Indigenous Rising

lastrealindians:

On This Day (3/13/1982): In 1982 the Río Negro massacre took place, where over 177 Maya – including 70 women and 107 children – were killed. At six o’clock in the morning the army entered the community of Río Negro. They went to every house asking for the men, but they were not in their homes because they used to spend the nights in the mountain for security reasons. The army then gathered up the women and children, forcing them to dance, in the words of the soldiers, as they danced with the guerrillas. A number of young women were taken and raped. After, the army forced the people to walk about three miles up the mountain. “Throughout the walk, they beat the women a lot, they called them cows. They beat the children a lot calling them sons of guerrillas”. When they got to the top of Pacoxom Hill the army killed all of the women and children, dumping them in a pit which they covered with stones and branches. The massacre was part of the larger Rio Negro Massacres (1980-1982), which were the result of Maya Achi being forcibly relocated due to the construction of the Chixoy Dam. When hundreds of residents refused to relocate, or returned after finding the conditions of resettlement villages were not what the government had promised, these men, women, and children were kidnapped, raped, and massacred by paramilitary and military officials.

(via apihtawikosisan-deactivated2014)