RIGHTS-GUATEMALA:
Trial on Disappearances
Marks a ‘Before’ and
‘After’
By Inés Benítez
CHIMALTENANGO, Guatemala
- (IPS) - "My husband
had taken a cow out to
pasture when an army
platoon took him away.
He was missing for 25
years, until his corpse
was exhumed two years
ago," María Magdalena
C., an indigenous woman
from the village of
Choatalum in the central
Guatemalan region of
Chimaltenango, told IPS.
María Magdalena, a
52-year-old mother of
three, is one of around
20 Choatalum villagers
attending the first
trial ever held in
Guatemala on forced
disappearance, which
opened Monday.
The trial involves the
disappearance of six
indigenous members of
the Kaqchiquel Mayan
indigenous group,
between 1982 and 1984.
Monday’s public hearing
was held against a
civilian "military
commissioner", Felipe
Cusanero, who is accused
of participating in the
forced disappearances in
complicity with the
army, Fabiola García, of
the Centre for Legal
Action on Human Rights (CALDH),
which is providing legal
advice to the
plaintiffs, told IPS.
"We want to see justice
done," said María
Magdalena with tears in
her eyes, sitting in the
packed courtroom in
Chimaltenango, 70 km
northwest of the
capital.
In 1996, a peace
agreement put an end to
36 years of armed
conflict between the
Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Unity (URNG)
and state security
forces, which claimed
200,000 (mainly
indigenous) lives.
A United
Nations-sponsored truth
commission held the army
responsible for over 90
percent of the killings,
which included 45,000
forced disappearances
and the wholesale
destruction of hundreds
of rural Mayan villages
as part of the army’s
scorched earth campaign
in the early 1980s.
During the war, the army
trained and armed "civil
defence patrols", which
served as civilian
adjuncts to the
military. Cusanero
collaborated with the
army as "military
commissioner", a post
created to recruit local
civilians to form part
of the civil defence
patrols and provide
information and
intelligence on other
villagers.
The prosecution of
Cusanero, who is free on
bail and chose not to
testify, began in 2003
when six villagers filed
a legal complaint before
the public prosecutor’s
office.
According to the
complaint, the six
missing people, four men
and two women, were
illegally detained in
the village between
September 1982 and
October 1984 by Cusanero
-- who was accompanied
on some of the occasions
by military personnel
and members of the civil
defence patrol -- and
never heard from again.
When the families asked
for information about
their missing loved ones
at the military
detachment in Choatalum,
Cusanero refused to tell
them anything and
threatened them, to
force them to stop
trying to find out,
according to CALDH.
"My 24-year-old son was
taken away by Felipe
Cusanero and 30 soldiers
at 11:00 one night. He
was taken to the
military detachment,"
plaintiff Hilarión López
testified Monday.
When López asked about
his son, the soldiers
responded that "the work
was done," and told him
to stop asking around
because otherwise he
"would get it too."
In the hearing,
Cusanero’s defence
attorney, Angel Smith,
argued that his client
cannot be tried because
the crime of "forced
disappearance" has only
been on the books in
Guatemala since 1996.
He said the trial thus
violates the principle
of retroactivity, and
that no one can be tried
for things that were not
considered a crime at
the time they were
committed.
But according to
Guatemala’s Law on
National Reconciliation,
no statute of
limitations applies to
the crimes of genocide,
torture or forced
disappearance.
The public prosecutor’s
office and the lawyers
for the plaintiffs
agreed that forced
disappearance is an
ongoing crime until the
victim is found, dead or
alive.
"The day before my
husband disappeared,
they took 22 people
away, and only 12
(bodies) have been
exhumed, we don't know
about the rest. The
families are sad that
they cannot find their
relatives because no one
will tell us" where they
are, said María
Magdalena during a break
in the trial.
The case, in which
Guatemala’s Association
of Families of the
Detained-Disappeared is
also a plaintiff, was
delayed by appeals and
legal maneuvering by
Cusanero’s defence
lawyers until it made it
to the Constitutional
Court, which gave it the
go-ahead.
"This trial has really
given new hope to many
people. It involves the
right of justice of all
victims (of the civil
war), and will mark a
before and after,"
García told IPS.
Choatalum, a Kaqchiquel
Mayan farming village,
is in one of the regions
hardest-hit by the civil
war in terms of human
rights violations,
according to the truth
commission -- formally
known as the Guatemalan
Commission for
Historical Clarification
(CEH) -- report
published in 1999.
CALDH director Mario
Minerva told journalists
Monday that he hoped the
court would find
Cusanero guilty, since
forced disappearance "is
an ongoing crime to
which no statute of
limitations applies."
Chimaltenango prosecutor
Albert Clinton did not
reveal the sentence
being sought for
Cusanero, which could
range between 25 and 40
years in prison, or
could even be the death
penalty.
Clinton said the trial
could involve five or
six more hearings, to
allow all of the
experts, as well as at
least six witnesses, to
testify.
CALDH activist García
said the relatives of
the victims who are
taking part in the trial
as plaintiffs or
victims, and especially
the women, "are scared
because Cusanero is
free, living in the
village, where he is
powerful."
The families believe the
remains of their missing
loved ones might be
buried in the military
detachment in
Chimaltenango.
But Hilarión López, who
has attended three
exhumations, said Monday
that he knew that
Cusanero had removed the
remains from the army
barracks and moved them
elsewhere.
The Forensic
Anthropology Foundation
of Guatemala, which has
analysed the remains of
a number of people in
Choatalum, presented the
results of their
investigation at the
hearing.
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