[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The patrols officially stopped 29 December 1996 under the terms of the peace treaty that ended the war,[1][2][3][6] though some of the network remained and was used by former members demanding compensation for their involvement.

[1][2][4][5][6][7][8][9] The primary goals of Guatemala's Civil Defense Patrols included augmenting the army's military strength and intelligence in areas of conflict and providing vigilance and control of the local organization.

During the Guatemalan Revolution, local militias were needed in order to offer a structural opportunity for the state and union to integrate, networks to expand, and new indigenous and oppressed identities to surface and have a voice in society.

Also, Civil defense comprises activities designed to minimize the Effects of war on the civilian population, deal with immediate emergency conditions, and quickly restore vital utilities and facilities damaged in an attack.

[13] By improving civil defense patrol, response, recovery actions and the overall understanding of critical infrastructure needs, it will help in preventing and mitigating terrorist activity.

The United States was intimately involved in equipping and training Guatemalan security forces that murdered thousands of civilians in the nations civil war.

Some documents were made available to an independent commission formed to investigate human rights abuses during Guatemala’s 36 year civil war, which killed an estimated 200,000 people.

Civil defense comprises activities designed to minimize the effects of war on the civilian population, deal with immediate emergency conditions, and quickly restore vital utilities and facilities damaged in an attack.

[5] This phase began to take effect under the rule of Fernando Romeo Lucas García and was implemented the rest of the way by General Ríos Montt.

An article published in the magazine Revista Militar, which was based on intelligence gathered by the Guatemalan Army in 1981, suggested that the Ixil Indians, who were the first to organize and rebel, be subjected to a process of ladinoization.

[2][3][8] During a particularly violent period between March 1982 and August 1983, tens of thousands of indigenous people were tortured, raped and killed, and the Patrols are suspected to have participated in some of these.

In 1999, the Guatemala Human Rights Commission reported that the postwar equivalent of the Patrols, the Community Security Committees, were threatening members who didn't want to join them.

Residents of Chinanton and Agua Hedionda reported that former Patrols from San Andrés Sajcabaja were firing guns near people's homes and threatened to kill those who interfered with them.

[1] In 2000, the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala and the Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman's Office began investigating the Patrol's resurgence.

The Human Rights Ombudsman's Office looked into Patrol operations in El Quiché, Huehuetenango, Jutiapa, Chiquimula and Petén.

In Rabinal, Vice Mayor Lucas Tecú attempted to pass a referendum to reinstate the Patrols, despite the fact that doing so would violate the Peace Accords.

The coordinator for the Center for Legal Action in Human Rights in Rabinal, María Dolares Itzep, stated that the Patrols had returned because of the execution of three patrolmen in 1998 for a state-directed massacre in 1982.

Around that time, Amnesty International reported that, "approximately 30 heavily armed men believed to be former civil patrollers attacked the community of Los Cimientos Chiul, in Chajul, El Quiché.

[1] In September 2002, Amnesty International reported that Manuel García de la Cruz of the National Coordination of Guatemalan Widows has been founded tortured and decapitated after he had left his home to buy corn in Joyabaj.

[1][2] By August 2002, up to 20,000 former patrolmen from Mazatenango, Alta Verapaz, Quetzaltenango, Sololá, San Marcos, El Quiché, Chimaltenango, Jutiapa and Huehuetenango were involved.