Louisa Reynolds /

Pz

P

60

Ramiro told the court about the machete episode, clenching 
his teeth, as he tried to avoid breaking down in front of the 
judge. He is thirty four years old and has lost any feeling in 
the fingers of his right hand. 

For years, López Alonso had threatened to kill him if he ever 
tried to run away. Paradoxically, on his eighteenth birthday, 
Ramiro decided to enroll in the army, the same army that 
had butchered his parents and siblings, as he believed that to 
be the only place where he could be safe.

But soon after he joined the army, FAMDEGUA began to 
investigate the Dos Erres case, suspecting that he was one 
of the children who had survived the massacre. When the 
rumor that Ramiro was a Dos Erres survivor reached the 
military detachment in Zacapa, where Ramiro had enrolled, 
his superiors and fellow soldiers began to eye him with 
suspicion. 

Soon afterwards, López Alonso went to look for him and 
warned him that he had to leave immediately because the 
army was planning to have him abducted and killed. The 
man who had beaten and humiliated him and knew no other 
language than violence, had now displayed a sudden sense of 
affection for Ramiro and had saved his life.

Ramiro fled to Guatemala City, where FAMDEGUA had 
him DNA tested and told him that he had grandparents, 
uncles and aunts on his mothers’ side and cousins on his 
father’s side. Some lived in Chiquimulilla, in the eastern 
department of Santa Rosa, where his parents had emigrated 
from, and a few others had stayed in Las Cruces.

In February 1999, they all arrived in Guatemala City to be 
reunited with the little boy who had survived the massacre 
and grown up to be a stocky young man with large green