Guatemalans Demand Justice on
Spanish Embassy Raid
Guatemala - Humanitarian organizations and relatives of the
victims of an attack and burning of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala
29 years ago demanded an investigation and punishment for those
responsible for the events.
On January 31, 1980, a group of farmers, workers and university
students occupied the Spanish Embassy here to demand an end to the
Army's repression in the western altiplano.
As a response, security forces raided the building and launched
incendiary bombs, killing 37 people, including three Spanish
citizens.
In a communiqué issued on Friday, the groups noted that the massacre
was one of the most opprobrious acts in Guatemalan history, adding
that the decision to raid the Embassy was made at the highest level
of the General Romeo Lucas government.
"For decades, the legal system has been unable to investigate,
indict, try and sentence those responsible for those crimes against
humankind," the communiqué said.
Indigenous leader and Peace Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu told
Prensa Latina that a scientific study on the universal jurisdiction
in cases of crimes against humankind was handed over to the judges
of the Constitutionality Court.
Menchu, whose father was one of the victims of the raid on the
Spanish Embassy, noted that the only compensation to her and her
family for all the suffering they have gone through is to do
justice.
For her part, Hellen Mack, director of the Myrna Mack Foundation,
charged that the State is indebted to Guatemalan society, adding
that the impunity of those war crimes is the origin of the country's
current violence and insecurity.
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