22 75. According to the CEH report,50 during 1982 the presence of the “Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes” or Rebellious Armed Forces (hereinafter “FAR”) increased in the areas neighboring Las Dos Erres, such as in the village of Las Cruces. In September of that same year there was a confrontation between the members of the FAR and State agents in Las Cruces. Consequently, the military commissioner organized a Civil Defense Patrol (“PAC”) in Las Dos Erres, with the goal of patrolling the area of Las Cruces along with the PAC of that area. The inhabitants of Las Dos Erres indicated that they would only accept to be part of a PAC which would patrol their own community, and not in Las Cruces. As a result of this negative response, the inhabitants of Las Dos Erres were accused of being members of the guerrilla. 76. According to the information gathered by the CEH51, the commissioner of Las Cruces spread the rumor that the inhabitants of Las Dos Erres were part of the guerrilla, and the evidence presented to the army included a sack for collecting crops of one of the founders of the community, Federico Aquino Ruano, which had the initials FAR. These initials corresponded to his name, and matched those of the “Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes.” When the rumor was already circulating in the area that the army would soon bomb the Las Dos Erres community, a military convoy was ambushed by the FAR only a few kilometers from Las Cruces, and the FAR took 19 army rifles52. In response, military zone 23 of Poptún requested the deployment of a special squad of kaibiles in order to recover the rifles. On December 4, 1982 a squad of 17 kaibiles arrived by airplane to the airbase in Santa Elena, Petén, from Retalhuleu. They joined up with a group of 40 kaibiles posted in military zone 23 of Poptún. At the Santa Elena military base they were assigned a guide who knew the area to take them to the Las Dos Erres community. 77. On December 6, 1982 a military action was prepared for the specialized Armed Forces group, during which the superiors of the squad met with the kaibiles and told them to dress as guerrilla to confuse the population and destroy the community, anything seen moving had to be killed. At around 9 p.m. they left the military base of Santa Elena toward Las Dos Erres, aboard civil trucks. At around midnight they made them get off the trucks and walk for approximately two hours, until they reached the community at 2 a.m. the morning of December 7, 1982. 78. On December 7, 1982, at dawn, the Guatemalan soldiers part of the special group named kaibiles arrived at Las Dos Erres and began removing people from their homes. The men were locked up in the community’s school, and the women and children in the evangelical church. While confined they were beaten, and some died from the blows. 79. At around 4:30 p.m. the kaibiles took the men out of the school, blindfolded and hand-tied, and led them to an unfinished well were they were shot. Afterward, the women and children were taken to the same place. Along the way a lot of girls were raped by the kaibiles, mainly by sub-instructors. Upon reaching the well, the kaibiles made the victims kneel and asked them whether they were part of the guerrilla, and at that point they struck them on the head with an iron mallet or shot them, throwing the corpses inside the well. During the facts of the massacre at least 50 CEH, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, supra note 6, Appendix I, Volume I, Illustrative Case No. 31. 51 CEH, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, supra note 6. 52 From the CEH report, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, and the statement given by César Franco Ibáñez, it derives that the FAR took 19 rifles (Appendixes to the application, appendix 30, f. 4020). However, in the application the Commission refers to the testimony of Favio Pinzón, which indicates that it was 21 rifles (Appendixes to the application, appendix 30, f. 3940).