Scorched earth
A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy while it is advancing through or withdrawing from a location. Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted, for example food sources, water supplies, transportation, communications, industrial resources, and even the locale's people themselves.
Plan de Sánchez
Plan de Sánchez is a village in the municipality of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz department, Guatemala. On July 18, 1982, while General Efraín Ríos Montt was President of Guatemala, a massacre was committed there by government forces during which over 200 people were killed. The massacre was a part of what is known as the scorched earth policy where the Guatemalan army eliminated up to 200,000 Mayan and indigenous peoples in a 36-year civil war until 1996. In 2000 President Alfonso Portillo admitted that the government was responsible for the massacre in the village.