DEATH
PENALTY-GUATEMALA:
Green Light for
Executions
By Inés Benítez
GUATEMALA CITY (IPS) -
Guatemalan President
Álvaro Colom said
Wednesday that he would
not pardon those on
death row -- a
presidential option that
was restored by
parliament in a decision
that ended a de facto
moratorium on executions
in place since 2000.
On Tuesday, the
Guatemalan Congress
passed a law that allows
the president to pardon
prisoners on death row
or commute their
sentences to life in
prison -- a decision
that drew heavy
criticism from human
rights groups because
they say it will
expedite executions.
While the new law allows
the president to pardon
the 21 inmates currently
facing capital
punishment, by filling a
legal vacuum that has
blocked executions since
2000 it actually gives
the go-ahead for the
application of the death
penalty.
"The law has major
technical flaws, because
it does not guarantee an
effective pardon and
because it contravenes
international law,"
David Dávila at the
Guatemalan Institute for
Comparative Studies in
Penal Sciences told IPS.
Dávila announced that a
group of
non-governmental
organisations would ask
Colom to veto the law,
which was approved by
more than two-thirds of
the members of
parliament after a wave
of killings of bus
drivers last week.
In the space of just
four days, youth gangs
known locally as "maras"
murdered seven bus
drivers who they were
extorting for
"protection" payments.
But analysts say it is
unlikely that Colom, a
social democrat who took
office on Jan. 14, will
veto the new law.
Although he said in the
election campaign that
capital punishment was
not a "solution" to
violent crime, he
clarified that it was
provided for by
Guatemalan legislation
and said he would
respect the country’s
laws.
In addition, opinion
polls show that a
majority of people in
this impoverished
Central American
country, which has one
of the highest per
capita homicide rates in
the world, support the
death penalty.
At any rate, a
presidential veto would
be fairly easy for the
legislature to overturn.
Doing so would require
the votes of 105 of the
158 members of the
single-chamber
parliament, when in fact
140 lawmakers, including
Colom’s supporters,
approved the law on
Tuesday.
"They are trying to
speed up the
executions," said Dávila,
who said application of
the death penalty would
hurt the international
image of Guatemala,
which on Dec. 18 voted
in favour of a global
moratorium on executions
in the United Nations
General Assembly.
During the government of
Alfonso Portillo
(2000-2004), Congress
overturned an 1892 law
on presidential pardons,
leaving Guatemala
without any procedure
for prisoners to be
pardoned or amnestied or
to have their sentences
commuted, and creating a
de facto moratorium on
executions.
Dávila pointed out that
the 30-day timeframe
given the president to
decide on each death
penalty case was
criticised in an open
letter sent to
Guatemalan legislators
in May 2007 by the
International Federation
of Human Rights Leagues
(FIDH).
The FIDH also expressed
concern over the fact
that if the president
fails to make a
pronouncement on a case,
the sentence
automatically proceeds
to execution, based on
the tacit denial of a
pardon.
The American Convention
on Human Rights, which
was ratified by
Guatemala in 1978,
states that the death
penalty cannot be
applied as long as any
appeal is pending.
Although the law was not
on the legislative
agenda, it was put to a
vote Tuesday on the
initiative of the
rightwing opposition
Patriot Party (PP).
Only the leftist
Encuentro por Guatemala
and Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Union
parties voted against
it.
PP leader Otto Pérez
Molina said the death
penalty, along with the
declaration of a state
of emergency in the
country’s most violent
areas and the
participation of the
military in policing
could help the
government deal with the
country’s severe
problems with violent
crime.
"We are opposed to the
application of the death
penalty," Iduvina
Hernández, the head of
the non-governmental
Association for the
Study and Promotion of
Security in a Democracy
(SEDEM), told IPS. She
said the approval of the
law was "a political
show that does not
resolve the underlying
problem of violence."
In Guatemala, one of the
poorest countries in
Latin America, less than
10 percent of homicides
are solved.
The high levels of
violence and the
continued existence of
death squads that carry
out "social cleansing",
often targeting
suspected gang members,
are holdovers from the
1960-1996 civil war in
which 200,000 mainly
rural indigenous people
were killed, the great
majority by the security
forces and allied
paramilitary groups.
According to the Mutual
Support Group, a local
human rights
organisation, 3,319
murders were reported in
this country of 13
million in 2007. Most of
the victims were shot to
death.
In 1996, two men were
executed by firing squad
in Guatemala. But one of
the executions -- which
were televised -- was
botched, requiring a
coup de grace to
complete the job. The
howls of outrage from
the international
community prompted the
government to switch
methods.
The latest executions,
one of which took place
in 1998 and two in 2000,
were carried out by
lethal injection, and
went ahead despite
appeals for clemency
lodged by the
Inter-American
Commission on Human
Rights.
Sixty percent of those
on death row in
Guatemala have been
sentenced for kidnapping
(some of the cases
involved the death of
the victim), and 40
percent for homicide.
Commenting on how
routine murder has
become in Guatemala,
Unionist Party
legislator Pablo Duarte
said during Tuesday’s
parliamentary debate
that "It’s outrageous to
see children eating ice
cream every day at crime
scenes, standing right
next to the dead bodies.
I hope those sentenced
to death are executed."
But Hernández argued
that "Guatemala should
move forward, not
backwards," and added
that if the president
does not veto the law, a
group of
non-governmental
organisations will file
a lawsuit arguing that
it is unconstitutional.
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