impunity

Danilo Valladares interviews Rosalina Tuyuc, winner of the Niwano Peace Prize.

This was on the Global Issues website and is from Inter Press Service.

'To achieve peace, it is necessary for the truth to come out, and for the victims to receive reparations. And part of this is that cases of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Maya people must come to trial,' says Guatemalan indigenous leader Rosalina Tuyuc.

Tuyuc, a 55-year-old Kakchiquel Maya Indian, lost her father and her husband during the 1960-1996 armed conflict between the army and leftwing guerrillas, which left 250,000 — mainly rural indigenous — people dead and missing, according to the U.N.-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission.

The prominent human rights activist has been fighting for justice and peace as head of the National Coordinating Committee of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA), which groups survivors of the civil war, since 1988.

On May 10 in Tokyo she will become the first indigenous woman to receive the prestigious Niwano Peace Prize, which recognises Tuyuc’s 'extraordinary and dogged work for peace,' according to the Japan-based Niwano Peace Foundation.

The committee that selects the recipients of the prize created in 1983 also stated in its press release that Tuyuc 'is an inspiring example of how victims of discrimination, drawing on their faith, are empowered by working together, to defeat human rights violations and reverse the causes that have hurt them so deeply.'

Excerpts of her interview with IPS follow:

The story of Jesus Tecu Osorio and the massacres of the Chixoy Dam project have been followed and told here on GSN previously.

Al Jazeera carries an opinion piece by Lauren Carasik and Grahame Russell on the continuing wait for justice for the victims of the Chixoy Dam massacres in March 1982.

“Among the 32 communities along the river slated for forced resettlement, the village of Rio Negro opposed the plan most vigorously, a principled resistance for which they paid an unconscionable price. Impatient with unsuccessful efforts to threaten and intimidate the villagers into involuntary departure, the regime settled on a brutally effective relocation strategy - emptying the community through the systematic massacre of its inhabitants.”

The Dam was primarily funded by the World Bank.

“Despite the history of human rights abuses and poorly administered forcible displacements associated with its various hydroelectric projects, the World Bank has argued that its Articles of Agreement, which predated various human rights instruments, does not require consideration of human rights in its funding decisions.”

You can read this strong piece here.

An interesting blog entry came along on the Central American Politics blog page regarding the upcoming Presidential elections and stories about Otto Pérez Molina, the front runner. The elections are due to be held on that most of iconic dates for the Americas, both North and South – September 11th.

There was an interview with Alan Nairn where Pérez Molina takes the role of a ‘matter of fact’ functionary of the State and promoter of Israeli ordnance in front of the camera – no doubt ordnance used in the genocide. The short video is titled Otto Pérez Molina – a biography.

We also know that a letter has been sent recently to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging that Pérez Molina was directly involved in the systematic use of torture and acts of genocide during the long civil war in Guatemala. Specifically, he was on the ground and in command in the Ixil triangle in 1982 during the village by village massacre campaign as part of that genocide.

Lest we forget, Francisco Goldman’s interview on Democracy Now effectively implicating Pérez Molina in the murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi in 1998, two days after the Bishop published ‘Guatemala: Nunca Más’, the report which placed the blame for the vast majority of the violations of the internal conflict on the government and the army. You can see the interview here and a transcript here.

“Guatemala is a land of tremendous contrasts; a place of incredible beauty, wonderful people and heart-stopping terror. Our final evening on a recent Skylight Pictures visit to this “land of eternal spring” starts simply enough, but by the end of it we experience a little of Guatemala’s extremes.”

So begins a recent blog article by Peter Kinoy on IJCentral. Peter was involved in the making of the film Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, which we have featured here before.

“As we packed our bags for an early morning flight I thought about these wonderful people, full of life and courage and how they remain optimistic about a possible Guatemala where the beauty and culture would shine and flourish, and I wondered if there would ever be a time when the hideously unchecked terror and violence would become only a memory.”

Last week, General Héctor Mario López Fuentes was captured in Guatemala City, twenty-nine years after having initiated the execution of Plan Victoria 82, developed by the Army Chief of Staff and Efraín Ríos Montt’s de facto government. He is accused of having perpetrated genocide against the Maya Ixil people in the years 1982-83. More on this from NISGUA.

James Rodríguez, from MiMundo, has a piece of photo reportage on this latest news, from which comes the photograph of the accused in his pen. It is only in Spanish at the moment.

On another note, we hear from James that there is a new independent photo-reportage resource from Guatemala. You can follow Sin Requisa here.

A new website/blog has been set up regarding the case of Efraín Bamaca, featured here before, which includes all the documentation relating to the case. The site also includes a declaration by Jennifer Harbury, relating to the case.

The website is titled, The truth of the Bamaca case: What does the military fear? What indeed.

The site will be of interest to those who want to see how justice can be denied in Guatemala. It is all in Spanish.

As we reported back in September, former kaibil Gilberto Jordan was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in Florida for lying on his naturalisation papers. He hid his role in the Dos Erres massacre to obtain US citizenship. Recently, another former kaibil, one its commanding officers at the time of Dos Erres, has been arrested in Canada on the same charge. Again, Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes is wanted as a participant in the Dos Erres massacre, but has been arrested on fraud charges. He is actually resident in California but was visiting Canada when he was arrested.

The US has recently stepped up efforts to track down war criminals who might be residing in its territory. The newly formed Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section of the Department of Justice Criminal Division has been collaborating with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in this task. He now faces extradition to the US, though interestingly, as he also has obtained Canadian citizenship and it is not clear wherther the Canadian legal system would take any action too. There have been calls for him to be tried in Canada for war crimes.

We recently received a communication from Guatemala that contained a letter from Jennifer Harbury outlining the latest facts on the case of her late husband Efraín Bámaca and his assassination by the Guatemalan military.

As you may know, this case has been before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CIDH) who were scathing about the Guatemalan judiciary in regard to the case.

For some background on the story you can read here and here.

We received the letter in Spanish and translated into English and any errors in the translation are ours.

The letter refers to the Guatemalan judicial process which is very complicated from our perspective in the UK. It is still worth reading.

You can read it here, in English, and here, in Spanish.

Regular readers will be aware of the precarious existence of community leaders in Guatemala. This also applies to trade union leaders. Our friends in Banana Link have recently posted an appeal on their website to end the violence and impunity in Guatemala. The appeal refers to trade union and community leaders amongst banana growing communities in Guatemala.

Amnesty International have just issued the following urgent action on behalf of Mateo Lopez, a trades unions from the Health Trade Union. He has been very active in denouncing corruption in the health service and has also been involved in the campaign against the electricity company Union Fenosa led by FRENA. Please take action.

At the end of October another crack was opened in the wall of impunity: there was a further conviction for forced disappearance. That is the third success for justice, along with the El Jute and Choatalum  cases. The bare facts of the case are that student leader Edgar Fernando García was disappeared on 18 February 1984 and was never seen again. The whereabouts of his remains are still unknown, as the two police officers convicted have not revealed them. The police officers have been sentenced to forty years each in prison.

News this last week from Guatemala centred on the resignation of Carlos Castresana, head of CICIG, the UN International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala. It seems to me that CICIG had been important in providing some measure of hope for the victims of impunity – victims, mostly interestingly, of the Guatemalan State.

We recently posted an item about Jennifer Harbury, in which in a recording of a talk she gave, she updates us on the status of the case of her husband. She has been pursuing the truth in the case of Efrain Bamaca for eighteen years now. In  her talk she mentions that her case, and several other important ones have progressed recently. However, we are concerned that the appointment of the new Attorney General, Conrado Reyes, may lead to the cases being stalled again if he does not encourage them to be resolved. Our friends at the Guatemala Human Rights Commission in the United States have set up a petition addressed to the Attorney General asking him to ensure these cases keep progressing. You can sign up to the petition here. If you are reading this and are resident in the US, you can find the US version of the petition here.

Norma Cruz is a woman with a very serious commitment to justice, a commitment which has led to her being threatend on many occasions. Her particular area of interest is women, and ensuring that they and their families can achieve justice for violent crimes agains them. Such is her determination that she has not only been noticed by those who would like to stop her, but also internationally, as she won the Woman of Courage award in 2009.

Sadly, she is receiving threats again, these threats have mentioned a specific case which she is following at the moment. Our colleagues in the United States, at the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, have set up a letter for those
concerned to sign. The letter will be sent to the President of the Supreme Court, Álvarez Mancilla. For more details, and to sign up, please follow this link.

'This is a time of great tension because we know that at any moment, when we least expect it, our lives can be cut short at a stroke'.

So titled an article by Danilo Valladares for Inter Press Service.

As you will have read previously, two community leaders with FRENA (the Front for Resistance in Defence of Natural Resources and the Rights of the People) were murdered recently. GSN has highlighted the killings of both Evelinda Ramírez Reyes and Octavio Roblero and their assassinations were in addition to the slaying of another FRENA leader Víctor Galvez, last year.

Although these killings are of FRENA members, in dispute with the Spanish corporation, Gas Natural-Unión Fenosa, attacks are continuing to increase against human rights defenders. In 2009, 353 attacks were carried out, almost one a day, and 16 activists were killed.

The full article can be read here on the Global Issues website.