RIGHTS-GUATEMALA:
Still Waiting for
Justice, 28 Years On
By Inés Benítez
GUATEMALA CITY, (IPS)
- "I suffer because
three of my kids were
murdered. One of them,
who was just 17, was
killed when the Spanish
embassy was burnt down.
I am sad because in
Guatemala there is no
justice," Catarina Lux,
a 68-year-old indigenous
woman from the
northwestern province of
El Quiché, told IPS
Thursday.
Twenty-eight years after
the security forces set
fire to the embassy in
Guatemala City on Jan.
31, 1980, family members
of the victims of the
fire and of the
1960-1996 civil war
gathered outside the
Constitutional Court in
the capital to protest
its decision to throw
out international arrest
warrants for seven
former military
officials accused of
crimes against humanity.
"In Guatemala there are
250,000 dead and
disappeared on one hand
and on the other no
single guilty person in
jail. Where is justice?"
Julio Solórzano Foppa,
the son of writer Alaide
Foppa, who fell victim
to forced disappearance
under the military
regime, asked in
statements to the press.
On Dec. 12, 2007, the
Guatemalan
Constitutional Court
decided not to honour a
Spanish judge’s
extradition request for
five generals, including
former dictator Efraín
Ríos Montt (1982-1983)
who is currently a
member of parliament,
former president Romeo
Lucas García
(1978-1982), and two
former civilian
officials, arguing that
Spain has no
jurisdiction over crimes
committed in Guatemala.
During the government of
former dictator Lucas
García, a group of
indigenous campesinos
(small farmers) from
several communities in
the region of El Quiché,
along with university
students, peacefully
occupied the Spanish
embassy in the capital
to draw attention to the
bloody military
repression in their
villages.
The security forces set
fire to the embassy, and
37 people died,
including Spanish consul
Jaime Ruiz del Árbol,
former Guatemalan
foreign minister Adolfo
Molina, former
Guatemalan vice
president Eduardo
Cáceres, and the father
of 1992 Nobel Peace
Prize-winner Rigoberta
Menchú, Vicente Menchú.
"They killed my sons and
my husband died in the
fire," another elderly
Quiché woman,
66-year-old Angélica
Catarina, told IPS,
drying her tears with a
red handkerchief as she
called for justice.
Members of the Committee
of Campesino Unity and
representatives of human
rights groups
demonstrated outside the
Constitutional Court,
holding signs reading
"Court of Impunity" and
"Why, If Genocide Was
Committed?" along with
photos from that period,
mainly of the burning of
the Spanish embassy.
Menchú, the founder of
the foundation that
carries her name, filed
a lawsuit in 1999 in a
high court in Spain
against former leaders
of Guatemala’s
dictatorship on charges
of genocide, torture,
state terrorism and
other crimes against
humanity committed in
Guatemala during the
armed conflict between
the state security
forces and leftist
insurgents.
The Spanish court
investigated the charges
and issued international
warrants for arrest and
extradition to Spain
against Ríos Montt --
currently a legislator
representing the
rightwing Guatemalan
Republican Front -- and
other officials of his
dictatorship, on Jul. 7,
2006.
In the case of the
embassy fire, the
Spanish high court (Audiencia
Nacional) issued
warrants for Ríos Montt,
retired generals Óscar
Humberto Mejía and Romeo
Lucas García, and two
former ministers,
Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz and
General Ángel Aníbal
Guevara.
Also among the accused
are chief of the
National Police, Germán
Chupina, police officer
Pedro García Arredondo
and former armed forces
Chief of Staff Benedicto
Lucas García.
Menchú, with the backing
of the Genocide Never
Again Coordinating
committee, filed a
lawsuit in a local court
on Jan. 17 against the
five Constitutional
Court justices who threw
out the arrest warrants
and extradition request
for the former military
officials.
But the activist’s
lawsuit was also thrown
out, on the argument
that the Constitutional
Court magistrates cannot
be persecuted for
opinions expressed in
the course of their
duties.
A day earlier, Spain’s
Audiencia Nacional, had
stated that Guatemalan
authorities had refused
to cooperate with the
extradition requests,
which, it said, remained
in effect.
Since 2005, Audiencia
Nacional Justice
Santiago Pedraz has been
investigating the deaths
of around 250,000
people, mainly Maya
Indians, under the
military regimes that
ruled Guatemala with an
iron fist from 1961 to
1996, and with
heightened violence
between 1978 and 1984.
Under a scorched earth
counterinsurgency policy
applied in the early
1980s, some 440
indigenous villages and
their inhabitants were
wiped off the map by the
security forces and the
roughly 50,000 members
of the paramilitary
"civil defence patrols"
armed by the military.
According to a 1999
report by the United
Nations-sponsored
Guatemalan Commission
for Historical
Clarification (CEH),
agents of the state were
responsible for the
great majority of the
atrocities.
Sixteen witnesses of the
massacres committed in
Guatemala during the
armed conflict flew to
Spain Thursday to
testify before the
Audiencia Nacional,
which will take
declarations from two
other groups of
witnesses in March and
May, Benito Morales, a
lawyer for the Rigoberta
Menchú Foundation, told
IPS.
"They are testifying in
Spain because Guatemala
does not want to live up
to its legal
obligations," he
lamented.
In his view, both the
Constitutional Court
decision and the verdict
of the Guatemalan court
that rejected the
charges brought against
the Constitutional Court
justices demonstre the
"complicity" of the
Guatemalan judges with
the accused.
"There are compelling
signs that political
interests underlie these
decisions," he said.
"The power of the
accused, especially that
of some of them, is very
deep-rooted, and they
have an influence over
the system."
During the protest, the
demonstrators carried
coffins, from which were
hung signs accusing the
Constitutional Court of
complicity. They also
covered dozens of shoes
with red paint, as well
as a placard reading "Efraín
Ríos Montt, Wanted for
Genocide".
The head of the Centre
for Legal Action on
Human Rights (CALDH),
Mario Minera, said the
Constitutional Court
decision "was shameful."
He also told IPS that he
found it "inexplicable"
that the witnesses of
the massacres would have
to testify in a Spanish
court.
"The Guatemalan people
should be reminded that
the state has not had
the will to do justice
or to compensate the
victims. They have ruled
in favour of the
accused," Eduardo de
León, director of the
Rigoberta Menchú
Foundation, remarked to
IPS.
José Ernesto Menchú,
Rigoberta’s cousin, told
the press that he hoped
for "justice and
reparations for the
victims," and that
"human rights violators"
would stop being
favoured.
Solórzano Foppa, a
plaintiff in the case
against the former
military officials,
asked the government of
President Álvaro Colom,
who took office on Jan.
14, to "please tell us
what is his opinion on
the Constitutional Court
ruling and his position
with respect to the
question of the
appearance in court of
those responsible for
the massacres."
"The Court resolution is
not only
unconstitutional, but
violates the
international treaties
on human rights signed
by the state and hurts
its international
relations," he argued.
As part of the events
held to mark the
anniversary of the
embassy fire, families
of the victims organised
a vigil outside the
embassy Thursday and on
Wednesday held a
ceremony at the Maya
ruins of Kaminal Juyú to
the south of the
capital, organised by
the Committee of
Campesino Unity, to
which Menchú’s father
belonged. |
