Guatemala Human Rights New Clips
Week of June 28 to July 4, 1999
Former Judge Asks Courts to Charge Officers in Gerardi Murder
Guatemalan President Denies Genocide
Army Day Brings "More of the Same," Say Human Rights Activists
Guatemalan Presidential Guard to be Dissolved
Abused Woman Denied Asylum in US
Plantation Owners Harass Workers and Peasants
Former Judge Asks Courts to Charge Officers in Gerardi Murder
July 1, 1999 - from Weekly News Update on the Americas - Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY - http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html - wnu@igc.apc.org
Former judge Juan Carlos Solis Oliva asked on June 28 that formal charges be brought against Gen. Marco Tulio Espinosa and two other high-ranking military officers. Solis said that as head of the Presidential Guard (EMP) between January 1996 and July 1997 Espinosa, together with Col. Rudy Pozuelos, currently head of the EMP, and Maj. Juan Escobar, head of security for President Alvaro Arzu, organized the April 26, 1998 murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi.
Solis also accused Espinosa of being a member of the so-called "Cofradia," which, he said, requires of its members that they be killers. Solis said he received his information from Cpt. Juan Urizar and Cpt. Alejandro Jimenez, who is his brother-in-law.
Mynor Melgar, a legal advisor for the Archbishop's Human Rights Office (ODHA), which Gerardi headed at the time of his death, said Solis' accusations are being considered with caution. "As we always said, we want to see the evidence. For the moment, as far as we know, he has not presented any evidence." Solis' stepfather and stepbrother, a retired and an active-duty military officer, respectively, have been accused by ODHA of being involved in Gerardi's murder.
Solis had been the first judge to hear the Gerardi case, but was removed from his post in September of last year for administrative irregularities. To date Gerardi's murder has still not been solved. (La Nacion from AP, Costa Rica, 6/29/99; La Nacion from AFP, Costa Rica, 6/30/99; El Diario La Prensa from AFP, NYC, 6/29/99; EDLP from AP, NYC, 6/30/99; EDLP from EFE, NYC, 7/1/99)
Guatemalan President Denies Genocide
July 1, 1999 - from Weekly News Update on the Americas - Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY - http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html - wnu@igc.apc.org
On June 29 Guatemalan president Alvaro Arzu denied the conclusions by the U.N.-backed Commission for Historic Clarification (CEH) that during the 36-year long internal armed conflict genocide was committed against Guatemala's indigenous peoples, in particular the Maya. "I do not believe that in the macabre confrontation of 36 years there was genocide," he said.
"Genocide is the desire to exterminate an ethnic group or a race, and that, in my opinion, was not the motivation of the conflict we lived through, although that does not make it less brutal," Arzu said. Regarding recommendations made in the report, Arzu said that some were important and should be deeply analyzed but that others would simply duplicate efforts already being made. The latter was apparently a reference to the Commission's recommendation that commissions be established to deal with compensation to victims of human rights abuses and the establishment of bilingual education, among others. He said there are already 15 commissions dealing with specific themes mentioned in the peace accords signed on December 29, 1996, and that the path for healing wounds left by the war was through the courts.
This was the first time Arzu spoke publicly in reaction to the conclusions of the Commission, whose report, released on February 24, placed on the military the responsibility for 93 per cent of the human rights violations committed during the armed conflict, which left 200,000 dead. The report said the military had committed 626 massacres, and accused the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), the former guerrilla army, of three per cent of abuses and of having committed 32 massacres.
In a paid announcement published in local newspapers in Guatemala shortly after the Commission's report was published, Arzu praised the military for their contribution to the peace process and bluntly rejected some of the recommendaions made in the CEH report. The announcement provoked protests from human rights groups. (La Nacion from AFP, 6/30/99; LN from Reuters, Costa Rica, 7/1/99)
Army Day Brings "More of the Same," Say Human Rights Activists
June 30, 1999 - from CERIGUA Weekly Briefs
Guatemala City, June 30. Army Day this year saw the usual parades and speeches glorifying the country's soldiers as well as a routine list of promotions. Fringing the celebrations, the victims of the military's policies during the last several decades were also standing by to remind the institution of its outstanding debt to the nation.
Pomp and fanfare marked the annual holiday that recalls the birth of Guatemala's armed forces in 1871. Ground, marine, air and special forces strutted passed hundreds of onlookers and filled the city's central square. President Alvaro Arzu addressed the troops in glowing terms, congratulating them on a job well done during his term and in particular on the difficult chore of forging peace in the country. "The army should persevere in the strategic course it has traced as a force of peace at the service of its people," he advised.
In a quiet corner of the square, several dozen women and men, members of the Mutual Support Group for Relatives of the Disappeared (GAM), stood in mute witness to a different assessment of the army's past and present roles. Their banners and photographs recalled a history of state-sponsored bloodshed that left more than 200,000 civilian victims among the massacred and disappeared. "We haven't been defeated, we'll always be a stone in (the army's) shoes, as long as they refuse to solve the cases of our disappeared," said GAM's Mario Polanco.
Even those changes the military has undergone since peace was signed in December 1996 do not inspire much confidence from human rights activists. "My perception is that nothing has changed.... Structurally the army is still the same," said Helen Mack of the Myrna Mack Foundation.
As if to make her point, the new defense minister, Gen. Marco Tulio Espinosa Contreras, may soon be called to answer accusations that place him at the center of the assassination more than a year ago of Monsignor Juan Gerardi. According to a former judge with extensive links to the army, Espinosa, who today succeeds Gen. Hector Barrios Celada at the head of the ministry, planned and executed the April 1998 murder with the help of two other high-ranking officers within the Presidential Military Guard (EMP).
Nonetheless, President Arzu had only praise for his new minister. The accusations against Espinosa "are barbarous," he told the foreign press yesterday. Espinosa "is an officer who has risen through the ranks with honors, and has never been involved in any of the things he's being accused of," the president said. This will be the first time an air force officer occupies the military's highest post.
Gen. Victor Manuel Ventura Arellano, known in human rights circles as a "hard-liner" with extensive participation in the repression of the past, will replace Espinosa as Army Chief of Staff.
Guatemalan Presidential Guard to be Dissolved
June 30, 1999 - from Weekly News Update on the Americas - Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY - http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html - wnu@igc.apc.org
On June 29 Guatemalan president Alvaro Arzu announced that the Presidential Guard (EMP) will be dissolved in January 1999. During a press conference Arzu said the corps will be dissolved as of January 14, 1999, when his term of office ends.
The EMP has been accused of being a death squad, and is suspected of involvement in the April 26, 1998 murder of human rights activist Bishop Juan Gerardi, who was bludgeoned to death in the garage of his home after having made public a report accusing the military of committing human rights abuses during the 36-year long internal armed conflict.
In its report published on February 24 of this year, the U.N.- sponsored Commission for Historic Clarification (CEH) said the EMP and G-2 Military Intelligence were the "intellectual authors and direct organizers of captures, illegal interrogations, tortures, forced disappearances and executions of political opponents" during the 36-year long conflict. (La Nacion from AFP, Costa Rica, 6/30/99)
Abused Woman Denied Asylum in US
June 29, 1999 - from CERIGUA Weekly Briefs
Washington, June 29. A U.S. federal immigration panel has ruled that a Guatemalan woman who fled her abusive spouse will not be allowed refuge in the United States.
In a 10 to 5 decision, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that Rodi Alvarado Pe±a, does not qualify for asylum under U.S. immigration laws. The board found that she had not proven that she suffered persecution under any of the five categories recognized by the United States or the United Nations as a basis for refugee claims: race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.
U.S. officials did not deny Alvarado's allegations of abuse. "We struggle to describe how deplorable we find the husband's conduct to have been," the board majority wrote in the June 11 ruling. But her claim "does not lie in our asylum laws as they are currently formulated," they stated.
The five dissenting members contended that the decision not to recognize domestic abuse victims in Guatemala as a social group "cannot be reconciled either with the reality of the respondent's situation in Guatemala or with U.S. law." The United States has an obligation to protect anyone who fears harm because of "some fundamental aspect of their identity," they stated.
Alvarado's husband violently abused her for years in Guatemala. An ex-soldier, he beat her unconscious, raped her and kicked her so badly she hemorrhaged, the victim told authorities. He also reportedly smashed windows and mirrors with her head and pistol-whipped her.
The repeated attacks led Alvarado to attempt suicide. On seeking protection from Guatemalan police and courts, they told her it was a private matter.
In desperation, Alvarado fled the country and sought protection in the United States. An immigration judge granted her asylum in 1996, a decision that federal immigration authorities promptly appealed.
Attorney Jane Kroesche, who represented the claimant, condemned the ruling. "She suffered prolonged torture, and did everything in her country she could to help herselfà. If she is not protected, what kind of woman would be?" Kroesche said, adding that she planned to appeal the decision.
The decision reflects growing tension within the U.S. immigration system over how to treat claims of gender persecution. Many immigration judges and U.S. officials are wary of adding new categories of eligible asylum seekers since this would imply numerous new refugee claims and further burdens on the system.
In some countries, such as Canada, Great Britain and several Nordic nations, women fleeing domestic violence are accepted as refugees, but according to the U.N. High Commission on Refugees, the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, to which the United States is a signatory, does not explicitly recognize battered women as candidates for asylum. "We consider them humanitarian cases... and are working very hard to see what can be done to help (these women)," said Diana Goldberg of the UNHCR's Mexico office. "But the UNHCR does not recognize them as a social group" under the terms of the convention. Some other kinds of gender persecution, such as genital mutilation, are recognized, she said.
Plantation Owners Harass Workers and Peasants
June 29, 1999 - from CERIGUA Weekly Briefs
Guatemala City, June 29. Plantation owners on the South Coast are using their muscle to exert control over the region's lands and its workers, according to two organizations that represent campesino interests.
The National Indigenous and Campesino Coalition (CONIC) reported the arrest June 27 in San Jorge La Laguna, Solola province, of two campesinos on charges that the organization says are false. Local police picked up Edgar Antonio Mendoza Cholotio and Mateo Xuruc on accusations of aggravated robbery and injuries, but, according to CONIC, the real reason for their detention was their efforts to win back lands neighboring plantation owners claim as their own. "The landlords, supposed owners of these lands, have forged documents and made false accusations to prevent the organized struggle of the campesinos," CONIC states.
In response to pressure from plantation owners, the courts have issued more than 35 arrest warrants against campesinos in the municipality who are involved in land claims, the group reports.
In neighboring Chimaltenango province, plantation owner Oscar Enrique Asturias Schlesinger is taking reprisals against farm workers who have dared to organize, charges the General Guatemalan Workers Central (CGTG).
The labor federation reports that workers at Asturias' estate, "New California," in San Miguel Pochutla, have been subject to firings, more difficult work and isolation from their peers, when they report any violations to the collective agreement between the owner and the farm's union. In addition, the children of unionized workers are blacklisted from employment there.
Living and labor conditions in general on the plantation threaten the health and safety of its workers, the CGTG adds. The Central called on the government to bring criminal charges against Asturias for the abuses reported and to protect the workers concerned.