guatemalan army the guatemalan army had come to the town of korea had massacred hundreds of people there for no better reason than that they happened to be my mind and a classic case of genocide the guatemalan army continue that that that the the guatemalan army's activities with respect to the indigenous population amounted to genocide that there was just mass killing of mayans for no greater reason my and i could there's no testimony to that a fact and i'm not going to tell you that ritz but i think to conclude that there is any other reason for the army to have been there killing women and children is is a conclusion that past persecution that's correct and the question is whether substantial evidence supports that findings that carets correct that's correct and i believe it does not this is this is a case that the v a actually did  some of his relatives had been killed and although he had been forced to leave this home at various times and had had guerrillas in his home at various times there was no evidence that that meeting that happened to mr want amounted to persecution i submit that that's simply not correct that an individual who was sitting there in the only home he has known his entire life listening to listening to massacre based on race of the people down the road and hearing that having the refugees come through his house asking for shelter because the people in the village of being massacred who then knows that the army is coming down the road and as a result of that decides to leave the only home he has ever known take his wife to travel by night hundreds of miles dozens of miles probably i think it's my geography maybe a little exaggerated there mexico where he then spends the rest of his adult life individuals target in entirely some purple and that's what we have i thought you had a case that talked at the out when i went there and army that goes through and there's widespread killings on the part of the army this is not a situation where the guatemalan army imposed progressive discipline on people of my or my own heritage they didn't come in and say well first you get a beating then you get a detention then your wife gets raped they came through these towns and just simply massacred people because they were mayan in mr one year because he was fortunate enough to to escape before that happened to him i believe that in a civilized society to not view persecution the petitioner pointed to kowtow as and in that case they were dealing particularly with well founded fear of future persecution and whether there was a showing  no persecution because he found the persecution of aa i agree more with what you were saying which is right on account of is part of the analysis to determine whether there was past persecution you have to show that you were now because in the government's view the petition has been shown you know sufficient evidence that he personally was persecuted that that  any political opinion on to him he was threatened or targeted in any way that he suffered any particular lies time he merely showed that he was caught up in a few track to civil war in guatemala elimination i think that in this particular case that we would look at substantial evidence and whether reasonable fact finder could conclude that she suffered past persecution reasonable minds may differ you look at the  correct well even the group i think ups i don't know that there is compelling evidence to support that there was i think that the evidence shows that there was a disproportionate number of mayans who suffered or who were targeted during the civil war i further like to note that in this particular case petitioners failed to establish a well founded fear of future persecution given the fact that his family situated family members reside in the home village in which he fled during the civil war his mother who also according to petitioners own testimony last during the civil war has since returned to the village and is living without difficulty and his brother who is a my  search and similarly situated family members joe we've got a presumption but in that case there was no testimony as to whether they were similarly situated in this case it's quite clear that his family members who are now living back in guatemala without just very very very briefly your honour's first of all again i want to emphasize the fact that we're not talking here about somebody simply who was in the way of a civil war we're talking about  a active program of the government to kill large numbers of people simply on the basis of their ethnicity which seems to me to be the government the critical aren't but it's a story it's not just the fact it's a story and the story is that the army has come to the village the army is massacring people is killing women and children killing old men killing young men and killing people at random has taken their bodies  into the center of the town and cut them up with machetes and the army is making its way down the road and in the face of this this man gets up and leaves his home he travels to mexico where he spends the rest of his adult life  he gives up the entire life that he knew now if that is not individualized persecution if that is not individualized impact on that person's life he may not have at last his life but his life was effectively taken away from him and that's individualized persecution didn't we have a case like this where we talk about the jews in europe at the didn't have to be the one who was actually that that's the case i mentioned earlier