February 1999: Report: US-Supported Guatemalan Forces Responsible for Massacres

A Historical Clarification Commission report concludes that US-supported Guatemalan security forces had been responsible for most of the human rights abuses that occurred during that country’s decade-long civil war, including torture, kidnapping and the murder of thousands of rural Mayans. These findings contradict years of US official denial. The commission estimates over 200,000 Guatemalans were killed in the civil war, the most brutal armed conflict in Latin America history. [Washington Post, 3/11/1999; Commission for the Historical Clarification, 4/2000]