One, the army arrested all the inhabitants and took them into the jungle. She says, yes but they're the cops, it's okay, you can open up. But the government was not inclined to participate at that level. And so for whatever reason the soldiers decide they're going to take them with them. You talk to people in that town, he's someone who's seen as a heroic figure, who died shortly after bringing Oscar back. Story of yet another genocide in modern times. So he's breaking this incredible code of silence, and that could get him killed.
The Guatemalan civil conflict went on for 36 years, and it really only finally came to an end in the mid 1990s for two reasons. We go to the door and we're knocking on it. These are at least three people. The other critical catalyst that pushed this case forward was the naming in December of 2010 of Claudia Paz Y Paz to be the attorney general of Guatemala. The morning sort of builds and the commanders are talking to one another and they're on the radio back to supervisors elsewhere, but at some point the decision is made that they are going to interrogate the villagers in the center of town. Viewers should be aware that the film includes testimony from participants in the massacre, some of which is extremely harrowing - but surprisingly, there are also moments here that may make you weep with joy. The family is not very helpful.
Appeared to have a nice family. It's pretty much her and an assistant going out to this remote, still dangerous area trying to investigate this massacre. December 1982, Reagan and Rios Montt meet in person for the first time. What the Lieutenant had done, right, in sort of this act of mercy that accompanies this act of brutality is not only had he spared this boy, but he preserves the name Alfredo Castaneda, which is his real name. People were targeted, because they decided to attempt to change the country. And it was very clear by July of 1982 that the peace had accelerated immensely under Rios Montt. Those disappeared people grew into an enormous population of the vanished.
She's investigating this at a time where the powers that committed these atrocities are very much still active and strong. He says, they've got guns. It's simply, it sank like a stone. The question before us all is can freedom in the next generation conquer or are the Communists going to be successful? Salome Hernandez and his brother have the epic misfortune of arriving in the middle of this massacre, and being grabbed and taken by the rest of these people. It's almost comical to think of a prosecutor going into a pretty big town, Zacapa, and knocking on doors and asking for La Flaca, and finding her. And the military really hasn't been touched. They are all deserted and many have been burnt.
They have set themselves up by the well, and the people are brought there, and one of the first killed is a small child. The intelligence that comes in suggests that this guerrilla unit that committed this ambush may be somewhere in the vicinity of Dos Erres. There's great resentment that she could be investigating the Lieutenant and suggesting that he's something other than this heroic military man. She goes, no they're the cops, it's okay, you can open the door. What I first did is I get his application for naturalization.
He's a Special Forces soldier. That the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. They came across Gilberto Jordan's name and knew that he was in the country. We're talking about lawyers, and journalists, and artists, and writers. They stop his wife on the street and they get his wife to call him.
I know that President Rios Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment. Five children, three girls, and two little boys. I'm trying to remember his wife's name. That was like an electric shock in Guatemala. That the worst of the worst would be brought to account.
And they send all this information to Sara Romero. And that hundreds of villages were being razed to the ground, and tens of thousands of people were being killed. You had a complicity by omission, a Reagan government that was not willing to call out its allies in the Guatemalan state. I can see he's visibly upset. I think he still didn't believe it. Three, the army killed everyone in the village, dumped them into the well, and covered the well over. Detailing the 15-year search for the missing boy that followed this revelation, Finding Oscar takes in the history of Guatemala's recovery from its civil war, the process of searching for the disappeared and identifying remains, and the stories of other children who were taken after their parents were killed.
About a month and a half, maybe two months went by, and I got the results and the first thing I thought of is, wow, we have to call him. . Forensic Anthropology is the application of physical anthropology techniques to a criminal setting. There's this crescendo of activity, which you would expect to lend to some kind of immediate resolution, and instead, the case ends up in legal limbo for almost another decade. And then she gets this incredible tip, one of the soldiers who was involved in the massacre wants to talk to her.
Her focus is getting the testimony of these two soldiers, which is going to be absolutely crucial and unique. Jordan to admit his role in the massacre. The cable is written in late December 1982, so it's some weeks after the massacre has taken place. So he's Oscar Alfredo Ramirez Castaneda. Through this policy, Rios Montt really unleashes these commandos, the Kaibiles, who are among the best-trained and the most famously brutal in the hemisphere.