Outside Guatemala’s supreme court at the end of May, a group of Maya Achi women laid flowers and candles on the ground before praying together.
The traditional Mayan ceremony was held to mark the conviction of three men for committing crimes against the women in the early 1980s, the bloodiest chapter of the civil war that raged across the Central American country for nearly four decades.
During the conflict the three men – Simeón Enríquez Gómez, Pedro Sánchez Cortez and Félix Tum Ramírez – joined a local branch of the Civil Self-Defence Patrol in Rabinal, a small town north of Guatemala City.
These paramilitary groups were established by the US-supported military junta with the aim of controlling and suppressing indigenous Mayan communities like the Achi, who were viewed as sympathetic to rebel forces. In some cases, local men were coerced into joining the Civil Self-Defence Patrol which was widely implicated in civil war-era massacres, enforced disappearances and sexual violence.
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“The soldiers arrived late at night, threw me on to the ground and raped me,” said Paulina Ixpatá (61), one of the Achi women who gave testimony in court earlier this year.
She then described how she was held for 25 days by members of the Civil Self-Defence Patrol with her cousin Pedrina Ixpatá Rodríguez at a military base near her home in 1983.
The trial of the three former paramilitaries lasted four months, with many of the Achi women routinely making a 10-hour round trip on mountainous dirt roads to attend the proceedings in Guatemala City.
The media attention in the capital created tension for some of the women when they returned to their communities, says Jody Garcia, a journalist with Guatemalan investigative outlet Plaza Pública who covered the trial. “Not everyone in the community was happy that they were looking for justice, because the perpetrators are also part of these communities.”
On May 30th, the Guatemalan court found Gómez, Cortez and Ramírez guilty of crimes against humanity for the rape of six Achi women. They were each sentenced to 40 years in prison. Judge Maria Eugenia Castellanos said: “The women recognised the perpetrators, they recognised the places where the events took place. They were victims of crimes against humanity.”
The three men have appealed their convictions and are not in jail while their appeal is pending, a process which can take years in Guatemala’s legal system.
“Today, the men who hurt us are still free, working elsewhere,” says Ixpatá, speaking at her home in Xesiguan outside Rabinal. “They say we got justice, but they’re not in jail.”
At least 36 Achi women were involved in the case when it began more than a decade ago and which resulted in two separate trials in 2022 and 2025.
Several of the women involved have died since the case began, while many of the surviving Achi women live in rudimentary adobe houses in hamlets around Rabinal without a proper electricity or water supply. Given the age and declining health of many of these survivors, the Guatemalan court directed that a compensation scheme be established and a sum equivalent to roughly €33,500 be granted to the women before the outcome of any appeal.
“Despite a guilty verdict, the reparation measures have not been fulfilled,” says Gloria Reyes, an Achi lawyer who represented the women at the trial. “From the initial complaint until now, the justice system has been full of procedural obstacles,” she says at the Rabinal Community Legal Clinic. “Victims have the right to reparation, but continue to face legal and administrative barriers.”
During the civil war, women “were violated during massacres, during forced displacements, and at military outposts,” says Reyes.
Hanging in a room in Reyes’s offices is a poster of Ixpatá’s sister, Sofia, one of 12 close relatives who were murdered during a massacre of Achi people from the Rancho Bejuco community in 1982.
The UN-backed Commission for Historical Clarification documented 1,465 cases of sexual violence between 1960 and the war’s end in 1996 and identified 89 per cent of the victims as indigenous women. The commission has said this figure does not reflect the true scale of what happened during the civil war due to underreporting.
“Many women were violated, but out of fear of what people might say, they don’t report it,” says Reyes. “These women who speak out also have the right to truth, justice, and recognition.
“We lost everything – our homes, animals, belongings. We were left sick. We spent everything we had pursuing justice,” says Ixpatá. “The government caused the harm but now says it won’t take responsibility for the reparations. We’ve never received anything.”
After the first trial in 2022 involving the Achi women resulted in the conviction of five other ex-Civil Self-Defence Patrol members for sexually assaulting and enslaving five local women, the Guatemalan artist known as Birdaz completed a mural in Rabinal’s main square dedicated to Achi survivors in March 2023.
Three Achi women were depicted in their traditional dress in the artwork holding flowers under the word “hope”. In July, the mural was painted over by the Rabinal municipality. “The mural was erased for political reasons,” says Reyes. “It was removed when the mayor repainted city hall for his campaign.”
[ From the archive: Guatemala's dirty secrets exposedOpens in new window ]
The mayor, Octaviano Alvarado, did not respond to a request for comment from The Irish Times.
“The mural was our memory. When they erased it, they erased our voice,” says Pedrina López (55), one of the Achi women who gave testimony at the earlier trial in 2022.
During the criminal proceedings, López recounted how she was 12 when her parents were abducted from the family home. She was then gang raped by two local paramilitaries, brothers Benvenuto and Bernardo Ruiz Aquino, in front of her younger siblings.
The Ruiz Aquino brothers then stole the family’s animals, clothes and radio, as well as the little money they had. Without parents, López was left to raise her four younger siblings and she was unable to continue her education. “Right now, I don’t know a single letter,” says López, speaking at her home in Guachiplin outside Rabinal. Part of the compensation to the Achi women – many of whom only speak the Mayan Achi language – is supposed to include educational scholarships for their children and grandchildren.
López never found out what happened to her parents. An estimated 45,000 of the 200,000 people killed during the 36-year long civil war were forcibly disappeared.
Fresh posters hang on streets in Guatemala city seeking answers to what happened to mostly indigenous Maya victims. The Commission for Historical Clarification issued findings in 1991 that state forces committed acts of genocide against Guatemala’s Maya people during the civil war.
“I feel better after speaking the truth, but the pain doesn’t go away,” says López. “We were the ones who suffered – without homes, without clothes – and now [the perpetrators] receive support ... We left our homes for weeks to fight for justice and now the government forgets us.”
Guatemala’s attorney general’s office declined to comment about the delays in compensation being provided to the Achi women involved in the two trials.
If López receives her compensation, she says she would build a little house with a proper kitchen; while healthcare is Ixpatá’s main concern. “There is a lack of empathy from state workers, especially in health and education,” says Reyes. “The health system should have cared for these women from the beginning, but still hasn’t.”
While the convicted men remain free and compensation is, so far, unforthcoming, local schools in Rabinal are piloting a curriculum that will include the history of the Achi women. “The goal is for people to learn what happened,” says Reyes.
– This article was supported by the Simon Cumbers Media Fund.
