Policia Militar Ambulante
The Policia Militar Ambulante (Mobile Military Police, Ambulant Military Police or PMA) was an elite paramilitary corp active in Guatemala during the Guatemalan Civil War.
History
Formed in 1965 during the administration of Guatemalan President
Involvement in the Civil War
The PMA played a vital role in consolidating and maintaining state control in rural Guatemala, providing surveillance, apprehending and interrogating suspected "subversives" and guerrillas, and working with the land elite to discipline the rural workforce, undermine the unions, and suppress worker rebellions at plantations and factories. By the 1970s the PMA had also become an integral part of Guatemala's military intelligence apparatus and was performing more specialized military functions. Between 1980 and 1983, through the presidencies of
Throughout the conflict, the PMA maintained a rapid action battalion with a base located 30 miles southeast of Guatemala City near Escuintla, which could be deployed to virtually any region in the country. Until 1984, the PMA's primary urban headquarters were in Guatemala City adjacent to the headquarters of the G-2. After 1984, the G-2 took control of PMA headquarters and used it as an interrogation center.
In July 1988, Defense Minister Héctor Gramajo announced the creation of the Civilian Protection System (SIPROCI). Led by the G-2, SIPROCI synchronized the activities of the PMA, the National Police, the Treasury Police, the Security Section of the Presidential Staff (Archivos). Within the framework of SIPROCI, PMA units were devoted to operations targeted at crime and drugs, and much less towards counterinsurgency activities, having largely succeeded in subduing the insurgency in the early 1980s. It was within this framework that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began to transfer the responsibility of funding and training the Guatemalan security forces to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), due in large part to Guatemala's growing drug problem and the resolution of the Cold War.[2]
Human rights violations
"In mid-1979...an informant carried the news to the base that the guerillas had taken the municipality of Uspantán. The captain went with 150 soldiers and went to the aldea of Chicamán to interrogate the people...they tied them up and began to put needles under their fingernails and they were screaming terribly...The captain cut the young man's throat and he made a terrifying noise, fell to the ground and blood poured out...the people began to cry..."
Testimony of former PMA soldier.[3]
During the
Due to its involvement in
Academy
The CAPMA (Centro de Adiestramiento de la Policia Militar Ambulante) was the primary training center for both the "ordinaria" and "extraordinaria" segments of the Mobile Military Police. Training courses included classes taught by civilians, including doctors, attorneys, and personal defense experts.[9]
References
- ^ Inforpress Centroamericana. Email to INS Resource Information Center (Washington, DC: 21 May 2001).
- ^ Navy Captain Julio Alberto Yon Rivera (former G-2 director), 1996 interview
- ^ Cited in Memory of Silence: The Guatemalan Truth Commission Report (1999), p. 104
- ^ "Guatemala: Alliances Unlimited," LATIN AMERICAN NEWSLETTERS, LTD. (19 November 1976), p. 354.
- ^ Amnesty International. As cited in Jonathan L. Fried, Marvin E. Gettleman, Deborah T. Levenson and Nancy Peckenham, eds. GUATEMALA IN REBELLION: UNFINISHED HISTORY (New York, NY: Grove Press, 1983), p. 139-145.
- ^ IACHR, Number 3497
- ^ Nairn, Allan and Simon, Jean Marie. "Bureaucracy of Death," THE NEW REPUBLIC (30 June 1986)-as reported on Lexis-Nexis.
- ^ EFE News Service. "Guatemalan Garrison to be Excavated in Search for Victims' Bones" (3 October 1999)-as reported on Lexis-Nexis.
- ^ Inforpress 2001, 1