/* Written 9:12 PM May 15, 1990 by gsleicher in igc:reg.guatemala */ We are pleased to announce the availability on PeaceNet's CARNET.GUATENEWS conference of a weekly bulletin of up to date information in English published by the Guatemalan news agency Cerigua. Subscription information is at the end of this week's bulletin. CERIGUA WEEKLY BRIEFS: MAY 7-13, 1990 SECURITY FORCES INVOLVED IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES The largest drug seizure in Guatemala's history took place on Wednesday, May 9. Members of the Treasury Police stopped a truck en route from Guatemala City to the Atlantic coast and found 634 kilos of cocaine inside. A group of eleven men was arrested in connection with the case, and its leader was identified as Coronel Miguel Antonio Lopez, the former second in command of the Quiche military base. Among the eleven were three foreigners; the other seven were all relatives of Coronel Lopez. Authorities believe that this group may have close ties with the Medellin cartel. The cocaine is thought to have originated in Colombia, but authorities postulated that it may have been processed in Guatemala, which if true, is indeed news, because until now Guatemala has only been recognized as a "bridge" over which cocaine is transshipped from producer to market countries. The truck carrying the shipment was headed toward a secret airstrip in eastern Guatemala. The cargo had an estimated value of 40 million dollars. In mid-April Lieutenant Fernando Minera, accused of trafficking in cocaine, declared that military and civilian officials, particularly those in military intelligence, are involved in the transport of drugs through Guatemala. There were several other accounts this week of members of the Guatemalan police and army involved in illicit activities. Eleven municipal police officers, employed in one of the capital's markets, were relieved of their duties this week. They were accused of theft and looting of businesses, according to sources at the market who reported that the same takes place in the city's central market, and that nothing has been done to stop it. On Tuesday May 8, four men employed as Interior Minister Morales's personal bodyguards were identified by eyewitnesses in a prison lineup as the assailants in a series of crimes committed in late April which included robbery, assault and rape. Also on Tuesday, three members of the National Police werearrested on charges of murder and robbery in connection with the deaths of two persons in an outlying area of the capital. In its Mothers' Day broadcast on May 10, the well-known radio news program Patrullaje Informativo commented that the technical advising provided to Guatemalan authorities by West Germany, Spain and Venezuela "has served to train uniformed criminals." MOTHERS' DAY IN GUATEMALA The National Council of Widows (CONAVIGUA) declared that in this country Mothers' Day is a day of grief. "For us and for thousands of Guatemalan women, May 10 does not represent joy... we mourn the absence of our children, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, who are disappeared or murdered..." CONAVIGUA also demanded that the Ministry of Defense return the hundreds of youths who were forcibly recruited for military service by armed men in civilian clothes in the capital on April 28. The Mutual Support Group for Relatives of the Disappeared (GAM) said that there are persons being held in clandestine prisons, and that President Cerezo's promise to investigate all cases of disappearances was never really on the government's agenda. REFUGEE WORKER DISAPPEARED After conducting fruitless searches and filing Writs of Habeaus Corpus to no avail, the Guatemalan Council for Displaced Persons (CONDEG) appealed to Archbishop Prospero Penados to intercede on behalf of one of its members. Luis Miguel Solis Pajarito was kidnapped last week in Guatemala City. He is a delegate to the National Dialogue representing CONDEG, and a particicipant in the Dialogue working committee that addresses the issue of victims of violence. Rosa Pu Gomez, wife of the human rights activist and herself a member of the Mutual Support Group for Relatives of the Disappeared (GAM), recounted in a press conference held at the GAM offices that Solis is the only surviving member of his family, originally from Sacapulas, in the highlands of Quiche province. His other relatives have all been either killed or disappeared. Miguel Solis' father and brother, disappeared since 1983, were founders of the Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC). Rosa Pu Gomez accused the army of kidnapping her husband, while the Council for Displaced Persons was somewhat less direct, blaming "repressive forces" who "are guilty of murder, of burning our homes and villages, and persecuting us after we were forced to leave our lands". A full-page paid statement placed by the United Labor andPopular Action (UASP) in one of the country's major newspapers reprinted what it called an incomprehensible pledge which the people of the village of Ical, in the western Huehuetenango province, were forced to make on May 1 of this year. It was a signed promise to not harm the army. The same UASP statement denounces the most recent murders, kidnappings and attempts at intimidation of labor and campesino leaders by the army, civil defense patrols, and uniformed police officers. In related news, Amilcar Mendez, president of the Council of Ethnic Communities Runujel Junam, reported that another clandestine cemetery was discovered in the district of Uspantan, also in Quiche. "There are at least sixty more in this province," Mendez said, and added that the necessary exhumations, although authorized, have not taken place, due to intimidation and threats against those who request the investigations, and also against authorities who attempt to carry them out. It was in this context that Special Attorney for Human Rights Ramiro de Leon decided to cancel a scheduled trip to Europe in which he was to receive funds raised by several governments for his Office's work, saying "the immediate future is unpredictable". SPANISH AMBASSADOR THREATENED BY DEATH SQUAD The Spanish Ambassador and other members of the Spanish diplomatic mission in Guatemala have received threats on their lives from the death squad known as the Secret Anti- Communist Army. In response, the government of Spain this week sent members of its own security corps to provide protection to embassy personnel. Relations between Spain and Guatemala were broken off early in 1980, after Guatemalan security forces burned 37 people to death inside the Spanish embassy on January 31 of that year. Among those killed were students and campesinos who were requesting the ambassador's support for their protest against violence in the countryside. Authorities at that time explained that their actions were directed against the protesters, but victims also included office workers and people there on personal business, as well as two high officials of a former administration. Amnesty International has stated that Guatemalan authorities use death squads such as the Secret Anti-Communist Army as a cover for their illicit actions. It was speculated that the threats to the Spanish Embassy could be coming from sectors opposed to the conversations presently being held with the Guatemalan insurgency, since Spain offered that upcoming meetings with the rebels be held in Madrid. Ambassador Pablo Delaiglesia declared that the threats will not affect his government's support for the peace negotiations which, according to a Prensa Libre editorial, "has the approval ofalmost all the governments in the world". URNG ACCUSES ARMY AND GOVERNMENT OF OBSTRUCTING OSLO ACCORDS The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) published a page-long statement which appeared in Prensa Libre and El Grafico on May 11, accusing the government, the army high command, and certain political parties of sabotaging the Oslo Peace Accords signed by the rebels and the National Reconciliation Commission (CNR) on March 30, 1989. The URNG referred to what it believes is a deliberate misinterpretation of its signing of the accord. Some political and government entities have maintained that guerrilla efforts towards peace are in contradiction with their recent military actions against economic infrastructure. The rebels statement says that until a just and democratic solution is reached through dialogue, "our struggle will continue to be necessary, legitimate and active". WIDE SUPPORT FOR PEACE NEGOTIATIONS The Social Democratic Party (PSD) became the first this week to publicly declare its support for talks aimed at peace with the Guatemalan insurgency under the auspices of the National Reconciliation Commission (CNR). PSD party spokesperson Gabriel Aguilera said that the agreements reached in Oslo, Norway between the rebels and the CNR "have reopened the door to a political solution to the war which has shed Guatemalan blood for thirty years". The May 10 editorial of the daily Prensa Libre implied that "a high-ranking delegation of Guatemala's foremost political leaders" has already been formed, and will travel to Madrid to meet with representatives of the insurgency in the second phase of the peace process designed in Oslo. Efforts towards peace have also united the Catholic and Protestant churches and the Jewish community, who have been promoting Days Dedicated to Peace and Life with marches, speeches, interviews and other activities. A recent forum organized within this framework concluded that for peace to be achieved, it is necessary to attack the true causes of the war. COVERAGE OF REPATRIATION MISLEADING Despite official statements in Guatemala to the contrary, few of the 43,000 refugees who sought safety in Mexico in the early 1980s have returned to their country of origin. An editorial in the Tuesday edition of Prensa Libre takes issue with the publicity surrounding the matter of the return of the refugees, because the impression given is that at thegovernment level, strong efforts are being made on their behalf. Although official publications have cited the number of persons who have returned from camps in Mexico as 13,000, the Guatemalan agency charged with repatriation reports that 40,500 are still in Mexico which would mean that only 2,500 hundred villagers have returned over the last four years. The public may be fooled by reports that the UN High Commission on Refugees and the corresponding Guatemalan authorities are providing food or building materials to the repatriates, but these commendable efforts are not the issue, according to the editorial. The Guatemalan government has been unable to provide the conditions necessary for the return of the refugees who officials now admit were forced to leave Guatemala to avoid being killed. Upon their return, repatriates find their towns undermilitary control and their lands occupied. They must register their names on lists which, the writer points out, can then be used against them at any time. The Prensa Libre editorial called for a halt to misleading publicity promoted at the expense of the exiles, who are aware that, were they to return to Guatemala, they would be in the same danger which forced them to seek refuge in Mexico eight years ago. The Mexican government, meanwhile, is considering a new law which would create the legal status of refugee. Mexico currently recognizes the case of asylum, but has no legal refugee status, according to the coordinator of the Mexican Commission on Aid to Refugees, COMAR. Esteban Garais said that according to COMAR's figures, over the last eight years, 13,060 children have been born to Guatemalan refugees, and 5,500 have returned to Guatemala. HR ATTORNEY CALLS FOR UNCONDITIONAL SIGNING OF CONVENTION The Special Attorney for Human Rights in Guatemala, Ramiro de Leon, called on President Vinicio Cerezo this week to withdraw reservations to the United Nations Convention on Torture, which the administration stipulated when it became a signer to the convention. The reservations essentially deny the UN Committee on Torture access to places and information necessary to investigations of torture cases, and refuse to accept decisions by the World Court in controversies which involve cruelty. The Association of Guatemalan Attorneys concluded that President Cerezo's government nullified the significance of having joined the convention, and said that refusing Guatemalans access to World Court protection frustrates efforts to obtain respect for human rights. * * * * * * * * * * In the U.S. and Canada you can receive a subscription to Weekly Briefs my mail by sending check or money order to: ANI PO Box 28481 Seattle, WA 98118 Subscription fees in the U.S. and Canada: $9 for 3 months, $18 for 6 months, $36 for one year. Elsewhere, contact: CERIGUA Apartado Postal 74206 CP 09080 Delegacion Itzapalapa Mexico, D.F. Telephone: 5102320 - FAX 5109061 - Telex (17) 64525 PeaceNet address: ni!cerinic Also please send us your comments and suggestions to the Seattle address or by email to gsleicher on PeaceNet. Thanks.