On December 6, 1982, more than twenty Guatemalan soldiers stormed the tiny village of Dos Erres, looking for rifles which they claimed had recently been stolen by local guerillas. They searched homes for the “missing weapons” and systematically killed all the men, women and children they could find. According to the few surviving eyewitnesses of the massacre, soldiers rounded up the villagers and shot, strangled and bludgeoned them to death with sledgehammers, throwing their bodies down a well. The elite Guatemalan military unit known as the ‘Kaibiles’ was responsible for the killings. The women and girls were raped before being executed. In a matter of hours, the Kaibiles had wiped out the entire village. More than 250 people were slaughtered in one of the worst atrocities of the impoverished country’s 36-year civil war.

Despite pressure from the US attorneys, Guatemala opened an investigation into the killings in 1994 and unearthed the skeletons of 162 victims. Several years later, authorities issued arrest warrants for 17 former Kaibiles for crimes against humanity. The cases languished in the Guatemalan courts until August of 2012 when a judge sentenced three former Special Forces soldiers to 6,060 years in prison for the massacre. Another former lieutenant was sentenced to 6,066 years. The sentences for Reyes Collin Gualip, Manuel “Pop” Sun, and Daniel Martinez include thirty years for each death, plus thirty years apiece for crimes against humanity.

Former Second Lieutenant Carlos Antonio Carias received an additional six years for stealing some of the victims’ belongings. Prosecutors said Carias was in charge of the military base near the community of Dos Erres, and that he provided the information to the army which led to the massacre.

The fifth member of the Kaibile squad to be accused of the massacre was convicted in Guatemala City. Pedro Pimentel was extradited from the US in July of 2011. He had spent the previous twenty years living a secret life, working as a laborer in a clothing factory in Santa Ana, California.

The 6,060 year sentence given to Pimentel by a three-judge panel is largely symbolic, however, because under Guatemalan law the maximum time a convict can serve is only 50 years. Still, the judges specified 30 years for each of the 201 killings he is charged with, plus 30 years for crimes against humanity. Guatemalan human rights advocates hope that more former Kaibiles and others responsible for the atrocities will finally be brought to justice. Twelve more Special Forces soldiers linked to the massacre are still currently in hiding.

Attorney Edgar Pérez represents Dos Erres survivors and victims’ families. “This is a chance for Guatemala’s fragile judicial system to show that it’s standing up to these kinds of atrocities for once,” he said. “It’s the only way to make

On Thursday, March 1, 2012, former Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt was denied immunity from genocide charges by a judge who ruled that an international treaty overrides an amnesty law passed in the wake of Guatemala’s civil war. The decision hopefully opens the door to more prosecutions related to the 36-year conflict. Rios Montt was accused of ordering the murder, torture and displacement of thousands of Mayan Indians while he was president in 1982-83. Lawyers representing Rios Montt appealed the ruling to Guatemala’s highest court. While the decision is an important symbolic victory for the families and victims of one of the most horrific conflicts to engulf the region, Rios Montt’s appeal to the high court means that any trial for the 85-year-old former dictator could be several years away – by which time Rios Montt will probably be dead.

Guatemala’s political leaders have been criticized for many years over their inability or unwillingness to prosecute former government forces and paramilitaries accused of carrying out rapes and torture, slaughtering women, children and unarmed men in a “scorched earth” campaign aimed at eliminating the support for a (mostly imaginary) left-wing guerrilla movement.

Despite international efforts to try him for war crimes, Rios Montt held immunity from prosecution for nearly 15 years while serving as a member of the Guatemalan Congress. When he finally lost a re-election bid in 2011 he was put under house arrest.

Victims’ rights advocates said that the decision to hold Rios Montt responsible for war crimes committed during his regime could set a precedent in the cases of two former generals accused along with Rios Montt, as well as dozens of other lower-ranking military men accused of participating in atrocities.

The reformation of Guatemala’s justice system and ending the policy of granting immunity are two of the conditions set by the US Congress for restoring military aid to the country. For most Guatemalans today, however, the terror they suffered a generation ago at the hands of the military has simply been replaced by drug-cartel terror. The situation has gotten so bad that U.S. military officials now consider the northern Central American triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador the most dangerous place in the world outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Kaibiles helped train notorious Mexican military units like the GAFE, a link which has come back to haunt both Mexico and Guatemala in recent years. In the late 1990’s an especially vicious arm of GAFE commandos called the Zetas deserted from the Mexican army and became the hired enforcers for one of Mexico’s largest drug gangs, the Gulf Cartel. The partnership was so successful the Zetas eventually broke off and became their own drug mafia. To increase their ranks, they recruited former Kaibiles. Guatemalan and Mexican authorities say that ex-Kaibiles are heavily involved in the brutal drug wars in northern Mexico.

In order to heal itself as a nation, Guatemala’s judiciary needs to uphold their responsibilities to the international community and expedite the prosecution of all war criminals. In addition to ensuring that former dictator Efrain Rios Montt and others receive speedy trials for their crimes, the government should immediately de-escalate the war on drugs and concentrate on restoring the country’s shattered infrastructure. International humanitarian aid should be vastly increased, especially to rural areas, and the Guatemalan military needs to be entirely de-funded to provide strictly for the country’s defense. Once that goal has been achieved, the activities of the Guatemalan Defense Forces must be closely monitored by international peace-keeping agencies like the UN to guarantee that no future atrocities occur.