HUMAN RIGHTS-GUATEMALA: The Eyes of the World are on Guatemala

By Fabiana Frayssinet Reprint | | Print |

Fabiana Frayssinet

GUATEMALA CITY, Nov 17 1994 (IPS) - Never before has the international community been so interested in Guatemalan events. In recent weeks, the Central American nation has become the focus of attention of many leading human rights officials.

Leonardo Franco, the director of the United Nations Human Rights Verification Mission in Guatemala, arrived in the country just hours after the arrival of United Nations (U.N.) human rights advisor Monica Pinto on Thursday.

Franco’s arrival will boost the delayed installation of the U.N. mission in Guatemala, called for in the peace talks between the government and the guerrillas in order to oversee the fulfillment of the Human Rights Agreement signed in March.

Meanwhile, Pinto will examine the government’s advances on the human rights recommendations she made in late 1993.

Some sources linked to the government have unofficially expressed disapproval of the presence of two different U.N. groups working in the same area.

However, such complaints carry little weight, as Pinto is in Guatemala as an advisor under a resolution of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, while Franco’s mission is one of verification, called for by participants in the peace talks.

Fernando Castanon, who leads the preparations for the U.N. mission in Guatemala, said the group would not infringe on national sovereignty or impose upon national institutions.

The U.N. officials’ presence is part of an effort by President Ramiro de Leon to prove that individual and collective rights are respected in his country. A former human rights ombudsman, de Leon was also a high ranking member of a right-wing party tied to death squad activity.

U.S. Assistant Seecretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, John Shattuck, is also due to arrive shortly.

A brief communique from the U.S. embassy stated that Shattuck would meet with representatives of non-governmental organisations and human rights leaders to “discuss democratic and labour institutions and the general human rights situation.”

Meanwhile, the armed forces are still shaken up by the month- long hunger strike that U.S. citizen Jennifer Harbury conducted to demand the return of her husband, guerrilla Efrain Bamaca.

According to Harbury, who traveled to the United States to discuss the case with White House authorities, Bamaca has been kept in a clandestine army prison for the past two years.

Based on information she attributes to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Harbury claimed that her husband was alive, and being tortured.