Guatemalan ex-paramilitaries sentenced to 40 years each in Maya Achi rape trial

By Sofia Menchu

A top Guatemalan court on Friday sentenced three former paramilitaries each to 40 years in prison after they were found guilty of raping six Indigenous women between 1981 and 1983, the bloodiest period of the Central American nation's civil war.

The trial against the former members of the so-called Civil Self-Defense Patrol, armed groups recruited by the army, began four months ago.

"The soldiers arrived late at night, threw me onto the ground and raped me," Paulina Ixpata, a Maya Achi woman, said during the trial. Prosecutors presented more than 160 pieces of evidence against the men.

"That's how the whole night went," Ixpata said, recounting how she was held for 25 days by the military patrol.

Judge Maria Eugenia Castellanos sentenced the three for crimes against humanity in the form of sexual violence.

"The women recognized the perpetrators, they recognized the places where the events took place. They were victims of crimes against humanity," she said.

This is the second trial in the so-called Maya Achi case, and follows reports of sexual violence filed between 2011 and 2015 by 36 victims against former military personnel, military commissioners and civilian self-defense patrol members.

The first trial, which took place in January 2022, saw five former patrol members sentenced to 30 years in prison. They remain incarcerated.

In 2016, a Guatemalan court sentenced two former military officers for holding 15 women from the Q'eqchi community, who are also of Maya origin, as sex slaves at the Sepur Zarco military base, a landmark case that marked the first convictions in Guatemala of military officers for wartime rape.

Both officers were sentenced to a combined 360 years in prison, where they remain incarcerated.

The court also stipulated a reparations program, whose progress remains limited despite advocacy by the 15 women who were at the trial, known as the "Grandmothers of Sepur Zarco."