Civil Patrols in Guatemala

Abstract

This 105-page report, published in 1986, describes the structure and role of the civil defense patrols ("PAC"), established during the early 1980s in Guatemala, at the height of its internal armed conflict, as a means of controlling Guatemala's rural and largely Mayan population. Former Supreme Court chief justice, Edmundo Vásquez Martínez described the PAC as "illegal and unconstitutional." By 1985, the PAC incorporated approximately one-third of Guatemala's rural male population.

Keywords: Guatemala, Jean-Marie Simon, human rights, civil patrols, PAC, Ríos Montt, coercion, Central America, civil war