Kaibiles

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The Kaibiles are elite soldiers in the Guatemalan armed forces . They form a special unit stationed in Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast of Guatemala (until 2008 in Poptún , Petén ). Kaibiles committed numerous crimes during the Guatemalan Civil War . Today they are used to fight organized crime and in international peace missions abroad.

history

The name Kaibil goes back to Kayb'il B'alam (Kaibil Balam), a Maya warrior and leader of the Mam people. The name means something like "strategist who has the strength and cunning of two jaguars". When the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado attacked the Mam fortress Zaculeu near today's city of Huehuetenango in 1525, Kayb'il B'alam and his 18,000 men managed to defend the fortress against the Spanish for four months. He achieved fame because the Spaniards never succeeded in capturing him after taking Zaculeus. In the surrounding mountains he later waged a long guerrilla war against Alvarado's troops.

On December 5, 1974, the Guatemalan military government set up a training center for special forces at Melchor de Mencos (in Petén , on the border with Belize ). It was built by the then Major Pablo Nuila Hub ("Kaibil 001"), who, like many other Guatemalan officers, had already taken part in special forces courses abroad. On March 5, 1975, the school was named Kaibil ( Escuela de Adiestramiento y Operaciones Especiales "Kaibil" ) in honor of Kayb'il B'alam . During this time, the training in the notorious El Infierno training camp (municipality of La Pólvora ) was based on the model of the United States Army Rangers , later it was increasingly geared to local needs. The counterinsurgency and the emphatic claims that Guatemala made on Belize at the time played a special role here . Above all, the brutality of the training and the associated disinhibition led, as a truth-finding commission found in February 1999, to the numerous human rights violations and crimes committed by kaibiles during the Guatemalan civil war , including the Dos Erres massacre in December 1982. Because left-wing guerrillas there raided a military convoy and killed 21 soldiers, Kaibiles cruelly murdered 226 local men, women and children in retaliation on the grounds that civilians had supported the guerrilla movement. It wasn't until 2000 that the government asked for forgiveness and compensated the survivors with $ 1.82 million. In 2011 and 2012, five soldiers from the unit were each sentenced to more than 6,000 years in prison. In November 2018, the former soldier Santos López Alonzo was sentenced to 5,160 years in prison after extradition from the USA .

On January 12, 1989, the Kaibil School and the special unit were relocated to Poptún (in the south of Petén ). In the 1990s, politicians and the Catholic Church called for the kaibiles to be disbanded after various crimes were exposed. In 1996, however, the government preferred to realign the special unit and use it for new tasks, in particular for combating drug smuggling. The peace treaty signed between the government and the guerrilla movement in December 1996 rules out domestic operations, but given the high crime rate and the constitutional harmlessness of such operations, criticism of the kaibiles is now limited or limited to the past. In addition to fighting heavily armed drug smugglers, the force is also deployed within the framework of the UN . a. as part of MONUC in the Congo . On January 26, 2006, eight kaibiles were killed and five others wounded there when they were ambushed by superior guerrilla units in Garamba National Park . The Kaibil troop is now considered to be one of the best of its kind in Latin America and the courses in Poptún and Puerto Barrios are also very popular with commandos from neighboring countries. The special unit has recently hit the headlines because some of its former members could not resist financial offers from Mexican drug smugglers and joined their service. There were also reports that individual active kaibiles were said to have used confiscated drugs themselves.

education

The self-image of the Kaibiles becomes particularly clear in their motto, which still has a very high priority: si avanzo sígueme, si me detengo aprémiame, si retrocedo mátame (“when I advance - follow me when I stop - press me when I do withdraw - kill me ”; internally, however, the word“ press ”stood for“ torture ”, at least in the past). The bon mot actually comes from the founder of the Communist Party of Cuba, Julio Antonio Mella . The training now only lasts eight weeks, but is generally described as very tough and is primarily geared towards fighting and surviving in the jungle . Fully trained kaibiles should be able to penetrate deep into enemy territory quickly and unnoticed in order to obtain information there, carry out raids, disrupt enemy operations, secure landing points for subsequent units and rescue personnel and equipment. The trainee personnel come for the most part from well-trained associations such as paratroopers and receive primarily survival training and brief command training. In addition, various courses are organized for other units in the army. Formerly legendary entrance rituals such as biting off the heads of live chickens and consuming raw meat and blood are no longer the order of the day, but the rudimentary preparation of killed animals as part of survival training is. The Kaibil training, in which two soldiers always form a team ( cuas ; kekchi for brother), is divided into three sections: In the first three weeks the focus is on the theoretical training and, in the practical part, on an ongoing examination of the Willpower and perseverance of the trainees. The following section lasts four weeks and takes place in the jungle of Peten or Izabal . This practical special training covers ambushes, overcoming various kinds of natural obstacles, discovering and defusing mines, etc. During the last week, a number of things will be discussed in the jungle. a. practiced collecting information in the enemy hinterland, as well as surprise attacks and interaction with airborne units. In the end, the Kaibil contenders have to stay in a river with full equipment for two days, motionless and with the water up to their necks, and then overcome a life-threatening obstacle course . The purpose of such exercises is to establish a feeling of psychological and physical superiority ( mística kaibil ) in the soldiers . Due to the hardship of the training and the climatic conditions, the success rate is not particularly high. Serious injuries and deaths occur regularly.

organization

The exact structure of the Brigada de Fuerzas Especiales Kaibil (until 2004 Comando de Fuerzas Especiales Kaibil ) is subject to confidentiality. Until the 1980s, Kaibil teams were assigned to other military units as support forces and also had training tasks there. Only later was a uniform special unit created. Today's association, which is nowhere near the strength of a brigade , is led by a colonel . In addition to the headquarters in Puerto Barrios (and other training facilities in Izabal and Petén), he is responsible for the entire training area and the special forces battalion (there were two battalions in the 1990s ). Both the three companies and their four 39-man platoons specialize in different types of operations. There is also a special separate anti-terrorist train. Within the 9-man groups there are also specialists such as snipers , radio operators , paramedics or explosives experts .

In June 2008 the Brigada de Fuerzas Especiales Kaibil was relocated from Poptun to Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast. Some training facilities remain in Poptún.

See also

Commons : Kaibiles  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Jorge Antonio Ortega Gaytán: Los Kaibiles , Ciudad Guatemala 2003.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ex-soldier sentenced to 5,160 years in prison. November 22, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018 .
  2. ^ Ex-soldier convicted of massacre in Guatemala. November 22, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018 .