48 In June 1992, he abandoned the country to take a military course. In 1992, he was a member of the National Defense Staff, and was specifically appointed as an official member of the Support Committee for the Government Peace Commission, which met in the National Palace, as of January 1991. His function was to gather information on entities of a political nature, “to see how the peace process was regarded.” This Peace Commission was “a Government body, specifically set up to conduct the peace process”. From January to June 1992, this Commission declared itself in permanent session due to internal problems among the guerrilla that might affect the peace process. He did not take part in the military operation called the Quetzal Task Force, from January 6 to June 15, 1992, because “[his] competence was of a political nature, and not in military operations”, nor was he at the Santa Ana Berlín military detachment in March 1992, nor in Military Zone No. 18 of San Marcos in July 1992. He learned of the capture and torture of Bámaca Velásquez through the media. m. Testimony of Jesús Efraín Aguirre Loarca, Colonel in the Guatemalan Army The Guatemalan Army did not capture guerrilla fighters or keep them detained; rather, to the contrary, when they deserted, the general policy was, first, to try and establish their true identity; then, they presented themselves before the tribunals of justice in order to claim “some kind of amnesty” and, subsequently, “they were incorporated into the work [...of] the military command where they had given themselves up”, because they feared that they would “be executed by the guerrilla groups.” The guerrillas who gave themselves up were used by “Army intelligence” as a source of information on the military structure in which they had taken part and, principally, “to be able to determine the areas where [... there were] minefields” and, thus, alert the patrols to where they could pass. No pressure was exerted to ensure that former guerrillas told the truth. From what he knew of a case in the 1980s, those injured in combat were provided with the necessary medical support. During his years in the Army, he knew some people who had given themselves up, specifically Santiago Cabrera López and others with the aliases “Karina”, “Augusto” and “Pepe.” In 1992, he was a major in the Infantry and worked in the area of intelligence for the Quetzal Task Force, at the Santa Ana Berlín military detachment. Santiago Cabrera “performed duties in the [Intelligence] Office in which [the witness] worked.” On February 28, 1992, he was injured in combat by a group from the Luis guerrilla front that operated in the area of San Marcos. After being injured, evacuated from the Zone and spent approximately 15 days recovering in the Medical Center in Guatemala City, which he could not leave; subsequently, transferred to the United States to continue his treatment for four months. Ixmatá he was Military he was He returned to Guatemala at the beginning of June 1992 and as he was not totally recovered, “[he] was assigned to an Operations unit with the National Defense Staff