RIGHTS-GUATEMALA: Groups Back Call for International Inquiry

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jan 16 2003 (IPS) - Prominent U.S. human rights groups have lined up in strong support of the creation of an international commission proposed by Guatemala’s Human Rights Ombudsman, Sergio Morales, to investigate the rising tide of violence and intimidation against rights activists.

At a press conference in Guatemala City on Thursday, Morales asked for the creation of a Commission to Investigate Illegal Bodies and Clandestine Security Groups, which should include representatives of both the international community and the Guatemalan government.

”The recommendation follows an exhaustive and painstaking investigation into the accusations presented to the Ombudsman,” said a statement from Morales’ office.

”In his resolution Doctor Morales noted the public concern created by the attacks and abductions against human rights defenders, judges, magistrates, politicians, lawyers, congressional officials, political leaders, reporters, clergy and leaders of indigenous peoples.”

”Doctor Morales believes that peace will not come to Guatemala as long as attitudes and forms of tolerance toward human rights violations persist.”

A statement jointly issued here by Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR) said the deteriorating situation in Guatemala warranted urgent attention by the international community, which has helped oversee a 1996 peace accord.

”Over the past year, Guatemalan human rights defenders and jurists have suffered repeated acts of violence and intimidation,” said the statement, which noted that the perpetrators appear to be ”closely linked to current and former members of the country’s security forces”.

”By undermining the justice system and perpetuating a climate of impunity, the actions attributed to these groups have jeopardised the rule of law and the functioning of democracy in Guatemala. For a fair and effective system of justice to take root, the groups responsible for these acts must be uncovered and dismantled.”

Citing the failure of President Alfonso Portillo to act effectively against the perpetrators, the groups called for the government to formally request the involvement of the United Nations and the Organisation of American States (OAS) in creating an international commission ”to investigate the existence of illegal armed groups and their apparent role in attacks on the human rights community in Guatemala”.

The groups date the deterioration of the human rights situation to 1998, following efforts by rights groups and the Roman Catholic Church to investigate atrocities committed during the country’s 36-year civil war, particularly those committed against Guatemala’s indigenous Mayan communities under former President Efrain Rios Montt in the early 1980s.

Rios Montt, a powerful figure in the ruling party, reportedly hopes to succeed Portillo in November’s presidential elections.

It was in 1998 that Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi was brutally beaten to death in his garage just two days after he had delivered the final report of a Church-backed truth and reconciliation project that found the army and army-backed Civil Defence Patrols established under Rios Montt were responsible for more than 80 percent of the tens of thousands killings that took place during the war.

Four men, including three members of the Presidential Security Guard, an army group long accused of death-squad activity that was supposed to have been dismantled under the peace accords, were later convicted of Gerardi’s murder.

But the last year has brought an increase in threats, violence, and intimidation against rights activists and clergy, according to groups here.

Among the more serious incidents over the past year was February’s burning of the parish house in Nebaj, Quiche. It held documents related to Gerardi’s murder and others belonging to a team of forensic anthropologists who had been carrying out exhumations in the area where a number of mass killings took place in the 1980s.

One month later, three offices belonging to the San Marcos Diocese were burglarised, and the local bishop, Alvaro Ramazzini, received a series of death threats.

In late April, Guillermo Ovalle de Leon, an accountant at the Fundacion Rigobertu Menchu Tum, was shot dead at a Guatemala City restaurant shortly after receiving a telephoned death threat. The Foundation, led by Nobel Peace laureate Menchu Tum, has been pursuing legal cases against top military officers and Rios Montt for genocide.

In May, four forensic anthropologists were forced to leave the country after receiving death threats against themselves and their families, while the following month, a fax sent to newspapers by a previously unknown group threatened the lives of 11 rights activists labelled ”enemies of the state” due to their cooperation with the U.N. Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani.

In July, workers at the headquarters of the National Coordinating Office for Human Rights in Guatemala reported their computers and files stolen after a break-in, while, on the eve of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Guatemala last summer, shots were fired at the courthouse where the Gerardi case was held.

In September, Manuel Garcia de la Cruz, a member of the National Coordinator of Guatemalan Widows was murdered; he had been decapitated, and his ears, nose, and eyes cut out.

In the following months, peasant and union leaders, as well as rights activists in the following months, reported receiving more death threats, and on Oct. 9, Mayan lawyer and activist Antonio Pop Caal was abducted. Two Indian leaders were murdered in Izabal in November.

Just last month, human rights activist Amilcar Mendez was shot at several times shortly after providing the attorney general with evidence linking state agents to Pop’s abduction. Pop’s body turned up in a ditch at the Coban airport five days later.

”None of these incidents has been satisfactorily investigated by the Guatemalan government; nor have those responsible been brought to justice,” said Geoff Thale, a Guatemala specialist at WOLA. ”Civil society leaders say that these targeted threats and attacks and the fear they generate are comparable to the worst period of violence during the 1980s.”

Guatemalan rights groups have tried to confront the problem and participated earlier this year in a high-level dialogue with the government but withdrew after the third meeting when attacks appeared to intensify. A special prosecutor was also appointed by the government to investigate the cases, but no progress has been reported.

The formation of a high-powered international commission staffed by international experts with experience in the criminal investigation of clandestine and paramilitary groups and knowledge of Guatemala and its civil war may be the only way to uncover the forces behind these incidents, according to the U.S. groups.

They noted that a similar commission, called the Grupo Conjunto, was established in 1993 to address a resurgence of political violence that followed the 1990 peace accords. While the results of that group were mixed, just by focusing attention on the problem, political attacks diminished.