Editing Enforced disappearance (section)

===Guatemala===
{{Main|Guatemalan genocide}}
[[Guatemala]] was one of the first countries where people were disappeared as a generalized practice of terror against a civilian population. Forced disappearances was widely practiced by the United States-backed military government of Guatemala during the 36-year [[Guatemalan Civil War]].<ref name=McAllister>{{cite encyclopedia|last=McAllister|first=Carlota|editor-first1=Greg|editor-last1=Grandin|editor-first2=Gilbert|editor-last2=Joseph|encyclopedia=A Century of Revolution|title=A Headlong Rush into the Future|access-date=14 January 2014|year=2010|publisher=Duke University Press|location=Durham, NC|pages=276–309|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YJ7ZBGy0wsIC|isbn=978-0-8223-9285-9|archive-date=8 November 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231108073045/https://books.google.com/books?id=YJ7ZBGy0wsIC|url-status=live}}</ref> An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 individuals were disappeared by the [[Guatemalan military]] and security forces between 1954 and 1996. The tactic of disappearance first saw widespread use in Guatemala during the mid-1960s, as government repression became widespread when the military adopted harsher [[counterinsurgency]] measures. The first documented case of forced disappearance by the government in Guatemala occurred in March 1966, when thirty [[Guatemalan Party of Labour]] associates were kidnapped, tortured and killed by the security forces; their bodies were put in sacks and [[Death flights|dumped at sea from helicopters]]. This was one of the first major instances of forced disappearance in Latin American history.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Doyle |first1=Kate |last2=Osorio |first2=Carlos |title=U.S. POLICY IN GUATEMALA, 1966–1996 |url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB11/docs/ |work=[[National Security Archive]] |access-date=9 June 2013 |archive-date=9 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141009173122/http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB11/docs/ |url-status=live }}</ref> When law students at the [[Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala|University of San Carlos]] used legal measures (such as ''[[habeas corpus]]'' petitions) to require the government to present the detainees at court, some of the students were "disappeared" in turn.<ref>McClintock 1985: 82–83; CIIDH and GAM 1998</ref>