GUERRILLAS SERVE NOTICE ON GUATEMALAN BUTCHERS
{The following statement was issued May 15 by the Centro de Direccién Revolucionaria de las Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (Center of Revolutionary Leadership of the Rebel Armed Forces), the Guatemalan guerrilla group headed by César Montes. It has been translated by World Qutlook from the May issue of FAR, the group's underground publication. The subheadings appear in the original.]
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Since the downfall of the democratic regime of Arbenz, the succeeding reactionary governments have utilized prisons, torture and assassination as the principal means to stifle the signs of popular discontent. Castillo Armas did this, murdering hundreds of workers and peasants; Ydigoras Fuentes did the same, savagely repressing the people; Peralta Azurdia similarly murdered, used torture and caused the "disappearance" forever of hundreds of Guatemalans; and now it is being done by Julio César Méndez Montenegro. The present government, with the aim of drawing together the administrative apparatus of the state, did not hesitate at reaching a compromise with those who had murdered during the Peralta dictatorship, accepting an agreement to bow to the army. By this attitude, the Partido Revolucionario [the government party] demonstrated that as representative of the wealthy classes it could not carry out any of the economic and social reforms necessary to solve the problems of the people originating in the exploitation which the majority of Guatemalans suffer.
As a class instrument, the Mendéz Montenegro government has no other recourse than application of the same counterrevolutionary measures utilized by the reaction during the past thirteen years. The official repression, carried out through the "Mano Blanca" [White Hand] and the "Noa," groups which the army guides and fosters, has already gone beyond the crimes committed by Peralta Azurdia.
In face of the militant popular attitude, the enemies of the people have resorted to new methods in seeking to break their will and muzzle their protests. Thus they went to great lengths to make the Méndez Montenegro regime appear like a democratic government. This maneuver failed so that the reaction was left with no other means but counterrevolutionary terror.
And the government has pursued this course unconcerned about striking against broad sectors of the population, unconcerned about plunging hundreds of humble Guatemalan homes into grief and despair, unconcerned about committing acts as criminal and abysmal as decapitating people, both men and women, and inflicting savage torture on prisoners. Among other cases we can cite the school mistress Oaxaca de Mejia, brutally decapitated in Santa Rosa, the Pineda Longo brothers, the body of one of them being found castrated, the peasant assassinated in Salam&, whose eyes were pierced with pins, and the mass murders in Chiquimula, the nine peasants in the La MAquina land division and the eleven members of the Partido Revolucionario in Sanarate, without mentioning the use of napalm in the northeast.
Objective of the Indiscriminate Terror
This entire campaign of unrestrained terror, of sowing fear, panic, confusion, aims not only at neutralizing the popular struggle, but is also an effort mounted by local reaction and imperialism to provoke the rebel armed forces and make them fall into the error of replying by seeking "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," causing them to become sidetracked from their essential political objectives.
The FAR has not fallen and will not fall into such a trap. It denounced the maneuvers of the army and the government in time, pointing to the bodies involved and even naming some of the henchmen in the wave of terror raging in the country. Despite the criminal activities of the reaction, the FAR did not move, did not respond to the provocation.
This correct attitude has already proved fruitful. The reaction, intoxicated with the blood bath it unleashed, has completely lost sight of political struggle and civilized combat, becoming converted into something genuinely monstrous, killing, torturing, without reason, simply out of criminal impulse and the aim of intinidating the people.
The popular masses have understood this and have proved able to differentiate between the responsible revolutionary activities of the FAR and the murderous actions of the government and its army.
The official terror has not gained its objectives. The people have not been intimidated nor given up sympathy and support for the FAR. Just the opposite -- the will to struggle and the hate which the people feel for their oppressors have greatly increased. It can already be said that this second phase of the imperialist plan to end the armed revolutionary struggle has been defeated. The maneuver of depicting the Méndez Montenegro government
as democratic has failed and the maneuver of turning to indiscriminate terror in order to isolate the FAR from the popular masses has begun to fail.
Some Leaders of the Noa and the Mano
It is known that the Noa and the Mano are nothing more than army and government bodies. These same terrorist groups enabled the people to grasp their role as government instruments by publishing information available only to the judicial police or other government and army bodies.
It appears that those who created these criminal bands have lost control over them and that they are beginning to operate on their own account. At least this appears to be indicated by such political stupidity, such slaughter of innocent people, such unlimited savagery.
While the army conducts its repressive measures through the Noa, the government operates through the National Police which is utilizing a group of policemen in plain clothes for seizing, kidnapping, torturing and murdering hundreds of patriots. The plainclothesmen, along with other elements, form the organization known as the Mano Blanco. Recently, especially since the head of the National Police was changed, this police organization has engaged in competing in shedding blood with the civilian organization acting under the direct orders of the Ministry of Defense, the "Noa."
The joint work of the civilian and military machines of the regime is clearly exemplified in the organization operating in the northeast of the country. In that area, the army team applying the repression is as follows: Colonel Carlos Arana, first chief of the military zone of Zacapa; Carlos Thompson, an Izabal landowner who holds a military commission; Mariano SAnchez, a native of Gual4n and head of the commissioned officers, under whose orders the following group heads are serving: Francisco Aguirre, Pedro Sosa, Carlos Oliverio Castafieda Pafz and Edgar Cruz, alias "El Gitano" [the gypsy]. These group heads direct various henchmen, among whom we can name Rolando Cruz and Benjamin Cruz, respectively the brother and the father of "El Gitano."
These repressive groups use various houses and places for their misdeeds like the Santa Cruz toll booth, which is also an information and control center for all those traveling in this area; the military headquarters in the town of La Palma, the home of Benjamin Cruz, the service station of Ovidio Morales, alias "El Chato" [pug nose]. At the military headquarters in La Palma the most terrible tortures have been inflicted and hundreds of murders have been committed; the bodies of hundreds of citizens massacred in this place have later been thrown into the Motagua river. In Benjamin Cruz's home in Rfo Hondo they plot seizures, tortures and murders; and in Ovidio Morales' service station they hold a kind of tribunal in which they decide the fate of prisoners. In addition they use the place as a jail and a center for preliminary interrogations.
In the municipality of Rio Hondo and other villages and towns there are other plainclothesmen, well armed, who prowl the streets and sidewalks with instructions to shoot anyone who looks suspicious. These repressive gangs are attached to the Direccién General of the National Police and the central group has its general headquarters in the complaints section of this institution.
In addition to this gang, in the second corps, in the Florida station and other police stations, there are plainclothesmen designated to seize Guatemalans, to torture and murder them. Almost all of these agents are justice men who formerly belonged to the special section of the justice department or the criminal investigation section of the National Police. Many of them participated in the murder of the twenty-eight citizens who "disappeared" in the dark days of Peralta Azurdia.
The central nucleus of this gang of thugs is composed of the following persons: Germ4n de Leén Orellana, alias "Zacatén" Chay, used in a sense like hayseed], An{fbal Hermosilla, Herlindo Fern4ndez Pozuelos, alias "Pellejos" Cskin, but can mean drunkard or prostitute], and Nazario Cruz. Their misdeeds are committed in the quarters of the first corps of the National Police, the cells of the second corps (the 400) and in private homes, which they use as centers for applying torture and committing murder.
To cite instances of the many murders committed by "Zacatén" and his squad, it is sufficient to recall the names of Jorge Ampié Montenegro, Alberto Garcia Léon, Alberto Cardona, whose bodies were found in the municipality of Chuarrancho with obvious signs of having been submitted to the most savage torture; the 61-year-old Felipe Gonz4lez and Buenaventura, found in alam&.
Methods Used in Killing
The ways in which these organzations seize people are as follows: generally they try to pick them up when no one is around so that there are no witnesses; in other cases they openly arrest people in their homes, using police cars, and later the authorities deny they have been taken. Since on many occasions the official license plates have been taken down, the officials say that they have no record of any such plates and know nothing about the
automobiles that were used.
All interrogations are carried out by beating the prisoners savagely until they lose consciousness. Death by asphyxia is applied by wrapping a thin hose around the neck of the prisoner. The two ends are then drawn tight until the thyroids and pharynx are crushed, causing the death of the victim. Some persons lose their voice and ability to eat, and suffer an even more painful death. They then take out the bodies and when they leave them somewhere they fire a few shots into them. Others have been burned alive, as in the case of some who have fallen into the hands of the army gangs. To cite names it is sufficient to recall the young school teacher Nora Pafiz and the battler Gabriel Mejia.
The principal torturers and murderers in the direct pay of the army, who continue to commit all kinds of crimes in the eastern part of the country and the capital in the name of the Noa are Carlos Oliverio Castafieda Pafz, who serves as head of the gang; the brothers Luis, Gonzalo, Tom&s and Ramiro Orellana; Romeo Vargas, alias "Furgén" [boxcar, also last card in the pack], Edgar Cruz, alias "El Gitano," Carlos Estrada, Carlos Vargas, Julio Orellana, Gustavo Orellana, Adalberto Orellana and others. Oliverio Castafeda's gang dedicates itself with special enthusiasm to hunting revolutionaries or "suspects" in the streets of the capital, being guilty of numerous assassinations like those of the brothers Oliva and Carlos Enrique Herrarte and similar cases.
The government and the army foster and cover up the activities of such repressive groups, which are guided by high military chiefs and some officials of lower rank, whose names and addresses we know perfectly.
Punishment of These Agents
The FAR has not responded to the provocations of the government, the army and Yankee imperialism, but we do not view the suffering of the people with indifference. We declare that we are not going to stand arms folded, watching the Méndez Montenegro dictatorship murder a defenseless population. We are going to
act in order to deter the reactionary
terror and are going to do so consciously,
carefully, so that the people understand
our revolutionary objectives and the char-
acter of our struggle while at the same
time exposing the criminal and reaction-
ary nature of the government and its army.
The FAR repeats categorically that
in no case will it retaliate against re-
latives of the agents, torturers and as-
sassins, linked with them merely through
family ties. No matter what the atroci-
ties committed by a "Zacatén," by an
Oliverio Castafieda Pafiz, we, as revolu-
tionary patriots, will not take vengeance
on women, old people, children and men
who have nothing to do with the criminal
actions of such gangsters. The FAR will
act directly against the real assassins,
criminals and torturers, who, along with
their military and civilian chiefs will
receive the punishment they merit. In
these cases we will apply popular justice
without hesitation.
In making this declaration, we ap-
peal to upright men in the military and
police not to stain their hands with the
blood of their compatriots. We always
know how to distinguish between those in
the military and police who limit then-
selves to carrying out functions proper
to their work and the uniformed assassins
who dedicate themselves to massacring
Guatemalans.
The oppressing classes have ap-
plied violence against the people and are
continuing their policy of attempting
through unrestrained terror to beat down
the popular resistance. But the reaction-
ary violence can be defeated only by
means of revolutionary violence, which
the Rebel Armed Forces are inspiring as
the most vigorous demonstration of the
militant will of the Guatemalan people.
Guilt for the present blood bath
lies with the government of Méndez Monte-
negro, which, abetted by Yankee imperial-
ism, is venting its fury on the popular
majority; but the Guatemalan people will
emerge from the wave of reactionary ter-
ror fortified, with a stronger decision
and more reasons to struggle either TO
WIN OR DIE FOR GUATEMALA.
IT'S