Guatemala Solidarity Network

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.

After fifteen years of waiting for justice to be done in Guatemala the survivors and relatives of victims of the Dos Erres massacre have however received a favourable verdict elsewhere: the Interamerican Court of Human Rights found the state of Guatemala failed to live up to its judicial obligations to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the massacre.

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.

On Monday 4^th January, The Frontline Club is screening the film ‘In the Shadow of the Raid'. Viewing the trailer, this looks like a powerful indictment of US immigration policy.

"On May 12, 2008, immigration officials stormed a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, arresting nearly 400 undocumented workers in one of the biggest roundups in U.S. history.

Supporters of the raid celebrated it as a law enforcement victory while immigrant rights groups slammed it as draconian.

Meanwhile up a winding dirt road, a poor Guatemalan village was dying, and so was Postville itself.

The raid severed an economic lifeline linking the heart of the United States to one of the poorest corners of the Western Hemisphere, with an impact as far-reaching and catastrophic as any earthquake or hurricane.

However, this is not just another tale of misery in a far-off land. Postville itself was a boomtown before the raid - a rare exception in a part of rural America that has been emptying out as the changing economics of agriculture alter the social landscape. Now it is on the brink of economic collapse after losing much of its population and its main employer - all in the middle of the worst recession in decades."

Directed by Greg Brosnan and Jennifer Szymaszek

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 dome of the Old Bailey, England's Central Criminal Court, stands the statue of Justice, with her sword and scales, above an inscription which exhorts us to “Defend the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer.” There is no command that the latter aspirations should be limited only to those lacking influence, power and money: it should be applied equally.

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.

Documentation that the Guatemalan army, under the Efraín Ríos Montt, carried out a campaign in the summer of 1982 deliberately aimed at massacring thousands of indigenous peasants, has just been presented as evidence to the Spanish National Court. 

Kate Doyle, from the National Security Archive, presented the documentation to Judge Santiago Pedraz in Madrid, who is investigating the genocide of indigenous Maya in Guatemala.  

The files on “Operation Sofia” detail official responsibility for what the 1999 UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission determined were “acts of genocide against groups of Mayan people.”   

The National Security Archive Guatemala Project has a report here. More can be found, in Spanish, by David Brooks, on albedrío.

 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.

Fausto Otzín was an indigenous human rights lawyer, and in his short and now truncated life had dedicated himself to seeking justice. He was found dumped in a ditch on October 18 this year having suffered multiple wounds and died shortly afterwards. He had received death threats the week before his murder.

For those of you interested in accompaniment in Latin America you might be interested in PBI's forthcoming AGM at which they'll be showing a film about their work in Colombia. The screening of the 15th anniversary film produced by the PBI Colombia Project seeks to bring together the delight, hopes and tears of these 15 years, giving a voice to human rights defenders and to the people who have contributed to making this dream a reality by dedicating a part of their lives to PBI. You will also have the opportunity to hear from a volunteer, who has just returned from a year volunteering with PBI in Colombia.