55

 / The long road to justice

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In order to defend the homeland, was it necessary to throw 
new born babies into a well, shower them with bullets and 
blow them to pieces with a hand grenade? Did defending 
Guatemala against international communism mean raping 
women? “I can only speak for myself and I never participated 
in such actions”, he said, furrowing his brow even more.

A few days later, he repeated exactly the same words in front 
of Judge Valdez, adding that “he also knew what it meant 
to lose a loved one” as one of his family members had died 
while he was living in the United States and he had not been 
able to attend the funeral. By that point, Judge Valdez was 
no longer looking him in the eyes. “You’ve already said that”, 
she reminded him. 

XXIV

Raúl de Jesús Gómez Hernández tilted his head back and 
clasped his hands together as if he were praying, while he 
listened carefully to Judge Valdez’s final conclusions. He 
thought about his brother Ramiro, who had left home the 
day before the massacre, and had never returned, and prayed 
for something that most Guatemalans regard as a miracle: 
justice.

In the row beneath him, sat Felícita Romero, who held the 
black and white portrait of a 40-year-old woman with her 
hair tied back in a bun. It was her mother, Natividad Romero, 
one of the 201 victims of the massacre. 

As Edgar Pérez, FAMDEGUA’s defense lawyer, said during 
his final speech – an oratorical marathon than went on for 
more than two hours – the victims had spent thirty years 
“chasing after justice”.