GUATEMALA HUMAN RIGHTS

Virtual Truth Commission

Guatemala Background: total population 10 million, of whom 6 million are Mayan; a country without social or economic justice. "There is a marked disparity in income distribution, and poverty is pervasive. On coffee plantations, peasants, descendants of the ancient Maya, live in concentration-camp like conditions, a de facto slaves....Education in rural areas is non-existent, with the result that 50% of the people are illiterate. Half of the country's children suffer from malnutrition. Every day in Guatemala, a country in which everything grows, people go huntry. ...The real power in Guatemala is in the hands of the Army. During more than 30 years of civil war, over 150,000 Guatemalans have been killed or disappeared, tens of thousands have been forced to flee to Mexico, 1 million have been displaced inside the country, and more than 440 Indian vilages have been destroyed...And for more than four decaddes,, the United States governmen has consistently supported the Guatemalan Army and the ruling class in their policies of repression. A "killing field" in the Americas: U. S. policy in Guatemala

1954 U. S. Involvement in the Coup against President Arbenz

In 1954, a CIA-orchestrated coup ended what Guatemalans call the "Ten Years of Spring," which began with the bloodless overthrow of military dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944. During this period, two democratically-elected civilian presidents governed Guatemala, trying to provide opportunities and raise the standard of living. Jacobo Arbenz, elected in 1950, began to push agrarian reforms more seriously than his predecessor. The United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) (UFCo) protested when unused portions of its vast holdings were expropriated and distributed to land-less peasants. The Guatemalan government paid the US company the tax-declared value of the land, but UFCo protested to the highest levels of the US government. Two UFCo stockholders at the time were the Dulles brothers, Secretary of State and head of the CIA in the Eisenhower administration. © 1998, Piet van Lear, A War Called Peace

Following the coup, Colonel Castillo Armas became the new president. the U. S. Ambassador furnished Armas with lists of radical opponents to be eliminated, and the bloodletting promptly began. Under Armas, thousands were arrested and many were tortured and killed. A "killing field" in the Americas: U. S. policy in Guatemala

The coup unleashed one of the most brutal military regimes in the hemisphere. Some 140,000 people have been killed and another 45,000 disappeared in a U.S. backed scorched earth campaign to wipe out dissidents, rebels and activists for peace and social justice in Guatemala. The abuses by the Guatemalan military and its death squads were do horrific that even Amnesty International reported that they "Strained credulity." But next week, the guerrillas of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity or UNRG, will sign a controversial peace accord with the government and formally end a generation of war. December 27, 1996 Democracy Now Broadcast,

1954 - 1996 U. S. Support for Guatemala's Dictators

During the 1960s and 70s, American military aid and training made Guatemala's army the strongest and most sophisticated in Central America. Between 1966-68, during the Johnson presidency, the Green Berets were sent to Guatemala to transform its Army into a modern counter-insurgency force and to conduct a Vietnam-style war there...Death squads, never before seen in Latin America, were started during this period. Army leaders, government officials and the businessmen who supported andoften bankrolled the death squads, had close ties with many US. administrations...Journalists, lawyers, teachers, members of opposition parties, and anyone who expressed sympathy for the anti-government cause was machine gunned...American planes and pilots, flying out of Panama, dropped napalm on suspected targets A "killing field" in the Americas: U. S. policy in Guatemala

1977, as a result of international publicity which revealed thepattern of torture and killing, U. S. President Jimmy Carter cut off overt military aid. However, money and arms still got to Guatemala through the CIA. Argentina and Chile also aided the Guatemala Army. "And Israel has played a very important role in Guatemala since 1977, supplying weapons, building munitions factories, and training soldiers." A "killing field" in the Americas: U. S. policy in Guatemala

1980. Sources close to the Lucas Garcia regime report that the death squds are staffed and directed by the Guatemalan Army and Police under the command of President Lucas, Interior Minister Donald Alvarez Ruiz, and a group of top-ranking generals, with the assistance of Lucas' right hand man, Colonel Hector Montalban, and national Chief of Police, Colonel German Chupina. Private businessmen provide the payrolls for the squads, and often assist in "compiling" the lists of troublesome labor, professional and political leaders as well as other suggested victims. Allan Nairn, "Reagan Administration's Links to Guatemala's Terrorist Government", Covert Action Quarterly, Summer, 1989

April 1980, Guatemalan speculator and right-wing activist Roberto Alejos Arzu, who made his plantation available as a training site for participants in the CIA's Bay of Pigs invation in 1961, sponsors trip to Guatemala for top executives of Young Americans for Freedom, the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, Young Republicans' National Federation, the American Conservative Union, Conservative Digest, Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus and John Laxalt, president of Reagan's campaign organization "Citizens of the Republic" and brother of Reagan campaign chair, Senator Paul Laxalt....before his election Reagan met personally with two leading spokesmen of the Guatemalan right and ...conveyed the details of what one U. S. businessman calls his promised "180 degree turn" in U. S. Policy toward Guatemala...high level Guatemalan officials say that Reagan's assurances may already have led to an increase in the number of death squad assassinations. Allan Nairn, "Reagan Administration's Links to Guatemala's Terrorist Government",Covert Action Quarterly, Summer, 1989

In the early 1980s, the Guatemalan army unleashed its scorched-earth campaign," a counter-insurgency drive to destroy the Guatemalan guerrilla forces' civilian base of support. By its own count, the army destroyed 440 rural villages. In addition to tens of thousands of civilian deaths, one million people were displaced internally in a country of about nine million. About 200,000 Guatemalans also fled to neighboring Mexico. Some 50,000 of these refugees organized, settled in refugee camps and eventually began to negotiate with the Guatemalan government for group returns to Guatemala. The first such return took place in January of 1993. © 1998, Piet van Lear, A War Called Peace

1982, Colonel Francisco Luis Gordillo Martinez, School of the Americas Graduate, (1961 Infantry weapons and tactics, 1974 Command and General Staff College. ) In 1982, aided General Efrain Rios Montt in the violent overthrow of the Guatemalan government, an event which initiated a period of immense brutality on the part of the military toward teh poor and indigenous peoples of the Guatemalan countryside. (NYT 5/28/95); . (School of the Americas, Notorious Graduates

General Hector Gramajo, School of the Americas Guest Speaker, 1991. Six weeks before speaking at prestigious SOA graduation, had been found guilty by default of numerous war crimes in a U. S. Court (The Bayonet, 1/3/92) Former SOA Commandant Jose Feliciano claimed Gramajo inspired many SOA policies. (The Benning Patriot, 2/21/92). Architect of genocidal policies which essentially legalized military atrocity in Guatemala throughout the eighties. (School of the Americas, Notorious Graduates

Trotter, John C., Consultant on Guatemalan affairs for the American Security Council's film Attack on the Americas". The ASC is a private ultra-hawk U. S. military lobby whose visit to Guatemala in December 1979 began the Reagan camp's courtship of the Guatemalan right. Trotter had been manager of Guatemala City's Coca-Cola bottling plant franchise. Trotter has been implicated in the death squad murders of a number of workers and union leaders at the bottling plant and was removed from management by Coca-cola headquarters after an international union and church-led boycott of Coke protesting the situation at the plant in Guatemala. Trotter is also a director of the Guatemala Freedom Foundation, a pro-Lucas international lobby group founded by Roberto Alejos, which is more extrme than the Amigos del Pais organizagtion. Allan Nairn, "Reagan Administration's Links to Guatemala's Terrorist Government", Covert Action Quarterly, Summer, 1989

The Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) report on human rights cases and the CIA's role in Guatemala, released June 28, 1996, shows that the CIA knowingly hired paid informants who were involved in assassinations, kidnappings and torture. Linda Haugaard, "Admissions and omissions--the CIA in Guatemala," July22, 1996, In These Times Magazine.

The School of the Americas and the U. S. Army's Southern Command used instruction materials in training Latin American officers, including Guatemalans, that "appeared to condone practices...such as executions of guerrilas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion, and false imprisonment" (p. 32 of the 67 page IOB Report on human rights cases and the CIA's role in Guatemala, released June 28, 1996. Linda Haugaard, "Admissions and omissions--the CIA in Guatemala," July22, 1996, In These Times Magazine.

CIA involvement in Guatemala death squads. "Several CIA assets were credibly alleged to have ordered, planned or participated in serious human rights violations such as assassination, extrajudicial execution, torture, or kidnapping while they were assets--andthat the CIA's Directorate of Operations headquarters was aware at the time of the allegations. IOB Report on human rights cases and the CIA's role in Guatemala, released June 28, 1996. The IOB had been ordered to conduct a government-wiode review of the DeVine and Bamaca cases, as well as any intelligence bearing on the torture, disappearance or death of U. S. citizens in Guatemala since 1984. These cases include the 1984 killing of Peace Corps volunteer Peter Wolfe, the 1985 killings of journalists Griffith Davis and Nicholas Blake, the 1989 stabbing of human rights worker Meredith Larson, the 1990 assault on social worker Josh Zinner, and the 1992 death of archaeologist Peter Tiscione." Linda Haugaard, "Admissions and omissions--the CIA in Guatemala," July22, 1996, In These Times Magazine.

Jennifer Harbury Statement, June 25, 1998

School of the Americas Graduates [Notorious]

High Profile Cases

Michael DiVine

In 1990, Michael DeVine, an American businessman living in Guatemala, apparently stumbled upon the Guatemalan Army's drug-trafficking activities. He was kidnapped and murdered. In reponse, President George Bush cut off military aid to Guatemala and publicly criticized the Army. But, Reagaon's two-track policy was still in effect, so Bush continued to send CIA funds to the military to allow them to continue their war, and strengthened the ties between the CIA and the Guatemalan Army. A "killing field" in the Americas: U. S. policy in Guatemala
Jennifer Harbury

Alpirez, Col. Julio Roberto, Guatemalan Officer

1970, School of the Americas, Combat Arms and Support Services; 1989, Command and General Staff College. (School of the Americas, Notorious Graduates 1992, supervised the prolonged torture and execution of Bamaca Velazquez
In March 1995, Rep. Robert Torricelli (D. NJ), a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, disclosed Alpirez had been a paid CIA asset and that the CIA had known for years that he may have been involved in the killing of Efram Bamaca, Guatemelan guerrila leader and husband of Jennifer Harbury as well as the 1990 assassination of Michael DeVine. (The U. S. government had suspended military aid to Guatemala because of its failure to fully investigate and prosecute the case against the killers of DeVine, a U. S. citizen who owned an inn in the Guatemalan countryside. Linda Haugaard, "Admissions and omissions--the CIA in Guatemala,"July22, 1996, In These Times Magazine.
1998 Statement of Sister Dianna Ortiz regarding torture in 1989 by Guatemalan security forces and involvement by possible American named Alejandro.

U. S. and Truth Commissions
In Guatemala, Monsignor Juan Gerardi was assassinated in April, 1998. His last address, given just days before he presented a report of the truth to Guatemala is an eloquent reminder of why unpleasant truths must be faced and of the healing to which they are necessary
Photographs of mourning and funeral of Monsignor Gerardi. "Monsignor Gerardi was the driving force behind the project for the Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI), created to shed light on the war's human rights violations. Two days before his death, he had participated in the presentation of REMHI's final report, entitled "Guatemala: Never Again." His co-workers in the ODHA and REMHI believed the motive for his murder was political -- the killer had access to Gerardi's house and car, but stole nothing. Witnesses saw unknown men in two trucks hanging around the parish house the night of the killing, another trademark of the death squads that killed with impunity during Guatemala's 36-year conflict." Activists say the murder was a direct reply to the presentation of the REMHI report, which blames the army for at least 90 percent of the massacres, killings and other human rights violations during the war. Speakers at the presentation called for truth and justice, and Guatemalan Archbishop Prospero Penados del Barrio called for a governmental commission to investigate Guatemala's thousands of "disappeared." The REMHI report based its conclusions on the study of more than 55,000 human rights violations suffered in Guatemala. It said 150,000 people died, 50,000 "disappeared," one million became refugees, 200,000 children were orphaned and 40,000 women became widows. © 1998, Piet van Lear, A War Called Peace
Genocide.
- Guatemala City, May 5, 1998. Indigenous women are calling on the Historical Clarification Commission to define the massacres committed by the army during the civil war as acts of genocide and the rape of Guatemalan women in the context of the counterinsurgency campaigns as crimes against humanity. In a report that documents almost 2,000 severe human rights violations, the National Widows Coalition (CONAVIGUA) outlined its recommendations to the commission, which is charged with investigating the atrocities committed during the conflict.
- "There is irrefutable proof that genocide was committed against our indigenous K'iche, Ixil, Q'eqchi, Cakchiquel, Mam and other communities," the report reads. In international law, genocide is defined as violations such as killings, inhuman living conditions, forced sterilization or the removal of children to another group "perpetrated with the intention of destroying, totally or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group," the document observes. CONAVIGUA calls for the trial of those responsible for this crime before an International Criminal Court.
- Rapists should be tried internationally as well, the group recommends. "The rapes committed on a massive scale against indigenous women during the war was a state policy, a weapon of war," CONAVIGUA states. "It is necessary as a measure of reparation to the dignity of our peoples and to the memory of our sisters that these deeds and the context in which they were committed are known, since they were not common crimes but crimes of war."
- CONAVIGUA's study, based on 3,700 interviews in 12 provinces, identifies 1,093 cases of extrajudicial executions, 511 disappearances, 21 civilian deaths during battles, 139 cases of torture and 110 deaths due to the flight into the mountains to escape military attacks. Three quarters of all the violations registered were attributed to state forces, just over one percent to the guerrillas, the report states. The authors of the remainder were not identified.
- The document also seeks to indicate the degree of phsychological damage suffered by war victims. The vast majority of women and men interviewed report crying fits, listlessness, insomnia, tremors, difficulty thinking, fear, headaches, and feeling of persecution. A smaller number refer to hallucinations, alcoholism, fits of anger, jealousy and mistrust as products of the war.
- The Historical Clarification Commission has called for input from all Guatemalans and their organizations for the recommendations it will make to the government and the former guerrillas in reparation to the war's victims.
- Source: "Indigenous Women Accuse State of Genocide," Sat, 9 May 98, Guatemala: Cerigua Weekly Briefs 18 May 7 1998. Contact Cerigua or write: Centro de Reportes Informativos de Guatemala, Publisher: Ileana Alamilla; Editor: Ruth Taylor; Cerigua, 9a Calle "A", 3-49, Zona 1, Guatemala, Guatemala; Tel/FAX: 502 232 5519 Information provided via PeaceNet: E-mail PeaceNet
Guatemala's Historical Clarification Commission, headed by Christian Tomuschat, a German lawyer and human rights expert, presented its report on Thursday February 25 in Guatemala City. Highlights of the report:
- The Guatemalan army was involved in most of the atrocities committed, and was blamed for 93% of all massacres, tortures, disappearances, and killings during the civil war. It carried out 626 massacres during a scorched-earth counter-insurgency campaign in the early 1980's.
- The US CIA sponsored human rights violations and US government policy until the mid-80's helped perpetuate the conflict. Tomuschat accused it of 'directly and indirectly' sponsoring "illegal state operations" during the armed conflict.
- The total number of dead and disappeared is far higher than previously thought, more than 200,000 people, mostly Mayan peasants, with large numbers of children and women.
- Special brutality was directed against women, especially Mayan, "who were tortured, raped and murdered."
- Left-wing guerrillas of the Guatemala National Revolutionary Unit (URNG) were blamed for committing 32 massacres, or 3 percent of all abuses.
- "Until the mid-1980s, the United States government and U.S. private companies exercised pressure to maintain the country's archaic and unjust socioeconomic structure," he said.
- US Ambassador to Guatemala Donald J. Planty criticized the commission's findings for implicating the United States. "This was an internal conflict," Planty told reporters after Tomuschat's speech. Guatemalan truth commission condemns army, CIA, CNN, February 26, 1999
- History of U. S. Military Interventions: GUATEMALA/1920/Troops/2-week intervention against unionists. GUATEMALA/1954-?/Command operation, bombing, nuclear threat/CIA directs exile invasion and coup d'Etat after newly elected government nationalizes unused U.S.'s United Fruit Company lands; bombers based in Nicaragua; long-term result: 200,000 murdered. GUATEMALA/1966-67/Command operation/Green Berets intervene against rebels. S. Brian Willson, "Who are the Real Terrorists?", citing several sources including William Blum, Killing Hope: U. S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Monroe, Maine: common Courage Press, 1995
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