Country: Guatemala
Group: Ixil
Date Finalized: 2/24/2020
Team: Vianney Mancilla (lead), Arisha Khan, Maya Shrikant
Content warning: genocide, homicide, war
Approximate Time Period: 1960-1996
The Ixil genocide took place during the 36-year Guatemalan civil war. The Ixil protested for “greater equality and inclusion of the Mayan language and culture” (Holocaust Museum Houston, n.d). In 1980, the Guatemalan government initiated Operation Sophia to end insurgent guerilla warfare, specifically targeting the Ixil, which were believed to be advocates of the movement (Holocaust Museum Houston, n.d). Over the course of three years, hundreds of villages were destroyed, over 200,000 Mayans were killed or “disappeared,” among 83% were Ixil, 1.5 million people were displaced and 150,000 others sought refuge in Mexico (Holocaust Museum Houston, n.d). In addition to this, the Guatemalan government issued a scorched earth policy, destroying buildings and crops, killing livestock, and violating the Ixil sacred places and cultural symbols (Holocaust Museum Houston, n.d). In 1999, the United Nation’s Commission of Historical Clarification released its report titled, “Guatemala: Memory of Silence,” which confirmed a state-issued genocide of the Mayan Indians, the Ixil explicitly stated among them (Rothenberg, 2016). The Ixil were subject to genocide, ecocide, and ethnocide. The data quality would receive a 3, given the United Nation’s confirmation of the Ixil genocide.
Sources
- Holocaust Museum Houston (n.d.). Genocide in Guatemala. Retrieved from https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-guatemala-guide/
- Rothenberg, D. (Ed.). (2016). Memory of silence: The Guatemalan truth commission report. Springer.
- Sanford, V. (2014). Command Responsibility and the Guatemalan Genocide: Genocide as a Military Plan of the Guatemalan Army under the Dictatorships of Generals Lucas Garcia, Rios Montt, and Mejia Victores. Genocide Studies International, 8(1), 86-101.