Maya Indian children carrying flowers filed through the dirt streets of a tropical Guatemalan village on Thursday to mark the 25th anniversary of a civil war army massacre that ushered in one of the bloodiest state killing sprees in Latin American history. On May 29, 1978, soldiers backed by local landowners concerned over increasing grass-roots organization of peasants allegedly opened fire on hundreds of Q’eqchi’ Maya Indians gathered to demand land in the main square of Panzos, a riverside village near Guatemala’s Caribbean coast. The shooting, in which at least 53 people were killed and scores were wounded, was the first of hundreds of alleged massacres by Guatemala’s army in perceived rebel strongholds as a 36-year civil war against leftist insurgents reached its peak. A quarter-century later no one has been brought to trial for the killings. Full Story
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