Watch towers... barbed wire... heavily armed soldiers... enforced recruitment into civil patrols... re-education centres... Today tens of thousands of Maya indigenous peoples in Guatemala are prisoners in their own land. ‘Model villages’, more accurately described as concentration camps, are now the only homes for thousands of Mayas, forced from their traditional lands by the Guatemalan army. Yet in some ways those imprisoned in the 30-odd model villages are the lucky ones. They are the survivors of the ‘scientific killings’ conducted on a massive scale by the notoriously brutal Guatemalan military. During the early 1980s the indigenous death toll may have been as high as 20,000; a process which even a conservative Guatemalan daily paper described as ‘genocidal annihilation’. As a result over 180,000 Maya Indian refugees fled to Mexico and a further half a million became internal refugees in provincial towns or the capital. The Maya of Guatemala, MRG Report No 62, outlines the horrific situation facing the Guatemalan Maya. Written by Phillip Wearne, a journalist with long experience in the region, it describes in detail the culture, beliefs and history of the Maya, their response to the non-indigenous world and the effects of both the war and the present economic crisis. The report also contains an overview of the present situation of indigenous peoples in the other states of Central America by Professor Peter Calvert. A shocking account of a people who have survived centuries of repression, this report is a passionate plea for solidarity and action on behalf of the Maya who are today facing the greatest single threat to their continued existence since the coming of the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century. Please note that the terminology in the fields of minority rights and indigenous peoples’ rights has changed over time. MRG strives to reflect these changes as well as respect the right to self-identification on the part of minorities and indigenous peoples. At the same time, after over 50 years’ work, we know that our archive is of considerable interest to activists and researchers. Therefore, we make available as much of our back catalogue as possible, while being aware that the language used may not reflect current thinking on these issues.