"The Command of the Secret Anti-Communist Army [ESA] is presenting by means of this bulletin an ‘ultimatum’ to the following trade unionists, professionals, workers and students: ... [it] warns them all that it has already located them and knows perfectly well where to find these nefarious communist leaders who are already condemned to DEATH, which will therefore be carried out without mercy..." The Secret Anti-Communist Army (Spanish: Ejército Secreto Anticomunista, ESA) was a front organization that operated in Guatemala and El Salvador during the Guatemalan Civil War.
[7] It claimed to be independent, but was coordinated and staffed by members of the military and security services and was allegedly run by Colonel German Chupina Barahona, Director General of the National Police (PN) from 1978 to 1982.
[6] High profile incidents officially attributed to the ESA peaked in Guatemala between 1978 and 1980, and were first directed at academics who were openly involved in progressive politics.
[2] One of these cases included the assassination of the President of the Association of University Students (AEU), Oliverio Castaneda de Leon on 20 October 1978, who was submachine-gunned by unknown men approximately one block from the Presidential Palace in Guatemala City, with no intervention from nearby, and heavily armed Policia Nacional.
ID cards were found on the two ESA assailants, linking one to the S-2 (military intelligence) section of the "General Aguilar Santa Maria" army base at Jutiapa and the other to the (Servicio Especial) Special Service of the Treasury Police.