First the army came for the men. Fifteen Mayan peasant leaders in the tiny hamlet of Sepur Zarco in eastern Guatemala were seized and killed or forcibly disappeared.
A few weeks later, they came back for the women. Soldiers raped them in front of their children, burned down their houses and crops, stole their meagre belongings and made them move into shacks outside the nearby military base.
Every two or three days, each woman was made to report for 12-hour “shifts” at the base where they were forced to cook, clean and submit to systematic rape, often by several soldiers.
It was 1982, one of the bloodiest years of the country’s civil war as counter-insurgency operations against ethnic Mayans intensified under the rule of the military dictator and evangelical Christian, Efraín Ríos Montt.
More than 30 years later, two former military officers will finally face charges of sexual and domestic slavery and forced disappearance in a landmark trial which opens on Monday.
The trial marks the first in the world that sexual slavery perpetrated during an armed conflict has been prosecuted in the country where the crimes took place.
The two defendants, former base commander Esteelmer Reyes Girón and former regional military commissioner Heriberto Valdez Asij, are accused of crimes against humanity, which are exempt from the country’s post-war amnesty law.
Throughout Guatemala’s 36-year conflict, state security forces used rape as a weapon of terror, according to the 1999 report of a UN-backed Truth Commission, but no officers have ever faced charges of sexual violence.
And while the plight of Korean and Filipino “comfort women” forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops during the second world war remains the subject of high-level diplomatic disputes, victims of similar crimes in Guatemala have had little or no official support.
“The women have worked with an amazing coalition of organizations over years to build the case in an effort to overcome the stigma and break the silence that so often accompanies sexual violence in armed conflict,” said Jo-Marie Burt, political science professor at George Mason University and senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola).
The Sepur Zarco crimes took place during the presidency of Ríos Montt, who in May 2013 was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity – a verdict controversially overturned by the constitutional court just 10 days later. Montt and his co-accused are currently awaiting retrial.
Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil was triggered by a CIA-backed coup after a democratically elected president promised land reforms. Ríos Montt justified the state-sponsored violence by claiming the victims were communist guerrillas. But army actions were largely about protecting the interests of rich landowners.
In Sepur Zarco, Mayan Q’eqchi’ peasant leaders had angered local landowners by fighting for the legal titles to the land upon which they had lived and worked for years. The landowners called in the army for protection.
After the 15 men were illegally detained and disappeared, 11 of their wives were forced into domestic and sexual slavery.
The macabre “shift” system ended after about 10 months. But for some victims, the bondage lasted for as long as six years until the military installation was closed in 1998. During this time, the women were forced to find corn and make tortillas for the soldiers, even though their own children were starving. And the rapes continued.
The other four women fled to the mountains, where they hid for years with no shelter and little food. Many of their children died from hunger or disease.
Bringing the case to trial has been a long and painful process. The victims, now in their 70s and 80s, are frail, illiterate and speak no Spanish, only Q’eqchi’. Most continue to suffer physical and psychological problems as a result of the sexual violence, aggravated by ongoing harsh living conditions.
Because of the victims’ ages and frailty, the judge agreed to pre-trial evidentiary hearings in 2012 so that their testimonies were on record. Just four months later, one of the women died. Five men who were detained and tortured at the Sepur Zarco base are also witnesses.
Reyes faces charges of sexual violence, sexual and domestic slavery, and for the murder of Dominga Coc and her two daughters at base camp. Valdez, who allegedly identified the so-called subversives, will be prosecuted for sexual violence and the forced disappearance of at least nine men.
Both defendants, who have been held in remand since June 2014, deny the charges. The investigation into other alleged perpetrators continues.
“By speaking out and seeking justice the women of Sepur Zarco are writing Guatemalan history, helping us all better understand what happened and why. Let’s hope that the justice system is up to the task,” Burt told the Guardian.
The trial is expected to last 40 days.
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