39

 / The long road to justice

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his children playing in the yard, he was tormented by the 
memories of children of similar ages that he had thrown into 
the well, and he found that telling his story had a cathartic 
effect.

Several former soldiers came forward to tell their stories, and 
three of them were willing to testify in court against their 
fellow soldiers: Kaibil instructor César Franco Ibáñez, César 
García Tobar and the cook, Fabio Pinzón Jerez. 

The latter was a “Kaibil asimilado”, a soldier who had failed 
to pass the grueling sixty-day training course during which 
his mind and body had been subjected to extreme conditions, 
and had earned his red beret by allowing his instructors and 
fellow soldiers to treat him in the most degrading manner 
possible. He had thus managed to earn himself a place in 
the Kaibil troop as a cook, the lowest possible level in the 
hierarchy, but was constantly humiliated by other soldiers.  

Whether his desire to speak out was motivated by the 
resentment he harbored against the Kaibil troop, known in 
the Guatemalan army as “destazadores” or “professional 
butchers” or by the fact that El Infierno never managed to 
fully destroy his sense of humanity, the truth is that without 
the testimonies of the three Kaibil soldiers, it is very likely 
that the case would never have been brought to trial.

The former Kaibiles testified in advance, naming every 
soldier in the troop, joined the Attorney General’s Office’s 
“protected witness” scheme and were forced to pack their 
belongings and begin a new life in an undisclosed location in 
Mexico City, where they live and work to this day.

Based on their testimonies, a local court in the municipality 
of Poptún, in Petén, issued seventeen arrest warrants against