A soldier from the Atlacatl Battalion moves along a dirt road during a military operation in pursuit of guerrillas from the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, FMLN, in Tenancingo, El Salvador, September 27, 1983. The Atlacatl Battalion was trained at Ft. Bragg in the United States by U.S. Special Forces as the first Salvadoran rapid response counterinsurgency battalion and was implicated in some of the most infamous human rights violations of the twelve-year armed conflict.
A soldier from the Atlacatl Battalion advances during a military operation in pursuit of guerrillas from the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, FMLN, in Tenancingo, El Salvador, September 27, 1983. Lack of opportunity for social and economic ascension led many young Salvadorans towards military inscription.
A wounded officer from the Atlacatl Battalion is evacuated by fellow soldiers during a military operation in pursuit of guerrillas from the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, FMLN, in Tenancingo, El Salvador, September 27, 1983. The twelve-year armed conflict would claim over 75,000 lives before peace negotiations concluded in 1992.
Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Monterrosa speaks with a wounded guerrilla from the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, ERP, captured during a military operation by the rapid reaction military unit the Atlacatl Battalion in San Miguel department, El Salvador, August 23, 1983. The United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador named the Atlacatl Battalion under Monterrosa's command as responsible for the massacre of nearly 1,000 civilians in 1981 in El Mozote, Morazán department, considered the worst massacre in modern Latin American history.
Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Monterrosa speaks with a wounded guerrilla from the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, ERP, captured during a military operation by the rapid reaction military unit the Atlacatl Battalion in San Miguel department, El Salvador, August 23, 1983. The United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador named the Atlacatl Battalion under Monterrosa's command as responsible for the massacre of nearly 1,000 civilians in 1981 in El Mozote, Morazán department, considered the worst massacre in modern Latin American history.
A Salvadoran army soldier with the counterinsurgency unit the Atlacatl Battalion holds a flyer from FMLN guerrillas calling for an end to state-sponsored violence in San Miguel department, El Salvador, August 23, 1983. The country was engaged in a twelve-year civil war between successive authoritarian regimes, backed by the United States, and the guerrilla coalition Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, FMLN. The conflict would claim over 75,000 lives before peace negotiations concluded in 1992.
Detail of the hand of a Salvadoran army officer with his military academy ring at the First Battalion headquarters of the Atlacatl Battalion in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, October 1, 1982. The Atlacatl Battalion was trained at Ft. Bragg in the United States by U.S. Special Forces as the first Salvadoran rapid response counterinsurgency battalion and was implicated in some of the most infamous human rights violations of the twelve-year armed conflict.
A United States Army instructor, center right, inspects U.S.-made M-16 rifles during a training exercise at the First Battalion headquarters of the Atlacatl Battalion in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, October 1, 1982. As early as 1950, the United States provided extensive support in the establishment of a counterintelligence apparatus for the Salvadoran military and police forces, in addition to direct military funding and assistance. Over the course of the civil war from 1980-1992, the United States sent more than $6 billion to the Salvadoran government in economic and military aid.
A Salvadoran officer, center, stands with two of his soldiers from the Atonal Battalion during a military operation against guerrillas from the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, ERP, in rural Usulután department, El Salvador, August 1, 1983. Rapid reaction battalions were trained in counterinsurgency tactics to combat guerrilla warfare and were designed and funded by the United States military.
Local residents mourn as a truck carrying caskets of dead relatives arrives in Guadalupe, San Vicente department, El Salvador, May 9, 1983. The dead were members of a local civil defense force killed by guerrillas from the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, FMLN. Civil defense units in El Salvador were under military command and operated particularly in rural areas where guerrilla support was high.
A group of international journalists are shown captured weapons from a guerrilla safe house found by the Guatemalan Army in the regional military garrison run by Colonel Byron Lima Estrada in Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala, February 1, 1982. Col. Lima Estrada was commander of the Quiché department army garrison. He received U.S. Army counterintelligence training at Fort Benning, Georgia, the School of the Americas, and instruction from the U.S. Army Mobile Training Team (MTT) and the U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP). Following his term as intelligence chief, Lima Estrada served as senior officer in key operational units during the Guatemalan Armed Forces' "scorched earth" campaigns against the Maya population in the highlands. Lima Estrada was convicted in 2001 for the 1998 murder of Catholic Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera, which remains one of the most infamous crimes of Guatemala's post-war history.
View of a cache of weapons and propaganda materials recently seized by the military from a Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres, Guerrilla Army of the Poor, EGP, safe house with General Benedicto Lucas García, far right, at the regional military garrison in Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala, February 1, 1982. The EGP emerged in 1967 from dissident factions of the guerrilla organization Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes, Rebel Armed Forces, FAR, Catholic followers of liberation theology, and students affiliated with the Juventud Patriótica del Trabajo, JPT, a youth wing of the Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo, Guatemalan Labor Party, PGT. The EGP established themselves in the highlands where civilian support for their cause was high. Among their demands were land reform, access to healthcare, and a respect for human rights, particularly for the Maya population of the country.
Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, center, shows a group of international journalists a cache of weapons recently found by the military in a Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres, Guerrilla Army of the Poor, EGP, safe house at the regional military garrison in Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala, February 1, 1982. Col. Lima Estrada was commander of the Quiché department army garrison. He received U.S. Army counterintelligence training at Fort Benning, Georgia, the School of the Americas, and instruction from the U.S. Army Mobile Training Team (MTT) and the U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP). Following his term as intelligence chief, Lima Estrada served as senior officer in key operational units during the Guatemalan Armed Forces' "scorched earth" campaigns in the 1980s. Lima Estrada was convicted in 2001 for the 1998 murder of Catholic Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera, which is considered one of the most infamous crimes of Guatemala's post-war history.
A group of international journalists are shown a cache of weapons recently found by the military in a Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres, Guerrilla Army of the Poor, EGP, safe house with General Benedicto Lucas García, far right, at the regional military garrison in Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala, February 1, 1982. Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, the Santa Cruz del Quiché garrison commander, center, observes the guerrilla equipment. In 1981 the military regime and the Guatemalan army initiated a brutal counterinsurgency program of scorched earth tactics to consolidate control over civilians and counteract the influence of the guerrilla insurgency. The genocidal policies enacted by President Fernando Romeo Lucas García and later by Efraín Ríos Montt were also intended to eradicate the culture and identity of the indigenous population. For his role as army general in the internal armed conflict, General Benedicto Lucas García was sentenced on May 23, 2018 to 58 years in prison for crimes against humanity, aggravated sexual violence, and enforced disappearance. Col. Lima Estrada was convicted in 2001 for the 1998 murder of Catholic Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera, which is considered one of the most infamous crimes of Guatemala's post-war history.
Guatemalan army Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, center right, the commander of the Quiché department army garrison, looks over captured weapons and explosives found in a Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres, Guerrilla Army of the Poor, EGP, safe house outside of Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala, February 1, 1982. Lima Estrada received U.S. Army counterintelligence training at Fort Benning, Georgia, the School of the Americas, and instruction from the U.S. Army Mobile Training Team (MTT) and the U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP). Following his term as intelligence chief, he served as senior officer in key operational units during the Guatemalan Armed Forces' "scorched earth" campaigns in the 1980s. Lima Estrada was convicted in 2001 for the 1998 murder of Catholic Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera, which is considered one of the most infamous crimes of Guatemala's post-war history.
A group of international journalists are shown captured weapons from a guerrilla safe house found by the Guatemalan Army in the regional military garrison run by Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, left, in Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala, February 1, 1982. Col. Lima Estrada was commander of the Quiché department army garrison. He received U.S. Army counterintelligence training at Fort Benning, Georgia, the School of the Americas, and instruction from the U.S. Army Mobile Training Team (MTT) and the U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP). Following his term as intelligence chief, Lima Estrada served as senior officer in key operational units during the Guatemalan Armed Forces' "scorched earth" campaigns against the Maya population in the highlands. Lima Estrada was convicted in 2001 for the 1998 murder of Catholic Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera, which remains one of the most infamous crimes of Guatemala's post-war history.
Leftist guerrillas from the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación, FPL, interrogate a family member involved in the paramilitary group Organización Democrática Nacionalista, National Democratic Organization, ORDEN, seated left, after a takeover of a nearby village in Santa Anita, El Salvador, February 22, 1981. ORDEN was established in the late 1960s with support from the United States Army Special Forces by General José Alberto Medrano, known as the father of Salvadoran counterinsurgency. ORDEN, along with the Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña, National Security Agency of El Salvador, ANSESAL, widely considered to be the origin of the death squads, were employed by the military to infiltrate and terrorize rural populations considered subversive to the regime. Although ORDEN was nominally disbanded in 1979, many of its members were folded into civil defense units who continued to use extrajudicial violence and torture to repress the civilian population throughout the armed conflict.
Leftist guerrillas from the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación, FPL, interrogate a family member involved in the paramilitary group Organización Democrática Nacionalista, National Democratic Organization, ORDEN, seated center right, after a takeover of a nearby village in Santa Anita, El Salvador, February 22, 1981. ORDEN was established in the late 1960s with support from the United States Army Special Forces by General José Alberto Medrano, known as the father of Salvadoran counterinsurgency. ORDEN, along with the Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Salvadoreña, National Security Agency of El Salvador, ANSESAL, widely considered to be the origin of the death squads, were employed by the military to infiltrate and terrorize rural populations considered subversive to the regime. Although ORDEN was nominally disbanded in 1979, many of its members were folded into civil defense units who continued to use extrajudicial violence and torture to repress the civilian population throughout the armed conflict.
A military-style band marches near the National Palace during a ceremony with General Efraín Ríos Montt in Guatemala City, Guatemala, October 20, 1982. Ríos Montt assumed control through a military coup d'état on March 23, 1982. His 17-month term as de facto head of state, in which he installed a military regime, dissolved the congress, and suspended the constitution, is considered the most violent period of the conflict. Ríos Montt enjoyed close ties with the Reagan administration and with Christian conservatives in the United States. He has since been indicted and tried for genocide and crimes against humanity against the country's Maya Ixil population with the legal proceedings extending until his death on April 1, 2018.