GUATEMALA: Counter-Insurgent Forces Train for Peace
POPTUM, Guatemala, Dic 08 (IPS) - Born to kill and self-defined as "the best combatants in Latin America and the world," the Kaibils, a Guatemalan army elite counter-insurgency squad, will be maintained as "dissuasive" forces in peace-time.
Guatemala is currently facing the possibility of a negotiated peace, expected to follow talks between insurgents and the government, but the Kaibils - accused by human rights groups of the cruelest acts of the counter-insurgency struggle - do not plan to disband.
The signs that receive journalists and a Presidential group to the Kaibil School in the jungle near Poptum, some 300 kilometres north of the capital, speak for themselves.
"Welcome to Hell" reads one sign at the entrance to the school, which on Dec. 5 celebrated its 20th anniversary, and "Cross Yourselves" another.
A bus carrying a group of journalists was welcomed with a mock attack by a group of Kaibils with purple berets and green faces, who jumped on the vehicle from over-hanging trees.
The "attack" was accompanied by fairly distant machine gun fire, dynamite blasts which shook the earth and a surprise: one of the soldiers, camouflaged in jungle tones, threw what looked like a hand grenade at the bus.
But passengers breathed a collective sigh of relief as blue smoke came out of what was only a harmless smoke-bomb used for night detection.
The Kaibil school, which has trained over 2,000 Guatemalan soldiers and 63 from 11 Latin American countries - many from Mexico - was founded on Dec. 4, 1974.
The name was taken from a legendary Mayan figure who was never defeated by Spanish forces, a Kaibil document explains.
"We are the heirs to that courage to defend our land...If I go forward, follow me. If I stop, urge me on. If I turn back, kill me," reads the Kaibil creed.
According to Defence Minister General Mario Enriquez, "the Kaibil course was created to confront the Communist threat from the eastern world which later was promoted by Cuba in our region," referring to the fight led by the URNG (United National Revolutionary movement of Guatemala).
The Central American country has suffered over 30 years of armed conflict between the army and guerrilla forces, and human rights organisations have estimated that government repression cost 80,000 lives from 1954-82.
Despite the suspension of U.S. military aid in 1977 and once again in 1989, "we came out winning," Enriquez claimed.
"We survived without the support of the United States or anyone else, with people who came out of the poor sectors of our own country," Kaibil leader General Enrique Pelaez told IPS.
Although autonomous, the Kaibils were designed after the Rangers - U.S. special forces - and the "Black Needles" of the Brazilian Amazon jungle. "All those ingredients went into a blender and out came the Kaibil spirit," said Pelaez.
"The army needed a shot of military mystique, reviving military virtues such as honour," said Colonel Roberto Letona, also one of the school's founders.
According to its statutes, the general objective of the Kaibil School, in which soldiers voluntarily enroll, is to promote "the combat mystique."
Raids, search missions, ambushes, deep incursions into enemy territory, survival techniques, annihilation attacks and intelligence work all form part of Kaibil training.
However, only half of the 50 soldiers who take part in each three month course "survive the first stage," said a second lieutenant who guided the journalists through slippery jungle paths to the celebration.
"Some accuse us of having carried out a dirty war, but I don't know any clean wars," said retired general Pablo Nuila Hub, who was the first Kaibil.
"They depict us as murderers without feelings but that is just part of the misinformation. We Kaibils are professional, educated people," said Colonel Francisco Marin.
One rumour has it that on graduation day the soldiers must kill the dog which accompanied them throughout the training. "Although the dog is man's best friend, it is also a source of food. In extreme situations it is better to sacrifice a dog than a human being," Colonel Ismael Segura told IPS.
Even with the apparent approach of a new era in Guatemala, the Kaibils do not plan to disappear, but rather: "in peace-time we will be a dissuasive force to maintain the peace," according to General Letona.
© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service