9 PROVEN FACTS 42. The Court deems that the following facts are part of the background and context that it will address in exercising its competence. With respect to the historical context 42(1) between 1962 and 1996 there was a domestic armed conflict that entailed great human, material, institutional, and moral costs; 42(2) during the domestic armed conflict, the State applied the so-called “Doctrine of National Security” as a response to the action or doctrine of the insurgent movement. In the framework of this doctrine, there was a growing intervention of military power to face subversion, a concept that encompassed any person or any organization that constituted any form of opposition to the State, and therefore it became equivalent to that of “domestic enemy;” 42(3) on March 23, 1982, as a result of a coup d’etat, a Ruling Military Junta was set up in Guatemala, headed by José Efraín Ríos Montt and its other members were Horacio Egberto Maldonado Schaad and Francisco Luis Gordillo Martínez;4 42(4) in April 1982 the Ruling Military Junta of the time issued the “National Security and Development Plan,” which set forth national military, administrative, legal, social, economic, and political objectives. Said Plan identified the main areas of conflict. The Military Junta and the High Command designed and implemented a military campaign plan called “Victory 82,” for which they used new strategic definitions within the framework of counterinsurgency and the objectives of the “National Security and Development Plan;” 42(5) the most violent period of this conflict was between 1978 and 1983, when the military operations focused on the regions of Quiché, Huehuetenango, Chimaltenango, Alta and Baja Verapaz, the southern coast and Guatemala City. During these years, counterinsurgency policy in Guatemala was characterized by “military actions geared toward destruction of groups and communities as well as forced geographic displacement of indigenous communities when they were considered potential supporters of the guerrilla forces”;5 42(6) these military actions, known to or ordered by the highest authorities of the State, consisted primarily of killing defenseless population, known as massacres and “scorched earth operations.” According to the Report by the Historical Elucidation Committee, approximately 626 massacres were carried out by means of cruel actions 4 In its application, the Commission pointed out that “the military command structure, as regards Rabinal, was the following at the time of the facts:”
President of the Republic and Minister of Defense.
Head of the Army Chiefs of Staff.
Head of the Military Intelligence Department.
Commander of the Military Base at Cobán.
Commander of the Military Detachment at Rabinal.
Officers.
PAC, “Judiciales” or Judicial Officers, “Comisionados Militares” or Military Commissioners and Soldiers. 5 See Brief with the application by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights dated July 31, 2002, sheet 12, paragraph 51.