title: Ely Cathedral

text: In 1539, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the monastery surrendered to Henry VIII's commissioners. The cathedral was refounded by royal charter in 1541 with the former prior Robert Steward as dean and the majority of the former monks as prebendaries and minor canons, supplemented by Matthew Parker, later Archbishop of Canterbury, and Richard Cox, later Bishop of Ely. With a brief interruption from 1649 to 1660 during the Commonwealth, when all cathedrals were abolished, this foundation has continued in its essentials to the twenty-first century, with a reduced number of residentiary canons now supplemented by a number of lay canons appointed under a Church Measure of 1999.


title: Ely Cathedral

text: As with other cathedrals, Ely's pattern of worship centres around the "Opus Dei", the daily programme of services drawing significantly on the Benedictine tradition. It also serves as the mother church of the diocese and ministers to a substantial local congregation. At the Dissolution the veneration of St Etheldreda was suppressed, her shrine in the cathedral was destroyed, and the dedication of the cathedral to her and St Peter was replaced by the present dedication to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Since 1873 the practice of honouring her memory has been revived, and annual festivals are celebrated, commemorating events in her life and the successive "translations" – removals of her remains to new shrines – which took place in subsequent centuries.


title: Ely Cathedral

text: The cathedral retains six professional adult lay clerks who sing in the Cathedral Choir along with boy choristers aged 7 to 13 who receive choristerships funded by the cathedral to attend the King's Ely school as boarding pupils. Ely Cathedral Girls' Choir consists of girls aged 13 to 18 who are also boarding pupils at King's Ely and who are funded by the school not the cathedral. The girls' choir sings every Monday and Wednesday and often over the weekend too.


title: Ely Cathedral

text: The following is a list of organists recorded since the cathedral was refounded in 1541 following the Second Act of Dissolution. Where not directly appointed as Organist, the position is inferred by virtue of their appointment as Master of the Choristers, or most recently as Director of Music.


title: Ely Cathedral

text: The south triforium is home to the Stained Glass Museum, a collection of stained glass from the 13th century to the present that is of national importance and includes works from notable contemporary artists including Ervin Bossanyi.


title: Colby College

text: Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. It was founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, then renamed Waterville College after the city where it resides. The donations of Christian philanthropist Gardner Colby saw the institution renamed again to Colby University before settling on its current title, reflecting its liberal arts college curriculum. Approximately 2,000 students from more than 60 countries are enrolled annually. The college offers 54 major fields of study and 30 minors.


title: Colby College

text: Located in central Maine, the 714-acre Neo-Georgian campus sits atop Mayflower Hill and overlooks downtown Waterville and the Kennebec River Valley. Along with fellow Maine institutions Bates College and Bowdoin College, Colby competes in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) and the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium. In addition to Bates and Bowdoin, Colby is among the most selective liberal arts colleges in the country, and is considered a Little Ivy.


title: Colby College

text: On February 27, 1813, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, led by Baptists, adopted a petition to establish the Maine Literary and Theological Institution. It was moved to Waterville, Maine, and used 179 acres of land donated by citizens. In 1818, trustees assigned the institution to Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin and classes began in a vacant Waterville home. After Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820, the first Maine legislature affirmed the Massachusetts charter for the institution, but made significant changes. Students could no longer be denied admission based on religion, the institution was prohibited from applying a religious test when selecting board members, and the trustees now had the authority to grant degrees. The Maine Literary and Theological Institution was renamed Waterville College on February 5, 1821, and four years later, the theological department was discontinued. In 1828 the trustees decided to turn the somewhat informal preparatory department of the college into a separate school named Waterville Academy (most recently called the Coburn Classical Institute).


title: Colby College

text: In 1833, Rev. Rufus Babcock became Colby's second president, and students formed the nation's first college-based anti-slavery society. In 1845, the college's first Greek Society was formed, a chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, which was followed by chapters of Zeta Psi in 1850 and Delta Upsilon in 1852.


title: Colby College

text: During the Civil War, many young men were called away from school to join the fight; from Waterville College, Richard C. Shannon, Henry C. Merriam, and Benjamin Butler. Twenty-seven Waterville College students perished in the war, and more than 100 men from the town. In the years following the war, as was the case at many American colleges, Waterville College was left with few students remaining to pay the bills and a depleted endowment. The college was on the verge of closing.


title: Colby College

text: On August 9, 1865, prominent Baptist philanthropist Gardner Colby attended Waterville College's commencement dinner, and unbeknownst to anyone in attendance except college president James Tift Champlin, announced a matching $50,000 donation to the college; two years later the college was named after him. Trustees of the college voted to construct a library and chapel to honor the Colby men who died in the war, called the Memorial Hall; it was dedicated at the commencement of 1869. The college remained isolated from neighboring Bates College, and Bowdoin College due to its location in Waterville, coupled with socio-economic and political differences. At the 1871 commencement, a Martin Milmore sculpture based on the "Lion of Lucerne" was added as the centerpiece of the building. In the fall of 1871, Colby University was the first all-male college in New England to accept female students. The national Sigma Kappa sorority was founded at Colby in 1874 by the college's first five female students. However the college resegregated them in 1890. One of the buildings is named after the first woman to attend, Mary Caffrey Low, who was the valedictorian of the Class of 1875. In 1874, based on the success of its partnership with the Coburn Classical Institute, Colby created relationships with Hebron Academy and Houlton Academy (most recently known as Ricker College). In 1893, the Higgins Classical Institute was also deeded to Colby - the last preparatory school that the university would acquire. Students published the first issue of "The Colby Echo" in 1877. On January 25, 1899, Colby president Nathaniel Butler Jr. '73, renamed the "university" Colby College.


title: Colby College

text: In 1920, Colby celebrated its centennial, marking not the date of the original charter (1813), but the date of its charter from the new State of Maine in 1820.


title: Colby College

text: Franklin W. Johnson was appointed president of the college in June 1929. That same year saw the public release of the Maine Higher Education Survey Report, which gave Colby's campus a less than desirable review. Criticisms included a cramped location on just 28 acres located between the Kennebec River and the Maine Central Railroad Company tracks through Waterville, an aging physical plant, proximity to the unpleasant odors of a pulp mill, and the soot of the railroad. Using the report as justification, President Johnson presented a proposal to the Trustees on June 14, 1929, to move the college to a more adequate location . The campaign to raise funds for the move was immediately complicated by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, and competing offers for the college's contemplated location emerged. Most notably, William H. Gannett offered a site in Augusta - a financially attractive option for the college, but a troublesome prospect for the town of Waterville. Ultimately, a joint effort between Waterville citizens and the college raised more than $100,000 to purchase near the outskirts of the city on Mayflower Hill, and the deed was presented to the college on April 12, 1931.


title: Colby College

text: Colby employs 216 instructional faculty members, approximately 90% of whom hold a doctorate or other terminal degree.


title: Colby College

text: In 1937, according to master plans drawn up by Jens Fredrick Larson, construction broke ground on Lorimer Chapel, the first building on the new Mayflower Hill campus. In 1956, the Maine State Highway Commission diverted the proposed path of Interstate 95 to swing clear of the new campus to the west, and in 1961, "Parade" magazine called the 24-mile section of I-95 from Augusta to Waterville "America's finest example of a 'driver's road' " for scenery, speed, and safety. The college began competing athletically with Bowdoin and Bates in the 1940s, and officially joined the two colleges in the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium in 1965, after the University of Maine increased enrollment and moved to another athletic conference. The consortium became an athletic rivalry and academic exchange program.


title: Colby College

text: William D. Adams was the President of Colby from 2000 to 2014. Major accomplishments included conducting the largest capital campaign in the history of Maine, which raised $376 million; a new strategic plan for the college; accepting a major gift for the Colby College Museum of Art- the Lunder Collection of American Art - and the construction of a new wing for the museum to house it in 2013; expansion onto the "Colby Green" with the construction of the Diamond Building in 2007 and the Davis Science Building in 2014.


title: Colby College

text: In 2014, a documentary was created depicting a wide range of student experiences, including academic climate, social gatherings, athletics, and graduate outlooks, called "Colby Life". On July 1, 2014, David A. Greene took office as the new president of the college.


title: Colby College

text: Students choose from courses in 54 major fields and have flexibility in designing independent study programs, electing special majors, and participating in internships and study-abroad programs. Colby emphasizes project-based learning. Colby's most popular majors are Government, Economics, and Biology. Volunteer programs and service learning take many students into the surrounding community. Colby employs 216 instructional faculty members, approximately 90% whom hold a doctorate or other terminal degree.


title: Colby College

text: The academic year follows a 4–1–4 with two four-course semesters plus a Winter Term session in January. The Winter Term, often called "Jan-plan", allows students to enroll in one intensive course, pursue independent research, or complete an off-campus internship.


title: Colby College

text: More than two-thirds of Colby's students spend time studying off-campus before they graduate. The college recognizes credits earned at over 200 off-campus programs in more than 60 countries. Additionally, studies at four programs locations are recognized for inclusion in students calculated grade-point averages: The International Center for French Studies at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France; the St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium in Saint Petersburg, Russia; The University of Salamanca in Salamanca, Spain; and the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.


title: Colby College

text: Colby also participates in engineering dual-degree programs with the Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University, and the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. The programs vary in length and requirements. The Dartmouth College program, which is on a 2–1–1–1 schedule, is the more popular one.


title: Colby College

text: For the class of 2024, Colby College admitted 9% of applicants, accepting 1,307 out of 13,922 applicants. This represents a 13.5 percentage point decrease from the acceptance rate for the Class of 2019, which was 22.5%, due in part to the college's decision to waive certain admissions requirements, such as the supplemental essay, and by increasing financial aid commitments.


title: Colby College

text: The 2020 annual ranking of "U.S. News & World Report" rates it tied for the 11th best liberal arts college overall in the U.S., 16th for "Best Value", tied at 18th for "Most Innovative" and tied at 48th for "Best Undergraduate Teaching" among liberal arts colleges. "Washington Monthly" ranked the college 37th in 2019 among 214 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service. "Forbes" in 2019 rated Colby 75th overall in its America's Top Colleges ranking of 650 military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges, and 32nd among liberal arts colleges. "Kiplinger's Personal Finance" places Colby at 46th in its 2019 ranking of 149 best value liberal arts colleges in the United States. Colby College is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.


title: Colby College

text: In 2016, Niche gave the college an "A+" for academics, administration, food, campus quality and diversity, a "B" for campus housing, health & safety, and athletics, and a "C+" for local city, and off-campus housing. In Niche's official rankings, the college placed 16th for liberal arts and 46th overall. Colby was ranked 29th in the country by "Parchment". Colby was also named one of "25 New Ivies" by Newsweek, named to the list of the top ten environmental programs by the 2010 Fiske Guide, and ranked 13th by the 2011 Sierra Club rankings of "America's coolest schools".


title: Colby College

text: Colby's 714-acre campus is situated on Mayflower Hill overlooking Waterville, Maine, located along the Kennebec River Valley in Central Maine. Colby's campus buildings vary in age from the original Mayflower Hill construction in the 1930s to its newest building, Davis, completed in 2014. Most of Colby's buildings are designed in the Georgian Revival style of the original Mayflower Hill construction. The Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement organizes Colby's engagement in the local community. The Goldfarb Center has assumed responsibility for organizing and awarding the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award annually, established in 1952, the Morton A. Brody Distinguished Judicial Service Award, the William R. and Linda K. Cotter Debate Series, the Senator George J. Mitchell Distinguished International Lecture Series, and Colby's Visiting Fellows Program. The center also organizes Colby's civic engagement programs, the Colby Volunteer Center and Colby Cares about Kids. The college earned a top-25 listing on the Peace Corps' "ranking of colleges that produce the most volunteers."


title: Colby College

text: Colby is a residential college and almost all students live on campus. The dormitories vary in design and age; some are from the original Mayflower Hill construction, with the newest addition being the Alfond Senior Apartments. Room arrangements range from singles to quads and apartment suites.


title: Colby College

text: Cotter Union is the center of student life and programming, and houses the Pulver Pavilion, Pugh Center for Multicultural Affairs, Page Commons auditorium, and the Student Post Office. Mary Low contains the Colby Outing Club and the Mary Low Coffee House for student performances, Roberts Union houses student offices for the Colby Echo and the radio station WMHB.


title: Colby College

text: All meals and catered events on campus are served by Colby Dining Services, operated by Sodexo until July 2016, which makes a concentrated effort to purchase foods from suppliers and producers within the state of Maine, like Oakhurst Dairy and others. Dining-hall options include four establishments on Campus, plus the Marchese Blue Light Pub.


title: Colby College

text: Colby's three libraries—Miller Library, the Bixler Art and Music Library, and the Olin Science Library—have a collection of more than 900,000 books, journals, microfilms, music scores, sound recordings, videos/DVDs, and manuscripts. They provide access to more than 100 electronic databases and more than 47,500 electronic journals. Computer labs, wireless networks, laptops, study areas, and a listening center are available for student use.


title: Colby College

text: The college's Museum of Art was founded in 1959 with the building of the Mayflower Hill Campus. Admission is free to the museum, which serves both as a teaching resource for Colby College and as an active cultural institution for the residents of Maine and visitors to the state. It is notable for an entire wing dedicated to works by American painter Alex Katz, a particularly strong collection of American art, and its major outdoor sculptures by Richard Serra and Sol LeWitt. The museum is part of the Bixler Art and Music Center, a building named in honor of President J. Seelye Bixler (1942–1960) in recognition of his visionary support for the arts at Colby. The most recent addition to the museum was the Alfond-Lunder wing, opened in 2013 to display the recently donated Lunder Collection of American Art. The gallery space in the museum now exceeds 38,000 square feet, surpassing the Portland Museum of Art and making it the largest art museum in Maine.


title: Colby College

text: In the fall of 2009, Colby launched "Green Colby" to highlight Colby's environmental policies (carbon footprint, conservation, student involvement etc.). The school has signed a number of official agreements to reduce its environmental impact, including the Maine Governor's Carbon Challenge and the American College and University President's Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). As of April 2013, Colby became the fourth institution of higher education to achieve campus carbon neutrality.


title: Colby College

text: All of the school's electricity comes from renewable sources—hydro and biomass—with 10 percent of campus electricity provided by an on-campus cogeneration turbine. The college has stated that all new buildings will comply with a minimum LEED silver standard, and renovated buildings will also include green features. The dining halls make an effort to purchase local and organic foods, and the elimination of trays has saved 79,000 gallons of water and 50 tons of food waste annually. Colby also has a composting program which processes more than 100 tons of food and yard waste annually. On the College Sustainability Report Card 2009 Colby earned a B; Colby's grade was brought down by its lack of endowment transparency and shareholder engagement.


title: Colby College

text: Colby's 1,800-plus students, evenly divided between men and women, come from every state and more than 60 countries. Colby students are listed as 67.2% white, 10.2% unknown race, 24% of its students being ALANA (Asian, Latino, African American, etc.) and 7% being international.


title: Colby College

text: Colby's was one of the five original schools to partner with the Shelby Davis Scholarship program for graduates from the United World Colleges, dramatically increasing the international student population. Colby also participates in the Posse Foundation for multicultural scholars.


title: Colby College

text: The college hosts myriad student-run organizations, ranging from student-run government to a cappella groups and more. The Student Government Association (SGA) advises and interacts with the college administration on issues ranging from policies and procedures to class presidents and dorm heads; it is also responsible for allocating funding to other student-run organizations. The Student Programming Board is the student organization which plans speaking events, concerts, dances and other gatherings.


title: Colby College

text: Other student organizations range from a radio station and a newspaper to the Rugby team, Woodsman team, the Colby Outing Club, and more.


title: Colby College

text: The Colby Mules compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III, the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), and the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium. The three schools compete vigorously in athletics, most notably in football and the Chase Regatta.


title: Colby College

text: There are 16 varsity teams for women, 15 for men, and one co-ed team. The official school colors are blue and gray. Approximately 1/3 of the student population participates in one or more of 32 intercollegiate varsity sports. Colby also offers club sports and an intramural sports program called I-Play. As of 2013, five graduates have qualified for the Olympic Games. Colby holds nine national titles in the NESCAC.


title: Colby College

text: The Harold Alfond Athletic Center is the center of athletic life at Colby, and home to the Colby Mules. It contains the Wadsworth Gymnasium, with a capacity of 2,600 people, the Alfond Rink with 1,750 seats, the Colby swimming pool, The Dunaway Squash Courts, the Boulos Family Fitness Center, and a field house with a four-lane, 220-yard track, and athletic offices.


title: Colby College

text: Surrounding the Harold Alfond Athletic Center are the Harold Alfond Stadium and track, two illuminated synthetic turf fields, the Alfond-Wales Tennis Courts, three full-size grass playing fields, a baseball diamond, a softball diamond, and the Perkins Arboretum with cross-country running trails.


title: Colby College

text: In addition to the on-campus facilities, the Mules also utilize numerous off-campus facilities. The Colby-Hume Center for Colby's crew and sailing teams is located on Messalonskee Lake. Sugarloaf Ski Resort is home to the Alpine Ski Team, and is used extensively by recreational skiers from Colby because of its proximity to campus, about 50 miles away. The Waterville Country Club is home to Colby's golf program.


title: Colby College

text: In 1977, Colby and TIAA–CREF successfully defended a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging sex discrimination in payment of retirement benefits. Of the case, President Strider commented that "Colby is prepared, as we have always tried to do, to comply with the law, but it would be helpful to know what the law is."


title: Colby College

text: In 1984, following an investigation of campus life commissioned by the Board of Trustees, a decision was made to withdraw recognition from Colby's Greek system as it was seen to be "exclusionary by nature".


title: Colby College

text: Alumni, now numbering more than 25,000, are represented in all 50 states and 75 foreign countries. Alumni remain engaged with the college through alumni programs, affinity groups, and a directory and related services online, all offered by the Office of Alumni Relations.


title: Colby College

text: Colby alumni include Governors Lot M. Morrill (ex-1869), Harris M. Plaisted (1881–1883), Nelson Dingley, Jr. (1874–1876), Llewellyn Powers (1901–1908), Benjamin Butler (1883–1884), Marcellus Stearns (1874–1877), and George A. Ramsdell (1897–1899).


title: Colby College

text: Other notable alumni include: Harvard Professor and White House Consultant Gregory Ciottone (1987), former Barclays Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond (1973), U.S. Senator from Florida (1969–1974) Edward Gurney (1935), abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy (1826), Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and U.S. State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack (1986), mathematician and founding member of the Institute for Advanced Study Marston Morse (1914), President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Eric S. Rosengren (1979), former White House Chief of Staff Pete Rouse (1968), author Doris Kearns Goodwin (1964), pathologist and author Stephen Sternberg (1941), and academic and author of the Spenser detective novels Robert B. Parker (1954), Pulitzer-Prize winning author Gregory White Smith (1973), political analyst Amy Walter (1991), Political Director of ABC News, former house editor for the Cook Political Report, Editor in Chief of "The Hotline", and NFL General Manager Eric DeCosta of the Baltimore Ravens (1993).


title: Colby College

text: The Administration is made up of the president, officers, a board of trustees with faculty and student representation, and a board of overseers. Since the founding of the college in 1813, four alumni have served as President of the college: Albion Woodbury Small, class of 1876, President from 1889 to 1892; Nathaniel Butler Jr., class of 1873, President from 1896 to 1901; Arthur J. Roberts, class of 1890, President from 1908 to 1927; and Franklin W. Johnson, class of 1891, President from 1929 to 1942.


title: Colby College

text: The college was originally authorized to have a seal by its founding charter, granted by the Massachusetts General Court in 1813, in section 4. Presently, the seal figures prominently on college diplomas as well as other official communications and merchandise.


title: Colby College

text: The history of the seal tracks both the history of the school, which began under the name Maine Literary and Theological Institution, and sigillography generally. The earliest known seal came while the school was called Colby University. It featured a sun in splendour with eight straight rays above the school's Latin motto. Surrounding the center are the words "Sigillum Universitatis Colbianae," meaning "the seal of Colby College", and two crossed olive branch with five leaves each. In 1899 the "university" was renamed Colby College, and a new seal was created with minor artistic changes to reflect the school's new name.


title: Colby College

text: In 1936, President Franklin W. Johnson commissioned William Addison Dwiggins to design a seal to replace the one then existing, specifying only that it (1) used the same motto as the first and (2) retain the sun as the central theme. The cost of the design was $50. The face on the sun was removed and the lettering and its positioning was changed.


title: Colby College

text: In 2002, the college contracted with design firm Corey McPherson Nash for updates to its entire visual identity system, including the seal. The current seal is set in Perpetua typeface around a sunburst. The seal is registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark under registration number 2773337. A special seal was developed for the college's bicentennial celebration in 2013.


title: Colby College

text: Colby's alma mater is "Hail, Colby, Hail". The lyrics to the song were written by Karl R. Kennison from the class of 1906. It is sung to the tune of "O Canada". In 1979, the second line was changed from "thy sons from far and near" to "thy people far and near."


title: Cooperative principle

text: In social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperative principle describes how people achieve effective conversational communication in common social situations—that is, how listeners and speakers act cooperatively and mutually accept one another to be understood in a particular way.


title: Cooperative principle

text: Accordingly, the cooperative principle is divided into Grice's four maxims of conversation, called the Gricean maxims—quantity, quality, relation, and manner. These four maxims describe specific rational principles observed by people who follow the cooperative principle in pursuit of effective communication. Applying the Gricean maxims is a way to explain the link between utterances and what is understood from them.


title: Cooperative principle

text: Though phrased as a prescriptive command, the principle is intended as a description of how people normally behave in conversation. Lesley Jeffries and Daniel McIntyre (2010) describe Grice's maxims as "encapsulating the assumptions that we prototypically hold when we engage in conversation." The assumption that the maxims will be followed helps to interpret utterances that seem to flout them on a surface level; such flouting often signals unspoken "implicatures" that add to the meaning of the utterance.


title: Cooperative principle

text: The concept of the cooperative principle was introduced by linguist Paul Grice in his pragmatic theory. Grice researched the ways in which people derive meaning from language. In his essay "Logic and Conversation" (1975) and book "Studies in the Way of Words" (1989), Grice outlined four key categories, or maxims, of conversation—quantity, quality, relation, and manner—under which there are more specific maxims and sub-maxims.


title: Cooperative principle

text: These describe specific rational principles observed by people who follow the cooperative principle in pursuit of effective communication. Applying the Gricean maxims is therefore a way to explain the link between utterances and what is understood from them.


title: Cooperative principle

text: According to Grice:Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction.


title: Cooperative principle

text: This purpose or direction may be fixed from the start (e.g., by an initial proposal of a question for discussion), or it may evolve during the exchange; it may be fairly definite, or it may be so indefinite as to leave very considerable latitude to the participants (as in a casual conversation). But at each stage, "some" possible conversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable.


title: Cooperative principle

text: We might then formulate a rough general principle which participants will be expected (ceteris paribus) to observe, namely: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this the "Cooperative Principle". [emphasis added]


title: Cooperative principle

text: On the assumption that some such general principle as this is acceptable, one may perhaps distinguish four categories under one or another of which will fall certain more specific maxims and submaxims, the following of which will, in general, yield results in accordance with the Cooperative Principle. Echoing Kant, I call these categories Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner.


title: Cooperative principle

text: In his book, Grice uses the following analogy for this maxim: "If you are assisting me to mend a car, I expect your contribution to be neither more nor less than is required. If, for example, at a particular stage I need four screws, I expect you to hand me four, rather than two or six."


title: Cooperative principle

text: In his book, Grice uses the following analogy for this maxim: "I expect your contributions to be genuine and not spurious. If I need sugar as an ingredient in the cake you are assisting me to make, I do not expect you to hand me salt; if I need a spoon, I do not expect a trick spoon made of rubber."


title: Cooperative principle

text: In his book, Grice uses the following analogy for this maxim: "I expect a partner’s contribution to be appropriate to the immediate needs at each stage of the transaction. If I am mixing ingredients for a cake, I do not expect to be handed a good book, or even an oven cloth (though this might be an appropriate contribution at a later stage)."


title: Cooperative principle

text: In simple terms, the maxim of manner is to "be clear". Whereas the previous maxims are primarily concerned with "what" is said, the maxims of manner are concerned with "how" what is said is said.


title: Cooperative principle

text: It is clear that there is at least some attempt on the part of Grice for this maxim to be understood as a parody of itself.


title: Cooperative principle

text: Often the addressee of an utterance can add to the overt, surface meaning of a sentence by assuming the speaker has obeyed the maxims. Such additional meanings, if intended by the speaker, are called conversational implicatures. For example, in the exchange


title: Cooperative principle

text: A will assume that B obeyed the maxim of relation. However, B's answer is only relevant to A if the gas station is open; so it has the implicature "The gas station is open."


title: Cooperative principle

text: Grice did not, however, assume that all people should constantly follow these maxims. Instead, he found it interesting when these were not respected, namely either "flouted" (with the listener being expected to be able to understand the message) or "violated" (with the listener being expected to not note this). Flouting means that the circumstances lead us to think that the speaker is nonetheless obeying the cooperative principle, and the maxims are followed on some deeper level, again yielding a conversational implicature. The importance is in what was "not" said. For example, answering "Are you interested in a game of tennis?" with "It's raining" only disrespects the maxim of relation on the surface; the reasoning behind this utterance is normally clear to the interlocutor.


title: Cooperative principle

text: It is possible to flout a maxim and thereby convey a different meaning than what is literally said. Often in conversation, a speaker flouts a maxim to produce a negative pragmatic effect, as with sarcasm or irony. One can flout the maxim of quality to tell a clumsy friend who has just taken a bad fall that his gracefulness is impressive and obviously mean the complete opposite. Likewise, flouting the maxim of quantity may result in ironic understatement, the maxim of relevance in blame by irrelevant praise, and the maxim of manner in ironic ambiguity. The Gricean maxims are therefore often purposefully flouted by comedians and writers, who may hide the complete truth and choose their words for the effect of the story and the sake of the reader's experience.


title: Cooperative principle

text: Speakers who deliberately flout the maxims usually intend for their listener to understand their underlying implicature. In the case of the clumsy friend, he will most likely understand that the speaker is not truly offering a compliment. Therefore, cooperation is still taking place, but no longer on the literal level. When speakers flout a maxim, they still do so with the aim of expressing some thought. Thus, the Gricean maxims serve a purpose both when they are followed and when they are flouted.


title: Cooperative principle

text: Similar to paltering, violating a maxim means that the speaker is either outright lying by violating the maxim of quality, or being intentionally misleading by violating another maxim. For example, if there was not in fact a gas station around the corner in the example statement above and B was just playing a cruel prank, then B is violating the maxim of quality. A speaker violating the maxim of relevance might imply some fact is important when it is not; warning a cook that it takes a considerable length of time to heat the oven implies that preheating the oven is helpful and should be done, but perhaps the speaker knows the recipe does not actually involve baking anything. Violating the maxim of quantity can involve intentionally including useless details in an attempt to obscure or distract, or via telling half-truths that leave off important details such as the gas station being abandoned and not in operation anymore.


title: Cooperative principle

text: Grice's theory is often disputed by arguing that cooperative conversation, like most social behaviour, is culturally determined, and therefore the Gricean maxims and the cooperative principle do not universally apply because of cultural differences. Keenan (1976) claims, for example, that the Malagasy people follow a completely opposite cooperative principle to achieve conversational cooperation. In their culture, speakers are reluctant to share information and flout the maxim of quantity by evading direct questions and replying on incomplete answers because of the risk of losing face by committing oneself to the truth of the information, as well as the fact that having information is a form of prestige. To push back on this point, Harnish (1976) points out that Grice only claims his maxims hold in conversations where the cooperative principle is in effect. The Malagasy speakers choose not to be cooperative, valuing the prestige of information ownership more highly. (It could also be said in this case that this is a less cooperative communication system, since less information is shared.)


title: Cooperative principle

text: Some argue that the maxims are vague. This may explain the criticism that the Gricean maxims can easily be misinterpreted to be a guideline for etiquette, instructing speakers on how to be moral, polite conversationalists. However, the Gricean maxims, despite their wording, are only meant to describe the commonly accepted traits of successful cooperative communication. Geoffrey Leech introduced the politeness maxims: tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement, and sympathy.


title: Cooperative principle

text: It has also been noted by relevance theorists that conversational implicatures can arise in uncooperative situations, which cannot be accounted for in Grice's framework. For example, assume that A and B are planning a holiday in France and A suggests they visit their old acquaintance Gérard; and further, that B knows where Gérard lives, and A knows that B knows. The following dialogue ensues:


title: Cooperative principle

text: This is understood by A as B not wanting to say where exactly Gérard lives, precisely "because" B is not following the cooperative principle.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The Guatemalan genocide, also referred to as the Maya genocide, or the Silent Holocaust (, , or ), was the massacre of Maya civilians during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996) by the Guatemalan military government. Massacres, forced disappearances, torture and summary executions of guerrillas and especially civilian collaborators at the hands of security forces had been widespread since 1965 and was a longstanding policy of the military regime, which US officials were aware of. A report from 1984 discussed "the murder of thousands by a military government that maintains its authority by terror". Human Rights Watch has described "extraordinarily cruel" actions by the armed forces, mostly against unarmed civilians.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The repression reached genocidal levels in the predominantly indigenous northern provinces where the EGP guerrillas operated. There, the Guatemalan military viewed the Maya – – as siding with the insurgency and began a campaign of mass killings and disappearances of Mayan peasants. While massacres of indigenous peasants had occurred earlier in the war, the systematic use of terror against them began around 1975 and peaked during the first half of the 1980s. The military carried out 626 massacres against the Maya during the conflict and acknowledged destroying 440 Mayan villages between 1981 and 1983. In some municipalities, at least one-third of the villages were evacuated or destroyed. A March 1985 study by the "Juvenile Division of the Supreme Court" estimated that over 200,000 children had lost at least one parent in the war and that between 45,000 and 60,000 adult Guatemalans were killed between 1980 and 1985. Children were often targets of mass killings by the army including in the Río Negro massacres between 1980 and 1982.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: An estimated 200,000 Guatemalans were killed during the war including at least 40,000 persons who "disappeared". 93% of civilian executions were carried out by government forces. The UN-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) documented 42,275 victims of human rights violations and acts of violence from 7,338 testimonies. 83% of the victims were Maya and 17% Ladino. In its final report in 1999, the CEH concluded that a genocide had taken place at the hands of the Armed Forces of Guatemala, and that US training of the officer corps in counterinsurgency techniques "had a significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed confrontation" but that the US was not directly responsible for any genocidal acts. Former military dictator General Efrain Ríos Montt (1982–1983) was indicted for his role in the most intense stage of the genocide. He was convicted in 2013, but that sentence was overturned and his retrial was not completed by the time of his death in 2018.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Guatemalan intelligence was directed and executed mainly by two bodies: One, the Intelligence Section of the Army, subsequently called Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the National Defense and generally known as "G-2" or "S-2". The other, the intelligence unit called Presidential Security Department, also known as "Archivo" or AGSAEMP (Archives and Support Services of the Presidential General Staff).


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: "Archivo" was formed with money and support from US advisers under President Enrique Peralta Azurdia, during which time it was known as the "Presidential Intelligence Agency". A telecommunications database known as the Regional Telecommunications Center or "La Regional" was integrated into this agency and served as a vital part of the Guatemalan intelligence network. "La Regional" provided a link between the "Presidential Intelligence Agency" and all of the main security bodies, including the National Police, the Treasury Guard, the Judicial Police, by way of a VHF-FM intercity frequency. "La Regional" was also used as a depository for records and intelligence gathered on suspected "subversives", which would have included leftists, trade unionists, student activists, clergy, etc. This intelligence was used to draw up lists of persons to be assassinated.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Orders to carry out assassinations and "disappearances" were passed down the hierarchy to lower level security forces such as the "Judicial Police" (later renamed as the "Detective Corps of the National Police" and the DIT) or the Treasury Guard, whose agents – known as "confidenciales" – who could be called from provincial army garrisons to be sent to the capital for unspecified purposes. Treasury Police and National Police "confidenciales" could also be contracted either through provincial army commanders or by direct contact with provincial commanders of the police services. The "confidenciales" assembled in the capital using this system were often used in covert operations involving the use of "death squads".


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has stated that the intelligence services in Guatemala have been responsible for multiple human rights violations. The Truth Commission writes that their activity included the "use of illegal detention centers or 'clandestine prisons', which existed in nearly all Army facilities, in many police installations and even in homes and on other private premises. In these places, victims were not only deprived of their liberty arbitrarily, but they were almost always subjected to interrogation, accompanied by torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In the majority of cases, the detainees disappeared or were executed."


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The CEH stated that at no time during the internal armed confrontation did the guerrilla groups have the military potential necessary to pose an imminent threat to the State. The number of insurgent combatants was too small to be able to compete in the military arena with the Army, which had more troops and superior weaponry, as well as better training and co-ordination. The State and the Army were well aware that the insurgents’ military capacity did not represent a real threat to Guatemala's political order. The CEH concludes that the State deliberately magnified the military threat of the insurgency, a practice justified by the concept of the internal enemy. The inclusion of all opponents under one banner, democratic or otherwise, pacifist or guerrilla, legal or illegal, communist or non-communist, served to justify numerous and serious crimes. Faced with widespread political, socio-economic and cultural opposition, the State resorted to military operations directed towards the physical annihilation or absolute intimidation of this opposition, through a plan of repression carried out mainly by the Army and national security forces. On this basis the CEH explains why the vast majority of the victims of the acts committed by the State were not combatants in guerrilla groups, but civilians.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The use of terror by the military and police forces in Guatemala emerged in the mid-1960s when the military government began to use "disappearances" as a tactic to dismantle the infrastructure of the PGT and MR-13 guerrillas. On 3 and 5 March 1966, the G-2 and the Judicial Police raided three houses in Guatemala City, capturing twenty-eight trade unionists and members of the PGT. Those captured included most of the PGT's central committee and peasant federation leader Leonardo Castillo Flores. All subsequently "disappeared" while in the custody of the security force and became known in subsequent months by the Guatemalan press as "the 28". This incident was followed by a wave of unexplained "disappearances" and killings in Guatemala City and in the countryside which were reported by the Guatemala City press.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: When press censorship was lifted for a period, relatives of "the 28" and of others who had "disappeared" in the Zacapa-Izabal military zone went to the press or to the Association of University Students (AEU). Using its legal department, the AEU subsequently pressed for habeas corpus on behalf of the "disappeared" persons. The government denied any involvement in the killings and disappearances. On 16 July 1966, the AEU published a detailed report on abuses in the last months of the Peralta regime in which it named thirty five individuals as involved in killings and disappearances, including military commissioners and members of the Ambulant Military Police (PMA) in coordination with the G-2. After the publication of this report, "death-squad" attacks on the AEU and on the University of San Carlos began to intensify. Many law students and members of the AEU were assassinated.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The use of such tactics increased dramatically after the inauguration of President Julio César Méndez Montenegro, who – in a bid to placate right-wing elements in the military – gave it carte blanche to engage in "any means necessary" to pacify the country. The military subsequently ran the counterinsurgency program autonomously from the Presidential House and appointed Vice-Defense Minister, Col. Manuel Francisco Sosa Avila as the main "counterinsurgency coordinator". In addition, the Army General Staff and the Ministry of Defense took control of the Presidential Intelligence Agency – which controlled the "La Regional" annex – and renamed it the Guatemalan National Security Service (Servicio de Seguridad Nacional de Guatemala – SSNG).


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In the city and in the countryside, persons suspected of leftist sympathies began to disappear or turn up dead at an unprecedented rate. In the countryside most "disappearances" and killings were carried out by uniformed army patrols and by locally known PMA or military commissioners, while in the cities the abductions and "disappearances" were usually carried out by heavily armed men in plainclothes, operating out of army and police installations. The army and police denied responsibility, pointing the finger at right wing paramilitary death squads autonomous from the Guatemalan government.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: One of the most notorious death squads operating during this period was the MANO, also known as the "Mano Blanca" ("White Hand"); initially formed by the MLN as a paramilitary front in June 1966 to prevent President Méndez Montenegro from taking office, the MANO was quickly taken over by the military and incorporated into the state's counter-terror apparatus. The MANO – while being the only death squad formed autonomously from the government – had a largely military membership, and received substantial funding from wealthy landowners. The MANO also received information from military intelligence through "La Regional", with which it was linked to the Army General Staff and all of the main security forces.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The first leaflets by the MANO appeared on 3 June 1966 in Guatemala City, announcing the impending creation of the "White Hand" or "the hand the will eradicate National Renegades and traitors to the fatherland." In August 1966, MANO leaflets were distributed over Guatemala City by way of light aircraft openly landing in the Air Force section of La Aurora airbase. Their main message was that all patriotic citizen must fully support the army's counterinsurgency initiative and that the army was "the institution of the greatest importance at any latitude, representative of Authority, of Order, and of Respect" and that to "attack it, divide it, or to wish its destruction is indisputedly treason to the fatherland."


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: With increased military aid from the United States, the 5,000-man Guatemalan Army mounted a large pacification effort in the departments of Zacapa and Izabal in October 1966 dubbed "Operation Guatemala". Col. Carlos Arana Osorio was appointed commander of the "Zacapa-Izabal Military Zone" and took charge of the counter-terror program with guidance and training from 1,000 US Green Berets. Under Colonel Arana's jurisdiction, military strategists armed and fielded various paramilitary death squads to supplement regular army and police units in clandestine terror operations against the FAR's civilian support base. Personnel, weapons, funds and operational instructions were supplied to these organizations by the armed forces. The death squads operated with impunity – permitted by the government to kill any civilians deemed to be either insurgents or insurgent collaborators. The civilian membership of the army's paramilitary units consisted largely of right-wing fanatics with ties to the MLN, founded and led by Mario Sandoval Alarcón, a former participant in the 1954 coup. By 1967, the Guatemalan army claimed to have 1,800 civilian paramilitaries under its direct control.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Blacklists were compiled of suspected guerilla collaborators and those with communist leanings, as troops and paramilitaries moved through Zacapa systematically arresting suspected insurgents and collaborators; prisoners were either killed on the spot or "disappeared" after being taken to secret detention sites. In villages which the military identified as supportive of the FAR, the Army would publicly execute peasant leaders, threatening to execute more if the villagers did not collaborate with the authorities Among the numerous clandestine sites used by the army for incommunicado detention and torture of suspects, was the army headquarters in the hamlet of La Palma near Rio Hondo, Zacapa, where hundreds of persons suspected of belonging to the FAR were tortured and executed under G-2 bureau chief Hernán Ovidio Morales Páiz in 1966 and 1967. Government forces often dumped the bodies of victims publicly to foment terror; the press regularly contained reports of unrecognizable corpses found floating in the Motagua River, mutilated by torture. Fishermen in the municipality of Gualan reportedly stopped fishing the Motagua on account of the large number of mutilated bodies found in nets.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Estimates of the number of victims of the army-led counter-terror in the east run in the thousands to tens of thousands. In a 1976 report, Amnesty International cited estimates that 3,000 to 8,000 peasants were killed by the army and paramilitary organizations in Zacapa between October 1966 and March 1968. Other estimates put the death toll at 15,000 in Zacapa during the Mendez period. As a result, Colonel Arana Osorio subsequently earned the nickname "The Butcher of Zacapa" for his brutality. Many high-ranking veterans of the terror campaign – who became known as the "Zacapa Group" – went on to hold positions of great power in subsequent military regime. Among those involved in the Zacapa program were four future Guatemalan presidents – Col. Arana Osorio (1970–1974), Gen. Kjell Eugenio Laugerrud Garcia (1974–1978), Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia (1978–1982) and Gen. Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores (1983–1986). Arana's garrison intelligence chief – Col. German Chupina Barahona – went on to become the commander of the Mobile Military Police (PMA) and later chief of the National Police.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In July 1970, Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio was inaugurated as president of the republic. Arana, backed by the army, represented an alliance of the MLN – the originators of the MANO death squad – and the Institutional Democratic Party (MLN-PID). Arana was the first of a string of military rulers allied with the Institutional Democratic Party who dominated Guatemalan politics in the 1970s and early 1980s (his predecessor, Julio César Méndez, while dominated by the army, was a civilian). Arana had been elected on a platform promising a crackdown on law and order issues and subversion. Colonel Arana, who had been in charge of the terror campaign in Zacapa, was an anti-communist hardliner and extreme rightist who once stated, "If it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetery in order to pacify it, I will not hesitate to do so."


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Despite minimal armed insurgent activity at the time, Arana declared a "state of siege" on 13 November 1970 and imposed a curfew from 9:00PM to 5:00AM, during which time all vehicle and pedestrian traffic—including ambulances, fire engines, nurses, and physicians—were forbidden throughout the national territory. The siege was accompanied by a series of house to house searches by the police, which reportedly led to 1,600 detentions in the capital in the first fifteen days of the "State of Siege." High government sources were cited at the time by foreign journalists as acknowledging 700 executions by security forces or paramilitary death squads in the first two months of the "State of Siege". This is corroborated by a January 1971 secret bulletin of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency detailing the elimination of hundreds of suspected "terrorists and bandits" in the Guatemalan countryside by the security forces.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: While repression continued in the countryside, the Arana government began an unprecedented wave of killings and "disappearances" in the capital, despite minimal guerilla activity. Arana established a new plainclothes secret police agency known as the 'Detective Corps of the National Police' which specialized in surveillance and political policing activities. This new security agency – working in tandem with special commandos of the military and units from '4th Corps' of the National Police – abducted and murdered thousands of suspected subversives in Guatemala City during the 'state of siege'. As in the earlier campaign in Zacapa, bodies were found floating in rivers. Each day, mutilated, unidentified corpses were displayed in the amphitheater of the General Hospital of Guatemala City for relatives of missing persons to identify. Victims included Arana's critics in the media, members of left-wing political movements, labor unionists and student activists. As in the earlier repression, security agents carried out mass disappearances of entire groups of persons. In one instance on 26 September 1972, the Detective Corps detained eight top leaders and associates of the PGT – half of the Party central committee – in a single raid. All eight were turned over to '4th Corps' squad commander and notorious torturer Juan Antonio "El Chino" Lima Lopez and were never seen again.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: According to Amnesty International and domestic human rights organizations such as 'Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Persons', over 15,000 civilian opponents of the security forces were found dead or "disappeared" between 1970 and 1973. The few survivors of political detention by the security forces described tortures such as suffocation with a rubber "hood" filled with insecticide. Many killings were attributed to groups such as the 'Ojo por Ojo' ("Eye for an Eye"), described in a US State Department intelligence cable as "a largely military membership with some civilian cooperation". Aside from targeting persons labeled as subversives and political foes, security forces also targeted common criminals under the guise of social cleansing groups such as the "Avenging Vulture".


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Amnesty International mentioned Guatemala as one of several countries under a human rights state of emergency, while citing "the high incidence of disappearances of Guatemalan citizens" as a major and continuing problem in its 1972–1973 annual report. Overall, as many as 42,000 Guatemalan civilians were killed or "disappeared" between 1966 and 1973.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The repression in Guatemala City and in the eastern regions left the insurgency without a strong civilian support base and reduced the insurgents capacity to organize and maintain any formidable guerrilla forces. However, popular discontent with human rights violations and social inequality in Guatemala persisted. The insurgency did not remain dormant for long, and a new guerrilla organization calling itself the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (E.G.P.) entered the forests of Ixcán to the north of Quiché Department from southern Mexico in January 1972, the same year in which Col. Arana announced the end of the 'state of siege'. Unbeknownst to the Guatemalan intelligence services, the EGP embedded itself among the Indigenous campesinos and operated clandestinely for three years, holding its first conference in 1974.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The EGP carried out its first action with the assassination of prominent landowner José Luis Arenas on the premises of his farm "La Perla" on Saturday, 7 June 1975. In front of his office there were approximately two to three hundred peasant workers to receive payment. Hidden among the workers were four members of the EGP, who destroyed the communication radio of the farm and executed Arenas. Following the assassination, the guerrillas spoke in Ixil language to the farmers, informing them that they were members of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor and had killed the "Ixcán Tiger" due to his alleged multiple crimes against community members. The attackers then fled towards Chajul, while José Luis Arenas' son, who was in San Luis Ixcán at the time, took refuge in a nearby mountain and awaited the arrival of a plane to take him directly to Guatemala City to the presidential palace. There he immediately reported the matter to Minister of Defense, General Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia. Romeo Lucas replied, "You are mistaken, there are no guerrillas in the area".


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Despite the denial of Gen. Romeo Lucas, the government retaliated with a wave of repression against those it believed to comprise the civilian support mechanisms of the EGP. The government traditionally viewed cooperatives as a vehicle for left wing subversion. Due to the fact that cooperatives had been largely drawn out into the open, the names of cooperativists were relatively easy for the intelligence services (G-2) to collate in order to designate targets for the subsequent extermination program. Peasants identified as belonging to cooperatives began to disappear or turn up dead throughout the Indian communities of El Quiche, individually and collectively. In one instance on 7 July 1975 – one month to the date after the assassination of Arenas – a contingent of uniformed army paratroopers arrived in UH-1H helicopters in the marketplace of Ixcán Grande. There they seized 30 men who were members of the Xalbal cooperative and took them away in helicopters; all were subsequently "disappeared". The killings and disappearances were accompanied by a disturbing mimeographed letter sent to Guatemala City cooperatives at the same time in the name of the MANO death squad of the ruling MLN party:


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The case of the thirty men seized on 7 July, as well as seven other cases of "disappearances" among the same cooperative were named in a sworn statement to General Kjell Laugerud in November 1975. The Ministry of the Interior responded by denying that the "disappeared" persons had been taken by the government. A total of 60 cooperative leaders were confirmed as having been murdered or "disappeared" in Ixcan between June and December 1975. An additional 163 cooperative and village leaders were assassinated by death squads between 1976 and 1978. Believing that the Catholic Church constituted a major part of the social base of the EGP, the regime also began singling out targets among the catechists. Between November 1976 and December 1977, death squads murdered 143 Catholic Action catechists of the 'Diocese of El Quiche.' Documented cases of killings and forced disappearances during this time represent a small fraction of the true number of killings by government forces, especially in the indigenous highlands, as many murders of people went unreported.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In 1978, the repression against the Indigenous farming cooperatives began to spread from the department of Quiche into other areas which comprise the Northern Transversal Strip (FTN). In Panzos, Alta Verapaz natives began to be subjected to human rights abuses which accompanied their eviction from their land by farmers and local authorities who supported the economic interests of the Izabal Mining Operations Company (EXMIBAL) and Transmetales.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In 1978, a military patrol was stationed a few kilometers from the county seat of Panzós, in a place which was known as "Quinich". At that time, the organizational capacity of the peasants was increased by committees which claimed titles to their land, a phenomenon that worried the landlords. Some of these landlords requested protection from the governor of Alta Verapaz, including Flavio Monzón, who stated: "Several peasants living in the villages and settlements want to burn urban populations to gain access to private property."


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: On 29 May 1978, peasants from Cahaboncito, Semococh, Rubetzul, Canguachá, Sepacay villages, finca Moyagua and neighborhood La Soledad, decided to hold a public demonstration in the Plaza de Panzós to insist on their claims to the land and express their discontent which was caused by the arbitrary actions of the landowners and the civil and military authorities. Hundreds of indigenous men, women and children went to the square of the municipal seat of Panzós, carrying their tools, machetes and sticks. One of the people who participated in the demonstration states: "The idea was not to fight with anyone, what was required was the clarification of the status of the land. People came from various places and they had guns."


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: There are different versions of the account on how the shooting began: some say it began when "Mama Maquín"—an important peasant leader—pushed a soldier who was in her way; others say that it started because people who were trying to get into the municipality kept pushing each other, which was interpreted as an act of aggression by the soldiers. The mayor at the time, Walter Overdick, said that "people of the middle of the group pushed those who were in front. A witness says that one protester grabbed the gun from a soldier but did not use it and several people say that a military voice yelled: "One, two, three! Fire!"


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The shooting lasted five minutes, and it came from regulation firearms which were carried by the military as well as from the three machine guns which were located on the banks of the square. Between 30 and 106 local inhabitants (figures vary) were killed by the army. Several peasants with machetes wounded several soldiers. No soldier was wounded by gunfire. The square was covered with blood.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Immediately, the army closed the main access roads, despite that "indigenous felt terrified." An army helicopter flew over the town before picking up wounded soldiers.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: After the massacre at Panzos, repression against the indigenous population became increasingly ruthless and a pattern of systematic killings and acts of genocide began to emerge. Several lesser known mass killings occurred during the same time period. On 8 September 1978 the Mobile Military Police of Monteros, Esquipulas, acting on orders from local landowners César Lemus and Domingo Interiano, abducted eight campesinos from Olopa, Chiquimula Department. On 26 September, the Military Police returned to Olopa and seized 15 additional villagers. All were subsequently found dead from drowning and hanging. The next day, the Assistant mayor of Amatillo, Francisco Garcia, addressed himself to the Court of Olopa to report on the events and to request identification of the bodies in order to bury them. That very night Garcia was also abducted and murdered. All told, more than 100 villagers of Olopa were murdered by the Mobile Military Police in 1978, including several religious workers, 15 women and more than 40 children. The PMA were reported by peasants to murder small children in Olopa by grabbing them and breaking their backs over the knees.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: At the same time in Guatemala City, the situation of abductions and disappearances at the hands of the "judiciales" worsened after Col. German Chupina Barahona was appointed as the chief of the National Police. Chupina openly spoke of the need to "exterminate" leftists. On 4 August 1978, high school and university students, along with other popular movement sectors, organized the mass movement's first urban protest of the Lucas García period. The protests, intended as a march against violence, were attended by an estimated 10,000 people. The new minister of the interior under President Lucas García, Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz, promised to break up any protests organized without government permission. The protesters were then met by the Pelotón Modelo ("Model Platoon") of the Guatemalan National Police, then under the new director-general, Colonel Germán Chupina Barahona (like Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia, a member of the "Zacapa Group" and former commander of the PMA). Employing new anti-riot gear donated by the United States Government, Platoon agents surrounded marchers and tear-gassed them. Students were forced to retreat and dozens of people, mostly school-aged adolescents, were hospitalized. This was followed by more protests and death squad killings throughout the later part of the year. In September 1978 a general strike broke out to protest sharp increases in public transportation fares; the government responded harshly, arresting dozens of protesters and injuring many more. However, as a result of the campaign, the government agreed to the protesters' demands, including the establishment of a public transportation subsidy.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Wary of the possibility that the scenario unfolding in Nicaragua at the time would occur in Guatemala, the government of General Romeo Lucas Garcia began a large-scale covert program of selective assassination, overseen primarily by Interior Minister Donaldo Alvarez Ruiz and National Police chief Col. German Chupina Barahona, who together controlled all of the military and paramilitary security services. Targets included peasants, trade unionists, cooperative members, student activists, university staff, members of the judiciary, church leaders and members of centrist and left-leaning political parties. The deaths of these people, labeled as "subversives" by the government, were largely attributed to a new vigilante organization calling itself the "Secret Anticommunist Army" (ESA), a group linked to the offices of Col. Germán Chupina. The ESA had announced its existence on 18 October 1978 in the aftermath of the bus fare strikes and authored a series of bulletins announcing its intent to murder government opponents. A parallel operation targeting common criminals began at roughly the same time the ESA began its operations. The killings of common "criminals" by the security services were subsequently blamed on a death squad called the "Escuadron de la Muerte" (EM).


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: This new wave of mass killings benefited from a government publicity campaign in which regular statistics were provided by government spokespersons on killings of "subversives" and "criminals" which the authorities attributed to the ESA and the EM, ostensibly as a way of using the media to downplay the government's responsibility and terrorize the left.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Statistics reported in the domestic press (often originating from government spokespersons) and by human rights organizations suggest that a minimum of 8,195 persons were assassinated in Guatemala in 1979–80, a rate which exceeds Col. Arana's "state of siege" in 1970–71. Abductions and disappearances of civilians by the death squads were carried out under the public eye by heavily armed personnel sometimes identifying openly as members of the security forces, and traveling in vehicles easily identifiable as belonging to the Guatemalan National Police and other security agencies, particularly red Toyota jeeps either unmarked or sporting military license number sequences. Unrecognizable cadavers were frequently found mutilated and showing signs of torture.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The bodies of many of those abducted by the death squads in the city were disposed of in San Juan Comalapa, Chimaltenango Department, which became notorious as a dumping ground for cadavers. In March 1980 the cadavers of student activist Liliana Negreros and some three dozen others were found in a ravine on the outskirts of Comalapa. Most had been killed with a garrote or shot in the back of the head and showed signs of torture. The U.S. embassy called the discovery "ominous" and suggested that the extreme right was responsible. CIA sources indicated that "Highest levels of the Guatemala government through the National Police hierarchy are fully aware of the background of the burial site. .[It] was a place where the National Police Detective Corps disposed of its victims after interrogations."


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: A new agency known as the Presidential General Staff (known by the Spanish acronym EMP) was placed under the command of Col. Héctor Ismael Montalván Batres in 1979. After its formation, the EMP took control of the telecommunications unit "La Regional" which was renamed "Archivo General y Servicios de Apoyo del EMP" – AGSAEMP – or "Archivo" for short. As documented in Amnesty International's 1981 report, the telecommunications annex of the National Palace served as a command center for the death squads, as it had in the early 1970s under Arana. A center existed within the National Police known as the Joint Operations Center (Centro de Operaciones Conjuntas de la Policía – COCP), which forwarded intelligence on "subversives" from the National Police headquarters to the "Archivos". Such information included the names of potential death squad victims. Documents were later recovered from the National Police archives which were sent from the COCP to the EMP to notify its agents of "delinquent subversives" and their whereabouts, including exact addresses.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: At the National Palace, a special group known as the CRIO (Centro de Reunion de Informacion y Operaciones) would convene to review operational intelligence and plan counterinsurgency operations. The CRIO consisted of all of the country's primary intelligence and security chiefs, including Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia, Col. Chupina, Interior Minister Donaldo Alvarez, Gen. Hector Antonio Callejas y Callejas (Chief of the G-2 under Lucas) and the heads of the Treasury Police and the Chief of Migration. It based on meetings of the CRIO that "hit lists" for the death squads were drawn up.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Beginning in the mid-1970s, the government began amassing troops in the countryside to supplement existing PMA detachments and local military commissioners in counterinsurgency operations against the EGP. The level of militarization in the countryside increased after 1979 when conservative elders in the Ixil triangle began requesting the Army's support in eliminating communists. Disappearances and killings of peasants in the Ixil region increased in scale during this period. In 1981, General Benedicto Lucas Garcia (the president's brother) became Chief of Staff of the Guatemalan Army and implemented a new counterinsurgency campaign with the help of the US MilGroup and advisors from Israel and Argentina.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Counting on renewed shipments of military supplies from the U.S. (including helicopters and terrestrial transport vehicles), and an aggressive policy of forced conscription, the Army was able to mobilize troops for a large scale sweep operation through the indigenous Altiplano. The sweep operation began on the Pacific coast in August 1981 and advanced into the highlands in subsequent months. At the time, the National Institute of Cooperatives (INACOOP) declared 250 rural cooperatives illegal in Guatemala, due to alleged ties with Marxist subversion. Subsequently, the army used the official membership lists of these cooperatives to ferret out those they believed to be communist sympathizers and many cooperative members within the indigenous community in the highlands were assassinated by army death squads or "disappeared" after being taken into custody.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: On 1 October 1981, a new "task-force" known as 'Iximche' was deployed on counterinsurgency sweep through Chimaltenango, eventually moving into El Quiche and part of Solola later in the year. In Rabinal, Baja Verapaz on 20 October 1981, the military seized and armed 1,000 Indian men and organized them into one of the first "civil patrols" of the decade, a feat which was illegal under the Guatemalan constitution at the time. In a matter of months, the army implemented this system on a widespread basis on the countryside. In creating these militias, Gen. Benedicto Lucas effectively created a structure which superseded local government and was directly subservient to white "ladino" military authority.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Under the leadership of Benedicto Lucas Garcia, what had begun as a campaign of selective repression targeting specific sectors of Guatemalan society began to metamorphose into a policy of extermination. Wholesale massacres of Mayan communities became commonplace, in what was perceived at the time as a marked change in strategy. In some communities of the region's military forced all residents to leave their homes and concentrate in the county seat under military control. Some families obeyed; others took refuge in the mountains. K'iche's who took refuge in the mountains, were identified by the Army with the guerrillas and underwent a military siege, and continuous attacks that prevented them from getting food, shelter and medical care. Sources with the human rights office of the Catholic Church estimated the death toll from government repression in 1981 at over 11,000, with most of the victims indigenous peasants of the Guatemalan highlands.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In 2018, Benedicto Lucas Garcia and three others would be successfully convicted for the 1981 torture and rape of 19-year-old Emma Guadalupe Molina Theissen. Benedicto Lucas Garcia and the other three men captured Theissen at a roadblock and then exploited her detainment as political propaganda during this time. They were also found guilty of the forced disappearance of her teenage brother.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In the remote Guatemalan highlands, where the military classified those most isolated as being more accessible to the guerrillas, it identified many villages and communities as "red" and targeted them for annihilation. This was especially true in El Quiche, where the army had a well-documented belief from the Benedicto Lucas period that the entire indigenous population of the Ixil area was pro-EGP. A major part of Ríos Montt's pacification strategy in El Quiche was "Operation Sofia," which began on 8 July 1982 on orders from Army Chief of Staff Héctor Mario López Fuentes. "Operation Sofia" was planned and executed by the 1st Battalion of the Guatemalan Airborne Troops with the mission to "exterminate the subversive elements in the area – Quiché."


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: During Ríos Montt's tenure, the abuse of the civilian population by the army and the PACs reached unprecedented levels, even when compared to the Army's conduct under Benedicto Lucas. These abuses often amounted to overkill, civilians in "red" areas are reported to have been beheaded, garroted, burned alive, bludgeoned to death, or hacked to death with machetes. At least 250,000 children nationwide were estimated to have lost at least one parent to the violence; in El Quiche province alone these children numbered 24,000. In many cases, the Guatemalan military specifically targeted children and the elderly. Soldiers were reported to have killed children in front of their parents by smashing their heads against trees and rocks. Amnesty International documented that the rate of rape of civilian women by the military increased during this period. Soldiers at times raped pregnant women. The Guatemalan military also employed pseudo-operations against the peasants, committing rapes and massacres while disguised as guerillas. One example is the massacre of up to 300 civilians by government soldiers in the village of Las Dos Erres on 7 December 1982. The abuses included "burying some alive in the village well, killing infants by slamming their heads against walls, keeping young women alive to be raped over the course of three days. This was not an isolated incident. Rather it was one of over 400 massacres documented by the truth commission – some of which, according to the commission, constituted 'acts of genocide.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Montt was an Evangelical Christian, and his religious zealotry gave a theological justification to the massacres, the logic of which has been summed up as follows: "they are communists and therefore atheists and therefore they are demons and therefore you can kill them." Most of the victims practiced traditional Mayan religions.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The CIIDH database documented 18,000 killings by government forces in the year 1982. In April 1982 alone (General Efraín Ríos Montt's first full month in office), the military committed 3,330 documented killings, a rate of approximately 111 per day. Historians and analysts estimate the total death toll could exceed this number by the tens of thousands. Some sources estimate a death toll of up to 75,000 during the Ríos Montt period, mostly within the first eight months between April and November 1982.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: After overthrowing General Efrain Ríos Montt in a coup on 8 August 1983, the new government of General Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores moved to systematically eliminate what remained of the opposition by using the previously established means of torture, extrajudicial killing and "forced disappearance"- particularly at the hands of the 'Department of Technical Investigations' (DTI), specialized units of the National Police and the "Archivo" intelligence unit. For the purposes of selective terror, the CRIO was reconstituted and meetings between high ranking security chiefs were again held in the presidential palace to coordinate the repression. Officers who participated in the CRIO selection process included new "jefe" of the G-2, Col. Byron Disrael Lima Estrada; chief of the EMP, Juan Jose Marroquin Salazar and National Police Chief, Col. Hector Bol de la Cruz. In Mejia Victores's first full month in power, the number of documented monthly kidnappings jumped from 12 in August to 56 in September. The victims included a number of US Agency for International Development employees, officials from moderate and leftist political parties, and Catholic priests. Intelligence was "extracted through torture" and used by the CRIO to coordinate joint military and police raids on suspected insurgent safe-houses in which hundreds of individuals were captured and "disappeared" or found dead later. A special counterinsurgency unit of the National Police was activated under Col. Hector Bol de la Cruz known as the "Special Operations Brigade" (BROE), which operated out of the fifth police precinct in Guatemala City. The BROE carried out the work of National Police squads which had been disbanded under the previous government – such as the "Commando Six" – and was linked to dozens of documented forced disappearances.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In a report to the United Nations, Guatemala's Human Rights Commission reported 713 extrajudicial killings and 506 disappearances of Guatemalans in the period from January to September 1984. A secret United States Department of Defense report from March 1986 noted that from 8 August 1983 to 31 December 1985, there were a total of 2,883 recorded kidnappings (3.29 daily); and kidnappings averaged a total of 137 a month through 1984 (a total of approximately 1,644 cases). The report linked these violations to a systematic program of abduction and killing by the security forces under Mejía Víctores, noting, "while criminal activity accounts for a small percentage of the cases, and from time to time individuals ‘disappear’ to go elsewhere, the security forces and paramilitary groups are responsible for most kidnappings. Insurgent groups do not now normally use kidnapping as a political tactic."


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Between 1984 and 1986, military intelligence (G-2) maintained an operations center for the counterinsurgency programs in southwest Guatemala at the southern airbase at Retalhuleu. There, the G-2 operated a clandestine interrogation center for suspected insurgents and collaborators. Captured suspects were reportedly detained in water-filled pits along the perimeter of the base, which were covered with cages. In order to avoid drowning, prisoners were forced to hold onto the cages over the pits. The bodies of prisoners tortured to death and live prisoners marked for disappearance were thrown out of IAI-201 Aravas by the Guatemalan Air Force over the Pacific Ocean ("death flights").


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: La Llorona, located about 18 kilometers from El Estor, department of Izabal (part of the Northern Transversal Strip), was a small village with no more than twenty houses. Most of the first settlers who arrived there were from the areas of Senahú and Panzós, both in Alta Verapaz. In 1981, the population totaled about 130 people, all of them were members of the q'eqchi' ethnic group. Few of the people spoke Spanish and most of them worked in their own cornfields, sporadically, they worked for the local landowners. In the vicinity are the villages of El Bongo, Socela, Benque, Rio Pita, Santa Maria, Big Plan and New Hope. Conflicts in the area were related to land tenure, highlighting the uncertainty about the boundaries which existed between farms and communities, and the lack of titles. Because the National Institute of Agrarian Transformation (INTA) was not registered as a legitimate owner of land which was occupied by La Llorona, the members of the community continued to believe that the land belonged to the state, which had taken steps to obtain its title to the property. However, a farmer who was very influential in the area occupied part of the land, generating a conflict between him and the members of the community; on their own initiative, men of the village devised a new boundary between the community's land and the farmer's land, but the problem remained dormant.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In the second half of the seventies when the presence of guerrillas in the villages was first reported by Ramon, the commander of the aparacimiento, who talked to people and said that they were members of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor. They passed many villages, asked what problems their residents were experiencing and offered to solve them. They told the peasants that the land belonged to the poor and they also told the peasants that they should trust them. In 1977, Ramon, a guerilla commander, regularly visited the village of La Llorona and after he found out that the issue of land ownership was causing many problems in the community, he taught people to practice new measurements, which spread fear among landowners. That same year, the group which was under Ramon's command arbitrarily executed the Spanish landowner José Hernández, near El Recreo, which he owned. Following this act, a clandestine group of mercenaries, dubbed the "fighters of the rich" was formed to protect the interests of landlords; the public authority of El Estor organized the group and paid its members, stemming from the funding of major landowners. The group, irregular, was related to the military commissioners of the region and with commanders of the Army, but mutual rivalries also existed. The secret organization murdered several people, including victims who had no connection to insurgent groups.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In December 1978, the EGP group's leader, Ramon, was captured by soldiers of the military detachment in El Estor and transferred to the military zone of Puerto Barrios; after two years of imprisonment, he escaped and returned to El Estor; but this time, he returned as an officer in the Army G2 and he joined a group of soldiers that came to the village. On the evening of 28 September 1981, an army officer who was accompanied by four soldiers and a military commissioner met with about thirty civilians. At seven o'clock, over thirty civilians, mostly from "Nueva Esperanza", including several 'informants' who were known to military intelligence, gathered around La Llorona along with some military commissioners and a small group of soldiers and army officers. Then they entered the village. Civilians and commissioners entered twelve houses, and each of them removed men from their own homes and shot them dead outside; those men who tried to escape were also killed. Women who tried to protect their husbands were beaten. While the military commissioners and civilians executed men, soldiers removed the victims' belongings; within half an hour, the perpetrators of the assault left the village. The bodies of the victims, fourteen in all, were in front of houses. Women ran to the nearest village, El Bongo, and asked for help, despite the fact that they would have been killed if they revealed what had happened. After a few hours, women came back with people who helped them bury the bodies. Days later, widows, with almost 60 fatherless children were welcomed by the parish of El Estor for several days, until the soldiers forced them to return to their village. Two widows of those who were executed on 29 September established a close relationship with the military commissioners from Bongo. This situation triggered divisions that still exist in the community.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The economic and social activity was disrupted in the village: widows had to take the jobs of their husbands; because of their lack of knowledge of the cultivation of land, they harvested very little corn and beans. Diseases were also widespread, especially among children and the elderly, there was no food or clothing. The teacher who worked in the village only came part-time, mostly out of fear, but he left after he realized that it was not worth staying because young people had to work. Nor could they spend money on travel. The village had no teacher for the next four years. The events finally triggered the breakup of the community. Some village women knew that their husbands were killed because they knew three others who were linked to the guerrillas and they were also involved in a land dispute.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: According to the Historical Clarification Commission, the landlord who the villagers had the land dispute with took advantage of the situation in order to appropriate another twelve acres of land.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The report of the Recovery of Historical Memory lists 422 massacres committed by both sides in the conflict; however, it also states that they did the best they could in terms of obtaining information and therefore the list is incomplete; therefore the list includes some cases documented in other reports as well. Most documented massacres by state actors occurred between 1981 and 1983.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The CEH's final report recommended several measures to promote reparation and reconciliation, including the creation of a National Reparations Program, searches for the disappeared, and exhumations of victims to bring closure to families. The report also called for an official public apology from both the president and the ex-leadership of the URNG, the creation of monuments, a holiday to commemorate victims, and the widespread distribution of the report to educate about the war and promote a culture of "mutual respect." The CEH report advocated social and agrarian reform, specifically declaring the need to reform the judicial system and address racism and social inequality.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Of these recommendations, only a few have been implemented by 2012. The National Reparations Program (Spanish: Programa Nacional de Resarcimiento, or PNR) was created in 2003, mandated to focus on "material restitution, economic restitution, cultural restitution, dignifying victims and psycho-social reparations." According to the UN High Commission on Refugees, as of March 2012, 52,333 victims had been registered with the PNR and of those, more than 24,000 victims and/or families had received monetary reparations for crimes including rape, torture, execution and forced disappearance. Some other measures, such as naming streets after victims and creating a "Day of Dignity" to commemorate victims, have been instituted. PNR has primarily worked on economic reparation.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Following the release of the CEH report in 1999, President Álvaro Arzú apologized for the government's role in the atrocities of the war. Ex-leaders of the URNG also apologized and asked forgiveness of the victims. In 2012, President Otto Pérez Molina denied that there had been genocide in Guatemala, arguing that it was impossible as a large portion of the army was indigenous.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: The report was disseminated country-wide, but only parts of it were translated into Mayan languages. In addition, high rates of illiteracy have made it difficult for the general population to read the written report.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: Exhumations of victims have been pursued throughout Guatemala, providing some truth through discovery of bodies. Several NGOs have been created to provide psychological support to families witnessing an exhumation, and forensic groups have helped with identification of remains. This has provided both closure for some families as they locate loved ones, and potential evidence for future government prosecution of crimes.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: While Guatemala has achieved some forms of reparation, it faces significant instability and social inequality. Many of the estimated 1.5 million people displaced by the civil war have remained displaced. One million people migrated to the United States. In addition, in 2005, there were 5,338 murders in a total population of 12 million. The high levels of violence and instability in Guatemala are exemplified by a clash between protesters and police in October 2012, when police opened fire on a group of protesting teachers, killing seven. The country still has high rates of poverty, illiteracy, infant mortality and malnutrition.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In 1999, paramilitary Candido Noriega was sentenced to 50 years for his role in the deaths of dozens whilst employed by the Guatemalan army.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In August 2009, a court in Chimaltenango sentenced Felipe Cusanero, a local farmer, who was part of a network of paramilitaries who gave information about suspected leftists living in their villages to the army during Guatemala's counterinsurgency campaign, to 150 years in prison for his part in the disappearance of half a dozen indigenous members of a Mayan farming community over the two-year period of 1982–1984. He was the first person to ever be convicted for carrying out acts of forced disappearance during the Civil War. He appeared before three judges to face his sentence. He received a 25-year prison sentence for each of his victims. It was hailed as a "landmark" sentence. Hilarion López, the father of one of the victims, said: "We weren't looking for vengeance but for the truth and justice". The families have called on Cusanero to tell them where their bodies are. Cusanero was photographed being carried away by police afterwards. By August 2011, four former officers from the Guatemalan Special Forces (Kaibiles) were sentenced to 6,060 years in prison each for their involvement in the Dos Erres Massacre. In March 2011, a fifth former soldier, Pedro Pimentel Rios, was also sentenced to 6,060 years (after having been extradited from the United States) for his role in Dos Erres.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In March 2013, the trial against former president and dictator Jose Efrain Ríos Montt for the genocide of at least 1,771 members of the Maya Ixils began. The footage from Pamela Yates’ 1983 documentary When the Mountains Tremble, about the war between the Guatemalan Military and the Mayan Indigenous population of Guatemala, was used as forensic evidence in the genocide case against Jose Efrain Ríos Montt. On 10 May 2013, Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison (50 for genocide and 30 years for crimes against humanity). He is the first former head of state to be convicted of genocide by a court in his own country. However, ten days later, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala overturned the verdict. On 7 July 2015, Ríos Montt was declared mentally unfit to stand trial for committing genocide.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In 2015, there was a populist uprising that eventually led to President Otto Pérez Molina’s resignation and imprisonment. Before entering politics in the 1990s, he served as Director of Military Intelligence, Presidential Chief of Staff, and chief representative of the military for the Guatemalan Peace Accords. On 21 August 2015, Guatemalan prosecutors presented evidence of Pérez's involvement in the corruption ring and on 1 September, congress voted to take away his immunity, which prompted his resignation from presidency the next day. On 3 September 2015, he was arrested.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In May 2018, Benedicto Lucas García, former chief of military intelligence Manuel Antonio Callejas y Callejas, and Military Zone No. 17 senior officers Francisco Luis Gordillo Martínez and Hugo Ramiro Zaldaña Rojas were found guilty of not only crimes against humanity, but also aggravated sexual violation related to the Molina Theissen case. The case, which saw convictions for the forced disappearance of her teenage brother, was the first court judgement in Guatemala genocide trials which involved the forced disappearance of a child. Three of the officials, including both Lucas García and Callejas y Callejas, received a sentence of 58 years in prison, while Luis Gordillo received a 33-year prison sentence. In November 2019, Lucas García, Callejas y Callejas and retired Colonel César Octavio Noguera Argueta received additional criminal charges related to the Maya Ixil genocide. Luis Enrique Mendoza García, who was third in command of the Guatemalan army during the government of Efraín Ríos Montt, would be charged genocide and crimes against humanity against the Maya Ixil population soon afterwards as well. César Octavio Noguera Argueta died in November 2020 while still being prosecuted with his two co-defendants.


title: Guatemalan genocide

text: In January 2022, five former paramilitary officers of the pro-government Civil Self-Defense Patrols militia were sentenced to 30 years in prison for the rape of several Indigenous women during the time the genocide progressed in the early 1980s.


title: Dark Nights: Death Metal

text: "Dark Nights: Death Metal" is a 2020–2021 comic book storyline published by DC Comics, consisting of an eponymous central miniseries by writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo, and a number of tie-in books. The seven-issue miniseries was released from June 16, 2020, to January 5, 2021. The crossover was received with acclaim, with critics praising the unique plot, the art, the action, and the ending.


title: Dark Nights: Death Metal

text: "Dark Nights: Death Metal" is the sequel to 2017's "" and concludes Scott Snyder's run in DC Comics; he stated "Everything is coming back, we want to pay it forward. The Omega Titans, Barbatos, the Forge, it’s all coming back. Everything you read, our goal is to reward. All of it culminates in like a year in like a "Metal" event." "Death Metal" not only concludes the three-year spanning Dark Multiverse narrative that began with "Dark Nights: Metal", but will bring an end to the New 52 and DC Rebirth continuities that began with 2011's "Flashpoint" storyline.


title: Dark Nights: Death Metal

text: In April 2020 during an interview on "DC Daily", Snyder assured that the purpose of "Death Metal" is to unify every storyline from mainline DC Universe comic books, including the standalone stories.