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VIOLENCE

Guatemala urgent action - Killings and Death Threats - Business as usual

From: "Rights Action" <info@rightsaction.org>
Subject: Guatemala urgent action - Killings and Death Threats - Business as usual
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 22:13:57 -0500

PARAMILITARIES IN PETEN (GUATEMALA) ATTACK RIVERA ZEPEDA FAMILY

Rights Action Urgent Action: Request for letter writing, human rights accompaniment & humanitarian relief funds.

If you want on/ off this e-list: info@rightsaction.org

Please reproduce and distribute, citing source.

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BUSINESS AS USUAL

Please understand this case in it own right, and send urgent action letters to the political offices mentioned below,

and

Please understand this case as an example of the on-going, endemic repression and impunity that characterizes Guatemala a democratic country of the Americas and full participant in efforts to secure the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas),

and

Understand this as exemplary of what regularly happens in countless countries of the global south, with which the powerful and wealthy countries have on-going military, commercial and financial relations
business as usual.

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I. Case Summary
II. Sample Letter to Guatemalan Authorities
III. Background
IV. Rights Action


CASE SUMMARY

Paramilitary violence against civilians in Guatemalas rural regions continues unabated. Recent events in Guatemalas northern department of Peten are indicative of impunity with which these paramilitary organizations function throughout the country.

Around 10:30 pm on February 11, 2003, armed members of a paramilitary organization from the Dolores municipality in Peten fired high-caliber weapons against the home of the Rivera Zepeda family where fifteen-year old Mirna Rivera Zepeda, her parents Emilio Rivera Gudiel and Santos Zepeda were sleeping. The lives of all the members of the Rivera Zepeda Family are in extreme danger.

MARCH 2002 ASSASSINATION OF MEMBERS OF THE ZEPEDA FAMILY

This most recent violence, following continual written and verbal threats, against the Rivera Zepeda family stems from their persistence in bringing to justice the members of the paramilitary group responsible for the March 2002 disappearance, torture and assassinations of their sixteen-year old son Manuel de Jes·s Rivera Zepeda and their fourteen-year old nephew Wesley Bidany Zepeda Rivera. The opening session of the trial against two of the seven alleged authors of this crime was scheduled to begin on February 6, 2003 in Poptún, Peten department.

SAMPLE LETTER TO POLITICAL AUTHORITIES

Rights Action solicits letters demanding the security of the Rivera Zepeda family, full compliance with legal investigations and judicial procedures, and the immediate disbanding of paramilitary organizations to Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo, Attorney General Carlos de León Argueta, and Human Rights Ombudsperson Sergio Fernando Morales Alvarado. Please send a copy to your countrys representatives in Guatemala. (Addresses follow letter.)

Esteemed President Portillo,

I write to express grave concern over the on-going violence by paramilitary organizations in your country.

On February 11, 2003, armed members of a paramilitary organization in the Dolores municipality in Peten fired high-caliber weapons against the home of the Rivera Zepeda family where fifteen-year old Mirna Rivera Zepeda, her parents Emilio Rivera Gudiel and Santos Zepeda were sleeping. The lives of all the members of the Rivera Zepeda family are in extreme danger.

Parallel military structures from El Chal in the Dolores municipality previously had attacked the Rivera Zepeda family. Manuel Rivera Zepeda, age 16, and Wesley Rivera Zepeda, age 14, were tortured and assassinated in March 2002. Since that time, the Rivera Zepeda family has struggled to prosecute the material and intellectual authors of this crime. The criminal procedures against two of the seven alleged persons responsible for this crime was scheduled to begin on February 6, 2003 in Poptún, Peten.

I urge you to respect the rule of law in Guatemala and demand that your countrys security forces and justice administrators comply with their functions. Only three of the seven people for whom arrest warrants were issued have been detained. One of these three, a leader in this illegal armed band and alleged participant in six other registered assassinations in the El Chal area from December 2001 to May 2002, was released in suspicious circumstances after less than one month preventative detention. While the Rivera Zepeda family regularly receives written and verbal threats, representatives of the San Benito, Peten branch of the Public Prosecutors Office have not accepted all of their denunciations. After the February 11, 2002 shooting at the Rivera Zepedas home, the Commissar at the PNC station in San Benito stated that no evidence existed to prove this violent attack, despite members of the Rivera Zepeda family clearly identifying eight bullet holes on the outside of the home.

It is clear that the soon to be formed Commission for the Investigation of Illegal Bodies and Clandestine Security Apparatus (CICIACS) is urgently needed. The Guatemalan State must comply with its obligations, protect the rights of all its citizens, and disarm these illegal armed bands. I encourage you to formalize the CICIACS based on the civil society proposal presented to you in January 2003, allowing the full investigation of parallel structures and their relationship to the State institutions.

I urge your government to show its respect for the rule of law, demand State institutions comply with their functions, disarm all the illegal paramilitary organizations, and grant formal investigative powers to the CICIACS in Guatemala.

I thank you for your prompt attention to this urgent matter.

Sincerely,

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ADDRESSES:
Lic. Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera
Presidente de la República de Guatemala
Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala
Fax: (502) 221-4423 and (502) 221-4537
Fax (secretaria privada): (502)239-0076
mensajes@presidenteportillo.gob.gt
copredeh@guate.net o secgralp@terra.com.gt

Ambassador John Hamilton
US Embassy in Guatemala
Avenida Reforma, 7-11
Zona 10, Ciudad de Guatemala
Guatemala

Ambassador Allan Culham
Embassy of Canada in Guatemala
13 calle, 8-44 zona 10
Edif. Edyma Plaza Nivel 8
Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala
F: 011-502-333-6161
E: gtmla@dfait-maeci.gc.ca


BACKGROUND

Manuel Rivera Zepeda and Wesley Zepeda Rivera were kidnapped, before several witnesses, from a party in El Chal, Dolores on March 26, 2002. Three days later, their dead bodies were found with signs of torture; Manuel was found with his genitals burned and Wesley was decapitated.

The United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) in their October 2002 human rights report noted that from December 2001 to May 2002, eight people (three minors) from the town of El Chal in the Dolores municipality had been assassinated by persons presumed to be affiliated with the same delinquent organization in the region.

Local sources have identified several of the men involved in this paramilitary group, including its two leaders, Walter Leonel Guerra Roque and Auder Enrique Campos Schwendener. Inhabitants of the Dolores area mention the strong ties that this paramilitary group has with former and current members of the Armed Forces and other paramilitary forces in Guatemalas eastern Izabal department. Campos Schwenders father, Isias Campos, originally from Izabal, served as military commissioner in this region during the years of State repression and terrorism. Members of the Izabal paramilitary run by the Mendoza family have land holdings in the Dolores municipality. Elements of this same illegal organization attended one legal procedure in the Rivera Zepeda case as armed guards for the alleged assassins. (More information on the Mendoza family and the paramilitary violence in Izabal can be found at http://www.rightsaction.org/pdf/izabal_full.pdf)

Although Guatemalas security forces and justice administrators have not complied with their functions in this case, the Rivera Zepeda family has struggled to bring the material and intellectual authors of the double assassination to justice. Despite the seven issued detention orders, this family risked their lives to personally identify the accused assassins so State security forces, including the Civilian National Police (PNC) and the special police unit of Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) finally could detain three. One of the detained, Campos Schwendener, was in preventative detention for less than a month since his father, Isías Campos, illegally obtained Public Prosecutors Office documents that identified the undisclosed witnesses declarations. According to former witnesses, he violently threatened them so they would withdraw their declarations; the Public Prosecutors Office even videotaped one witness explaining how Isías Campos pressured him to retract his testimony.

While the Rivera Zepeda family regularly receives written and verbal threats, representatives of the San Benito, Peten branch of the Public Prosecutors Office have not complied with their functions in accepting all of their denunciations. After the February 11, 2002 shooting at the Rivera Zepedas home, the Commissar at the PNC station in San Benito stated that no evidence existed to prove this violent attack, despite members of the Rivera Zepeda family clearly identifying eight bullet holes on the outside of the home. (Four of these were had penetrated the brick wall and were evident from the inside the house.)

In November 2002, Mardo Alexis Rivera Zepeda, brother to assassinated youth Manuel, solicited an internal judicial branch investigation against the San Benito judge responsible for Campos Schwendeners release. Although the judicial branchs disciplinary board declared that no wrong doing had occurred, the Judge withdrew from the case. The case has since been transferred to Poptún, a town at a 100 kilometers distance.

On the first day of the scheduled audiences in Poptún, the two co-complainants, Santos Zepeda and Maria Luz Rivera Zepeda, were followed by armed men in a car on the route to Poptún.

Despite supposed government interest in investigating the illegal actions of paramilitary organizations via the yet to be formalized Commission for the Investigation of Illegal Bodies and Clandestine Security Apparatus (CICIACS), the Guatemalan State has made little effort to dismantle these armed bands. The Ombudsperson for Human Rights Sergio Morales, after consultations with local human rights and justice organizations, formally solicited the creation of CICIACS in mid-January 2003. The Portillo government unilaterally named José Miguel Vivanco, director of the Americas section of Human Rights Watch, as facilitator of this process. Local human rights defenders assert the government proposal diminishes the Commissions capacities to investigate fully parallel structures and their relationship to the state institutions.

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