nathalie's blog

Yet another director of the organisation FRENA (the Front for Resistance in Defence of Natural Resources and the Rights of the People) was murdered in San Marcos this week.

According to a communiqué by the group URNG-MAIZ, Octavio Roblero was murdered at approximately 5.30pm on Wednesday (17th) in front of his business at the bus terminal in Malacatán, in the department of San Marcos. He was shot multiple times by an unknown individual.

Octavio was the brother-in-law of Víctor Galvez, also a FRENA leader, who was also shot dead in broad daylight in the centre of Malacatán in October last year. According to the Prensa Libre, Víctor had been attending a meeting with community leaders about the excessive charges of the electrical energy service in this region just before he was killed. Octavio had recently denounced the role of several individuals in his brother-in-law's murder (see URNG-MAIZ communiqué).

Octavio's murder also follows the murder last month of yet another FRENA leader, Evelinda Ramírez Reyes, who was returning to her home in the department of San Marcos following a series of meetings in the capital when the car in which she was travelling was ambushed and she was shot dead. She had been meeting with authorities to protest the excessive charges of DEOCSA, subsidiary of the Spanish-owned electricity provider Unión Fenosa, and to demand the nationalisation of electricity distribution.

Wednesday 13th January saw the second murder in three months of a leader in the campaign for the nationalisation of electricity provision in the department of San Marcos.

The murder comes following recent heightened tensions in the department, which culminated last month in the order of an "estado de prevención", an emergency measure in which several constitutional rights are temporarily suspended.

Read more about this story in my blog entry.

Which Way Home

The film follows several unaccompanied child migrants as they journey through Mexico en route to the U.S. on a freight train they call “ The Beast ”.

Director Rebecca Cammisa (Sister Helen) tracks the stories of children like Olga and Freddy, nine-year old Hondurans who are desperately trying to reach their families in Minnesota, and Jose, a ten-year-old El Salvadoran who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention center, and focuses on Kevin, a canny, streetwise 14-year-old Honduran, whose mother hopes that he will reach New York City and send money back to his family.  

These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow. They are the ones you never hear about – the invisible ones.

For more information click here.

Forwarded message from Kathy Dill:

I am seeking letters of recommendation for human rights defender Jesus
Tecú Osorio, whom I am nominating for the Roger N. Baldwin Medal of
Liberty Award. I am nominating him as an individual and speaking to his
work: exhumations, prime witness in war crime trials, Director of Bufete
Juridico Popular, Founder of New Hope Rio Negro Foundation, Founding member
and past president of ADIVIMA, etc.

The nomination is due no later than Jan 29th so there is not much time
left. All letters of recommendation must be submitted in ENGLISH. If you
are willing to recommend Jesus for this award, please send your letter to
Kathy Dill: kathyswebmail <at> mac <dot> com. I am very happy to provide any guidance
you might require.

Mil gracias, Maltiox

An urgent action has been posted on US organisation, NISGUA's, website concerning the violent eviction of trade unionists from the central square in Guatemala City last month.

For our post on the eviction (which includes links for further information) click here.

To go to the NISGUA website and see their background document and suggested letters, click here.

On the 10th - which happens to be International Human Rights Day - and 11th December members of the trade union SITRAPETÉN were violently evicted by the National Civil Police (PNC) from the makeshift huts in which they had for 15 months been staging their peaceful protest in front of Guatemala City's National Palace.

The workers of Distribuidora del Petén, part of the company Agua Salvavidas which is owned by Corporación Castillo Hermanos, formed their trade union SITRAPETÉN in February 2007 but had their attempts to register with the Ministry of Labour rejected five times. According to those affiliated to the trade union, the delay was due to pressure put on the Ministry by the company. Just days before the trade union was finally recognised by the Ministry of Labour in May 2008, the company was declared bankrupt. Workers were transferred and offered new contracts. However, no such offer was extended to the trade unionists who were effectively fired.

The members of SITRAPETÉN protested first outside the company's premises but were later evicted. Fifteen months ago they moved to the Parque Central in Guatemala City, where they have been staying in makeshift huts in front of the National Palace ever since, in a peaceful protest demonstration in which they demand the resolution of their labour case.

They have been subject to a series of threats and intimidations, as well as offers of money on the condition that they abandon their campaign. On the night of the 9th December the municipal judge, who according to the Convergencia de Derechos Humanos (a collective of human rights organisations) did not have jurisdiction in the case, gave a "verbal notification" of the eviction. An eviction notice was not presented.

Translated from the Prensa Libre article by Olga López Ovando. The handing over of Plan Sofia in Guatemala earlier this month came shortly after expert testimonies in the genocide case were heard in Madrid by Spanish judge Santiago Pedraz. For more information on the hearing of these expert testimonies see this communiqué.

 11/12/2009

The Asociación de Justicia y Reconciliación (AJR - English: Association for Justice and Reconciliation) yesterday presented the Ministerio Público (MP - English: Public Prosecutor) with an authenticated copy of Plan Sofía 82, so that it may be added to the dossier for the investigation of the genocide.

The document was received by the fiscal general (attorney general) Amílcar Velásquez Zárate, in the public prosecutor's offices.

Julia Cortés, the president of AJR told the attorney general that she hoped that evidence would be found in this document against those responsible for having massacred the Mayan population during the internal armed conflict.

Plan Sofía is the third document to be part of the proceedings for genocide, the Defence Minister Abraham Valenzuela having received plans Victoria 82 and Firmeza 82 last February.

Plan Sofía is a ramification of Plan Victoria 82, created in July 1982 - four months after general Efraín Ríos Montt came to power - and which may have been created to carry out military operations in the North of Quiché.

On the evening of Thursday 3rd December, a court in Chiquimula made history by sentencing former army colonel Marco Antonio Sánchez Samayoa and three former military commissioners, José Domingo Ríos, Gabriel Álvarez Ramos and Salomón Maldonado Ríos to 40 years of prison for the crime of forced disappearance, and 13 years and 4 months for the crime of the illegal detention of eight members of the community of El Jute, in the department of Chiquimula in 1981.

This is the first time that a former member of the Guatemalan military has been sentenced for this crime and only the second ever sentence to be passed in Guatemala for forced disappearance.

The first sentence was passed earlier on this year in the case of Choatalum, in which former military commissioner Felipe Cusanero Coj was sentenced to 150 years of prison, 25 years for each of the six people that were forcibly disappeared from the community of Choatalum in the department of Chimaltenango between 1982 and 1984. (See our blog entry following this verdict).  

Both sentences are tribute to the bravery of the victims' relatives and witnesses who gave their testimonies in court, and the value of these testimonies was recognised by both tribunals. Also of great significance is the fact that both sentences included the opening of further investigation: in the case of Choatalum investigation into the role of two higher-ranking members of the military, and in that of El Jute into the intellectual authorship of the crimes.

 It is anticipated that the judges' verdict will be delivered in the very near future in the case of El Jute - the case of the forced disappearance of eight inhabitants of the rural community of the same name in 1981.

Since the historic sentence in the case of Choatalum in August this year (www.lahora.com.gt/notas.php?key=54841&fch=2009-09-02) in which a former military commissioner was sentenced to 150 years of prison for the forced disappearance of six people during the internal armed conflict, much attention has been focused on this case, in which hearings opened only a few weeks later, in September.

On trial for their alleged part in this crime are a former army colonel and three former military commissioners who have been in custody since 2005.

A communiqué released by GAM (the Mutual Support Group) in November summarised some of the issues at play in the case and expressed GAM's certainty that a condemnatory sentence should be passed. A further communiqué released by the same Group following the hearing on the 1st December expressed concern over the intimidatory presence of members of the Guatemalan Military Veteran's Association (AVEMILGUA) who they claim were taking photographs of relatives, witnesses, the public prosecutor, and members of GAM.

Legal proceedings have now reached the concluding stage. Various high-profile diplomats have attended the recent hearings, including the US, Swiss, Chilean and Dutch ambassadors (www.prensalibre.com/pl/2009/diciembre/01/359940.html) and the Guatemalan human rights ombudsman, Sergio Morales.

It's exciting being here in Guatemala when there are advances in the trials we follow. Last week some great news came out about the case of forced disappearance in the village of Choatalum, the only case currently being tried for the crime of forced disappearance in the courts here. (i)

Felipe Cusanero Coj is accused of being responsible for the forced disappearance of six members of the community in 1982. The defense in the case had argued that as forced disappearance was only defined as a crime in Guatemala in 1996, after the events took place, the trial went against the Guatemalan constitution which states that laws can not be retroactive.

However the Constitutional Court has resolved that the crime of forced disappearance is permanent, as it continues to be committed while the victims continue to be disappeared. Therefore the argument of the "irretroactivity" of the law can not be used to prevent the court proceedings from continuing.

The Constitutional Court's decision is of pivotal importance in a country where, by many accounts, some 45,000 people were disappeared during the 36-year armed conflict. Those disappeared were kidnapped, taken to unknown locations, and it is assumed that they were tortured and then killed. Because of the secrecy within which the disappearances were veiled, the perpetrators were able to act in a state of complete impunity. The relatives of the victims never found out about the fate of their loved ones and to this day live with this uncertainty.

This is a news story that I've been following for a while here. I was actually half-waiting for some kind of resolution in the story so that I could write a nice little article that was complete and summarized everything. I should have known better. In Guatemala such stories which shine a light on the possibility of justice tend to get drawn out and encounter many obstacles on the way, even if supposedly they have an expiry date.

The story relates to the release of four military archives - Plan campaña Victoria 82, Plan Operativo Sofía 82, Asuntos Civiles Operación Ixil, and Plan Firmeza 83 - detailing counterinsurgency strategies including massacres which took place in 1982 and 1983. The archives would act as vital evidence in the genocide trials which are currently being brought forward by victims of the violence who form the Association of Justice and Reconciliation (AJR).

The release of the archives was first ordered in early 2007. An appeal was subsequently lodged, in which it was claimed that the archives were state secrets, and their release would have implications for national security. This appeal was overturned and last year on the 25th February, the president of Guatemala, Álvaro Colom, promised the declassification of the archives. The 25th February 2009 was the deadline for the release of the archives. Were they released? No. And what's the significance of the 25th February? It's the Day of the Dignification of Victims of the Armed Conflict.

Actually the Defense Minister did present the judge in the case with two of the archives - Plan Victoria and Plan Firmeza - claiming to not know the whereabouts of the other two. The judge refused to accept the "incomplete delivery", also claiming a lack of a suitably secure storage space for the documents. Days later it was reported that the Defense Minister and his family were receiving death threats.