Anthropological Investigation of the FAFG of December 18, 2002 (evidence file, folios 2037), and Record of identification
of human remains of the Guatemalan Judiciary of February 27, 2003 (evidence file, folios 1953 and 1954).
121
Cf. Statement of Juana García Depaz before the assistant prosecutor on July 26, 2001 and statement of Juana
García Depaz rendered by affidavit on November 2, 2009 (evidence file, folios 790, 1333 to 1336), and statement of
Juana García Depaz at the public hearing held on April 28, 2016.
122
Cf. Criminal complaint of María García Depaz of January 17, 1997 (evidence file, folio 1862); statement of María
Concepción García Depaz before the assistant prosecutor on July 27, 2001 (evidence file, folios 801 and 1902), and