Guatemala Convicts First-Ever Guerrilla for 1988 Massacre

On Friday, a Guatemalan court convicted a former guerrilla leader Fermin Felipe Solano Barillas to 90 years in prison for homicide and crimes against humanity, charges stemming from the 1988 massacre of 22 people in the town of El Aguacate. The AP reports that the court said the strict sentence was aimed at setting a precedent, “to prevent these acts from ever being repeated.”

The decision marks an important landmark in post-conflict Guatemala: while members of the security forces have been prosecuted for war crimes, it is the first time that a left-wing guerrilla has been convicted of committing such crimes. Considering that a United Nations truth commission report found that state forces and paramilitary groups were responsible for 93 percent of human rights violations in the conflict, this may not be surprising. Still, Solano’s conviction sends a message that rebel abuses are not going unpunished.

It is interesting to note that while prosecutors in Guatemala have used the chain of command principle to go after officials as high as former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, Solano has been singled out as the sole figure responsible for the massacre. According to Plaza Publica, several of Solano’s former commanders in the Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA) distanced themselves from the killings in their testimony, saying the massacre had been carried out by an alias “Lieutenant David,” who was acting on his own initiative. Only one of his comrades positively identified Solano as “David,” however.

Further prosecutions in the Aguacate massacre can’t be ruled out. In his ruling, the judge recommended that public prosecutors continue to investigate the incident to determine whether others in ORPA have any responsibility for the killings, Plaza Publica reports.

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