15 He hopes the State will provide justice and make financial reparation for all he has suffered and endured. He also considers that social reparation should be made to the neighboring communities that were affected, which do not have potable water, paved roads, or primary and secondary education. b) Testimonial victim statement of Buenaventura Manuel Jerónimo, He was born in the village of Plan de Sánchez and still lives there. At the time of the massacre he was 24 years old, unmarried, still lived with his parents and his sister, and farmed. He speaks Maya-Achí and learned Spanish when he was 18 years old. On Sunday, July 18, 1982, between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., the Army entered the community with a group of people they had brought from the municipality; they blocked the entrance to the village and took the people to the house of one of his sisters. Other soldiers went from house to house collecting the families. His mother told him to flee, that they were more likely to harass the men and would not do anything to the women. He left the house and hid about 150 meters away. They separated the women of 15 to 20 years old, put them in his grandmother’s house, raped them, killed them, and left them lying there. They also separated the children of up to seven or eight years old – even the newborns – clubbed them to death and threw them on the fire. When it got dark, he crept away and hid in the wilds. He did not sleep all that night; he remained seated listening to the shots until 1 a.m., when the Army left. He lost his mother, three sisters, two sisters-in-law and seven nephews and nieces of two to six years old in the massacre. He felt an anguish that no one could ever cure or heal, because that grief will never be forgotten. He has suffered a great deal over the past 22 years and he will never forget what happened. The following day, the survivors were obliged to bury their dead. They finished burying the remains at around 5 p.m. and he felt very sad to think that they died unjustly and had not been buried with the due traditional respect. When the survivors returned to their homes, they saw that their good clothes had been taken, and their other clothes burnt, together with their beds, and their title deeds. Following these events, they hid in the wilds for two years. In the daytime, they took turns to watch out for when the Army entered the village and, at night, they took refuge in the wilds. During these two years he suffered from malnutrition and various ailments. When the amnesty was decreed in 1984, they were able to return from the wilds. However, by order of the military agent, they could not live in Plan de Sánchez and were obliged to join the PAC. At that time, they forced men of 15 to 85 years old to take part in the patrols. This made them feel as if they were “guarding nothing,” because there were no criminals, or uniformed or armed individuals in their communities. Subsequently, the witness was obliged to enlist in the Army for 30 months. On October 31, 1987, he left the military barracks and requested the authorization of the Rabinal detachment to return to Plan de Sánchez; consequently, he was obliged to join the patrol again.

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