The Salvadoran government not only employed death squads. Today, there are still over 20,000 Guatemalan refugees in Mexico. Under the December 1996 peace accords that ended the war in Guatemala, these refugees were guaranteed amnesty when they returned home, as well as possession of their land. Thousands returned, only to find their land had been taken over by others. Many then went back to Mexico.
Companies hire death squads to go after union leaders or members.
Death squads murder an estimated 8,000 victims annually. In Guatemala, the judicial system does not function and death squads are active there, too. During the 1980s, General Rios Mont, an SOA graduate, became the leader of the Guatemalan government. One of his generals was Hector Gramajo, an SOA graduate who received a fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 1982. We now provide development for 70 percent of our people, and kill 30 percent.