RIGHTS:
Guatemala Turns Deaf Ear
to Inter-American
Justice
By Inés Benítez
GUATEMALA CITY (IPS)
- Organisations that
represent survivors and
relatives of victims of
Guatemala’s 1960-1996
civil war complained
that the attorney
general’s office has
failed to fully comply
with three resolutions
handed down by the
Inter-American Court of
Human Rights.
"The Guatemalan state
has a debt to the
victims of the armed
conflict. We are here to
denounce the lack of
investigations and
failure to punish those
responsible for grave
human rights
violations," Marcela
Martino, of the Centre
for Justice and
International Law (CEJIL),
said in a press
conference Thursday.
In the cases known as "Villagrán
Morales et al", "Bámaca
Velásquez" and "Plan de
Sánchez Massacre v.
Guatemala", the
Inter-American Court
handed down resolutions
in 2001, 2002 and 2004
calling on the state to
identify, prosecute and
punish the perpetrators
and masterminds of these
incidents. But that has
not occurred, said the
activist.
A 1996 peace agreement
put an end to the bloody
36-year armed conflict
between the Guatemalan
National Revolutionary
Unity (URNG) guerrillas
and government forces
and their paramilitary
allies, in which some
200,000 mainly rural
indigenous people were
killed. An independent
truth commission found
the army responsible for
more than 90 percent of
the killings.
Mario Minera, director
of the Centre for Legal
Action on Human Rights (CALDH),
described the July 1982
massacre of 268 people
in the village of Plan
de Sánchez in the
northern province of
Alta Verapaz as "an
extremely grave
violation of the right
to life perpetrated by
the state security
forces."
Minera criticised "the
lack of will on the part
of the attorney
general’s office to
investigate and
prosecute," which he
said contributed to the
climate of impunity in
Guatemala.
He pointed out that the
complaint on the Plan de
Sánchez case was
presented to the
Inter-American
Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR) over a
decade ago, in 1996.
"No in-depth
investigation has been
carried out in the case
of the Plan de Sánchez
massacre, which (former
dictator) Efraín Ríos
Montt was ultimately
responsible for," said
Juan Francisco Soto,
coordinator of CALDH’s
Justice and
Reconciliation Programme.
In July 2006, a high
court in Spain, the
Audiencia Nacional,
issued an international
arrest warrant to seek
the extradition to Spain
of Ríos Montt and seven
former military and
civilian officials from
his de facto
administration, on
charges of torture,
state terrorism and
genocide brought by
indigenous activist and
1992 Nobel Peace
Prize-winner Rigoberta
Menchú.
According to the Spanish
high court, agents of
the state committed 93
percent of the killings
during the civil war,
when 667 massacres were
carried out and 430
villages were wiped off
the map.
The court documents also
stated that 83 percent
of those killed (after
being tortured, in many
cases) were Maya Indians
and the other 17 percent
were mestizos (of mixed
indigenous and European
descent).
Close to 1.5 million
people were forced to
flee their homes, over
45,000 people remain
missing, and 150,000
people sought refuge in
Mexico.
Ríos Montt was dictator
in 1982 and 1983, which
was the height of the
counterinsurgency
"scorched earth"
campaign in which
hundreds of rural
indigenous villages were
destroyed, along with
every single inhabitant.
The Inter-American
Court, which had issued
a judgment on the Plan
de Sánchez massacre in
April 2004, handed down
a resolution for
"monitoring compliance
with judgment" on Nov.
28, 2007, ordering the
Guatemalan state to
"identify, prosecute and
punish the perpetrators
and masterminds".
Martino said that four
months into the term of
social democratic
President Álvaro Colom,
who took office on Jan.
14, "there is an urgent
need to take timely
measures so that the
attorney general’s
office can fulfil its
obligation to
investigate."
The activist was also
referring to the lack of
an in-depth probe into
the Mar. 12, 1992 forced
disappearance of URNG
commander Efraín Bámaca
Velásquez at the hands
of the security forces,
and to the case of "Villagrán
Morales et al",
involving the Jun. 15,
1990 abduction, torture
and murder of four
street youths, and the
killing of a friend of
theirs 10 days later by
three police officers in
the presence of
witnesses.
Although criminal
charges were brought
against the policemen
implicated in the
killings, they were
acquitted. However, the
Inter-American Court of
Human Rights handed down
a landmark decision in
1999, finding the
Guatemalan state guilty
of violating the
American Convention on
Human Rights.
"All these years after
the incidents occurred
and after the
Inter-American Court
resolutions were handed
down, the state has
still not advanced in
the investigations,"
complained Martino.
In a May 26, 2001
decision, the
Inter-American Court
ordered the Guatemalan
state to "investigate
the facts of the case
and identify and
sanction those
responsible," and to
"change its domestic
legislation in
accordance with Article
19 of the American
Convention." It also
awarded 500,000 dollars
in damages against
Guatemala in favour of
the families of the five
murdered street youths,
four of whom were
minors.
But nearly seven years
later, no effective
investigation has been
carried out, said
Martino.
"We have become
spokespersons for the
families and the
victims, who are
clamouring for the
attorney-general’s
office to prosecute the
people who carried out
the massacre," said
Minera.
A joint communiqué
issued by CEJIL and
CALDH states that
impunity continues to
surround the cases
against a backdrop of
"tolerance and
indulgence by the state,
which demonstrates a
lack of capacity, and,
even worse, that it is
possible to cover up
those who are
responsible for these
incidents."
In addition, Martino
said the attorney
general’s office does
not provide "precise and
clear" information to
the IACHR and the
Inter-American Court,
but simply repeats what
it submitted years ago,
since no further legal
action has been taken.
She also expressed
concern that survivors
and victims’ families do
not have adequate access
to the information
contained in the case
records.
The CEJIL activist told
IPS that those affected
by the armed conflict
are not only seeking
reparations, but also
"prosecution of the
perpetrators."
A National Reparations
Programme (PNR) was
created in April 2003
and furnished with an
annual budget of around
40 million dollars. It
was conceived of as a
set of policies,
projects and actions to
indemnify, vindicate and
improve the situation of
survivors of the armed
conflict, as recommended
by the truth commission,
formally known as the
"commission for
historical
clarification".
Because there is no
national registry of
victims, no exact figure
exists of the number of
people affected by the
civil war, which means
it is unclear how much
money would be needed to
pay reparations to all
of the survivors.
On Feb. 25, the National
Day of Dignity for
Victims of the War,
President Colom said
that "Today I want to
make a commitment to
Guatemala, but
especially to the
victims" of the armed
conflict.
"Now you have a
government led by a
president who is not
going to hide anything,"
he said, announcing that
he was opening up the
army’s archives, which
contain documents that
can shed light on the
human rights crimes
committed during the
armed conflict.
He acknowledged that the
state committed
atrocities during the
civil war, and said the
best thing would be to
transfer the military’s
archives to the office
of the Human Rights
Ombudsman. |
