/* Written 10:04 PM Jul 9, 1991 by cerisea in igc:reg.guatemala */ /* ---------- "Cerigua Briefs June 30 - July 6" ---------- */ CERIGUA WEEKLY BRIEFS, JUNE 30 - JULY 6, 1991 Gramajo Responds to Lawsuits Former defense minister General Hector Gramajo responded to both lawsuits filed against him last month by nine Guatemalans and Ursuline nun Dianna Ortiz. "I am answering this complaint myself without the representation of a lawyer," he said. "I can not afford to retain one. My savings from my soldier's salary and my current pension are barely enough for my family and me to live on. In response to the charges of torture, murder and defamation, I hereby deny each and every allegation." According to one source, the statement presented before a U.S. court is clearly written with the help of a lawyer with all the appropriate legal arguments. General Gramajo recently told the Guatemalan magazine La Cronica that U.S. businessmen who are friends of his had recommended a "prestigious" law firm to represent him. Sister Dianna Ortiz was raped and tortured by security forces in 1989 when Gramajo served as defense minister. The Guatemalan plaintiffs are suing on behalf of their relatives who were tortured and murdered in accordance with Gramajo's brainchild "The National Stability Doctrine." This military plan for Guatemala calls for the elimination of thirty percent of the population. Gramajo received a summons for the first lawsuit as he was graduating from Harvard University. Quoting the late Salvadoran Guillermo Ungo, the Mexican daily La Jornada equated Gramajo's new degree with "trying to put makeup on Frankenstein to enter him in a beauty contest." Murderer Identified in Myrna Mack Case An employee of the records department of the Military Intelligence, the G-2, has been named in the murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack. According to the Attorney General's office, witnesses to the crime identified Noel Jesus Beteta Alvarez as the one of the murderers who stabbed Mack to death as she left her office in Guatemala City last September. Earlier in the week, the Attorney General's office said that Beteta worked in the records department of the National Police, but later issued a public correction. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. At the time of her death, Mack was researching the living conditions of Guatemalans displaced by the counterinsurgency war. She was also one of the founders of the Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences (AVANSCO). Under growing national and international pressure, President Serrano recently named a special investigator to handle this case as well as those of U.S. citizens Michael Devine, a businessman murdered in the Peten last year, and Ursuline nun Dianna Ortiz. U.S. Congresswomen Respond to Myrna Mack's Murder Sixteen Congresswomen placed an ad in a Guatemalan newspaper this week to express their unwillingness to accept the murder of Myrna Mack in silence. The legislators said they were responding as women who would not permit the anthropologist's dreams to remain unfulfilled. The Congresswomen described Mack as one of many Guatemalan women struggling for peace, and as only one of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans who have suffered brutal human rights abuses in their country. They called upon the Guatemalan government to promote, rather than inhibit, the leadership of women. Republican Constance Morella from Maryland and Democrat Pat Schroeder from Colorado were among the signers of the statement. URNG Calls for International Investigation of Drug Incident This week the Treasury Police announced that the military- controlled Citizens' Protection System (SIPROCI) had confiscated 500 kilos of cocaine from insurgency drug- smugglers. The four URNG General Commanders emphatically rejected the charges and called for an international investigation of the incident. The daily Prensa Libre reported that SIPROCI agents saw the rebels traveling in a pickup in the town of La Laguneta, San Francisco, in the Peten. They then discovered the rebels unloading cocaine from a pickup, license plate number P- 236857, at a clandestine airstrip in expectation of a plane to take the drug to the United States. Following a brief shootout, the rebels escaped and agents found weapons, equipment, and URNG literature and banners, according to Prensa Libre. Responding to the government's account of the incident, the commanders pointed out that the airstrip in question actually appears on all maps and is located near the Subin military barracks. The vehicle captured with legal plates, they said, should be used as evidence in identifying the real network involved in the incident. "The infrastructure in the report reveals a legal apparatus, not a guerrilla operation," said the URNG statement released July 4. The amount of cocaine confiscated and the means to transport it, said the rebel leaders, "evidence the impunity of those implicated and the complicity of the authorities." In light of the serious political implications surrounding charges of large scale drug trafficking, the insurgency high command has requested an international investigation. Refugee Declaration on 500th Anniversary 1492-1992 Guatemalan refugees in Mexico released a statement on the eve of the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Europeans to this hemisphere. The statement was from the Permanent Commissions (CCPP) representing the refugees and addressed to the "Discovery of America" organizing committee established by the Organization of American States to plan activities in Latin America commemorating the 500th anniversary: "We, the legitimate descendants of the Mesoamerican indigenous peoples, who have resisted ethnocide and extermination policies, demand justice. It is time to move from symbolism to deeds. The 45,000 Guatemalan refugees in Mexico demand that you, the organizers of the 500th anniversary of the "discovery of America," in solidarity with us, take the necessary steps at the international level so that the Guatemalan government accepts our voluntary, collective, and organized return with dignity and safety." In June, the CCPP presented a six-point proposal to the Guatemalan government for their return to Guatemala. Guatemalan Vice President Gustavo Espina called them guerrilla subversives, threatened them and annulled a prior agreement to discuss the proposal. "We feel deep down the same way our ancestors felt during the Spanish conquest - the pillaging, the discrimination, the ethnocide," read the CCPP statement. Colonel Involved in Massacre Receives Promotion Colonel Jose Luis Quilo Ayuso has been promoted to commander of the Cuartel General "Justo Rufino Barrios" in Guatemala City, Minister of Defense Luis Mendoza announced this week. Quilo commanded the Quezaltenango military zone in November 1988 when army troops kidnapped and massacred twenty-two campesinos in the town of Aguacate, according to the Center for Study and Promotion of Human Rights (CIEPRODH). The Guatemalan Peasant Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) reported that the campesinos were tortured at the base under Quilo's command and that two soldiers were murdered for revealing that the victims were held there. In the military career ladder, the command of the Cuartel General is often one step away from the post of Army Chief of Staff which is a member of the military high command. More Reactions to Peace Process The Guatemalan government is not concerned that human rights violations continue or that democracy remains a distant vision, Francisco Molina said in Thursday's edition of the Mexican daily Financiero. President Serrano needs immediate results from the peace negotiations, Molina asserted, to save his eroded image and to stop the "avalanche that waits on the horizon" over unpopular economic policies. On the eve of the 21st century it is unthinkable to maintain a "democratic" system which keeps in power the very ones who have plunged the Guatemalan people into poverty and violence, stated Molina. Although it is no secret that political parties always represent the interests of certain sectors of a society, political parties in Guatemala represent only the economic elite and its loyal ally--the army, the columnist concluded. In Tuesday's Mexican newspaper El Dia, Marco Tulio Alvarez of Noticias de Guatemala related an incident which took place at the talks in Cuernavaca. When the journalist offered a copy of Noticias de Guatemala's latest monthly magazine to Minister of Development Manolo Bendfeldt during a recess, he tore it up and threw it in the trash, saying it was produced by "evil" Guatemalans. The incident was witnessed by members of both delegations and journalists, said Alvarez. When he apologized later, Bendfeldt accused the Noticias de Guatemala journalist of "throwing more wood on the fire." The minister's behavior reflected government intolerance, contended Alvarez who added: "The negotiations should not be a smokescreen to hide the true situation in Guatemala. Rather, the talks should offer a space for discussion, dialogue and commitments to overcome the country's problems." Constitutional Reforms Necessary for Peace Former Guatemalan congressman Carlos Gonzalez called for constitutional reforms to achieve peace, reported the Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre. He said that the constitution should promote social justice and a more equal distribution of wealth. To enact reforms, said Gonzalez, "genuine and pluralist popular participation is required." He said it is time to make changes to modernize the Constitution without the need for a coup d'etat. The writing of the current Constitution began under General Mejia Victores in 1984, one year after he overthrew the government of General Rios Montt. Gonzalez participated in writing the constitution, a process which took two years. It went into effect in January 1986 when civilian president Vinicio Cerezo took office. Rural Areas Without Electricity Seventy percent of Guatemalans do not have access to electricity, according to electric company manager Francisco Barrillas. "Many millions of quetzales" would be necessary to install the service in the rural areas where there is the highest concentration of the country's population. Official statistics show that Guatemala has 9,000,000 inhabitants with an average monthly income of 86 quetzales, or $17.20. ***************** In the U.S. and Canada subscribe to Weekly Briefs by sending check or money order to: ANI PO Box 28481 Seattle, WA 98118 Subscription fees in the U.S. and Canada: $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 Also please send us your comments and suggestions to the Seattle address or by email to cerisea on PeaceNet.