/* Written 10:33 PM Jul 16, 1991 by cerisea in igc:reg.guatemala */ /* ---------- "Cerigua Briefs July 7 - 13" ---------- */ CERIGUA WEEKLY BRIEFS, JULY 7 - 13, 1991 Congressmen to Ask for Tougher Restrictions on Guatemala Two U.S. Congressmen returning from a delegation to Guatemala will request restrictions on trade and economic assistance toward that country, reported the Mexican daily Excelsior. Representative Jim McDermott (D.- WA) said "the increase in violence and the violation of human rights of Guatemalans during these last months concern the majority of members in the U.S. Congress." Foreign Relations Committee chair Senator James Jeffords (R.- VT) visited Guatemala on the delegation with McDermott from June 28 to July 6. McDermott said the situation will have great effect on the vote for economic and trade assistance to Guatemala. "There is a serious problem in this country. Extrajudicial executions have doubled and there's been a dramatic increase in disappearances, death threats and overall violence," he said. "It's difficult for me to understand why the best and most intelligent citizens are murdered in this country." McDermott also indicated that it would be difficult to renew military aid. New Information on Myrna Mack Case The Attorney General's office has issued a correction on the identification of one murderer in the stabbing death of anthropologist Myrna Mack. Earlier, Noel de Jesus Beteta Alvarez was described as an employee in the records department of the National Police. New information released on Beteta indicates that he was employed in the records department of military intelligence, the G-2. The Mexican daily Uno Mas Uno quoted Guatemalan legislator Oliverio Garcia Rodas as saying "it's no use having the name of one of the murderers if we can't be sure he even exists." Mack was killed last year as she left her office in Guatemala City. Authorities have acknowledged that her murder was politically motivated. Government's New Refugee Policy The new repatriation plan for Guatemalan refugees abroad and the internally displaced requires legal proof of property ownership for the return of lands, according to the dailies El Grafico and Prensa Libre. Those who cannot show titles of original ownership will be settled in similar areas. Minister of Development Manolo Bendfeldt said "we cannot allow the repatriates to form free territories inside Guatemala." The plan says that the Constitution guarantees the repatriates their freedom of movement and association, equality and human rights, as it does for all citizens, reported the television broadcast Notisiete. Carmen Rosa de Leon resigned from her post as director of the Special Commission to Aid Repatriates (CEAR) in protest of the treatment of the refugees. "This kind of attitude," she said, "recalls the days of [General Efrain] Rios Montt," in reference to the regime which produced the largest flow of refugees out of Guatemala during the counterinsurgency campaigns of the eighties. The Permanent Commissions (CCPP) on Guatemalan refugees in Mexico accused Vice President Gustavo Espina of blocking the return of the 45,000 people who want to go home. Espina, who is also president of the CEAR, accused the refugees of being subversives and has annulled an agreement to discuss the CCPP's plan for the refugees' safe and collective return to their original lands. The United Labor and Popular Action (UASP) said the government's attitude toward the refugees presented an obstacle in the process of negotiation for peace. Human Rights Office Asked to Protect Private Property Landholders have asked Human Rights Omsbudsman Ramiro de Leon to denounce the invasions of private property which they say pose a serious threat to the right to own land. The Association of Cattle Ranchers has joined the National Council of Cotton Growers in petitioning the human rights office to protect their constitutional right to private property. Congressman Father Andres Giron, internationally known for his role in the Pro-Land Movement, said that the campesinos must be given their own lands in order to stop the invasions, according to radio broadcast Guatemala Flash. In Guatemala, 66% of arable land is in the hands of 2% of the population. Rebels Attack Former Dictator's Finca Guerrillas attacked the finca of former dictator Romeo Lucas Garcia, burning a tractor and fifty gallons of diesel fuel. The lands are located near Fray Bartolome de las Casas in the province of Alta Verapaz, according to a URNG communique. The rebels held a meeting with the workers on the finca who have been threatened and intimidated by members of the Lucas Garcia family. Land Titles Invalid The National Council for Agrarian Change said that 3,000 land titles to beneficiaries of land distribution programs were misplaced during the previous government. As a result, any titles granted during 1990 and on through July 15, 1991 are considered invalid, according to the daily El Grafico. Kekchis Threatened Kekchi indigenous campesinos told the Guatemalan legislature that unidentified persons are threatening to throw them off lands they have lived on for over fifty years. The Kekchis said that these supposed owners have threatened to have government security remove them from the lands around Coban in the province of Alta Verapaz. They requested that Congress intervene to avoid an incident similar to the massacre of Panzos. Indigenous People Forced to Work for the Army Soldiers and paramilitary agents are capturing indigenous campesinos in the province of Huehuetenango and forcing them to work for the army, according to radio newscast Guatemala Flash. Congressman Enrique Guillen said that during the night, soldiers, civil patrollers, and civilian agents under military command take the young campesinos to "military camps and force them to work on the roads and highways." The worst of it, said Guillen, is that "they carry the indigenous people away bound and tied as if they were slaves." Quiche Residents Call for Disarming of PACs One thousand residents in the province of Quiche called on President Serrano, as Commander of the Army, "to start off the peace process" by disarming the Civil Defense Patrols (PAC). In a communique delivered to the president, residents stated that "since 1990 we have suffered kidnappings, murders, threats, and control by the civil patrols and primarily the patrol chiefs from the village of Chunima." They called for the punishment of the patrol chiefs, citing detailed cases of abuses. In one incident last year, PAC chief Manuel Perebal ordered patrollers to attack members of GAM (Mutual Support Group for the Relatives of the Disappeared) with sticks, clubs, and stones, leaving twenty persons injured. Despite warrants issued for the February murders of two residents, Perebal and another patroller Manuel Lares remain armed and at large. They are protected by the military at the Chupol barracks and by the local PACs themselves. Last June, they escaped capture by the National Police and Treasury Guard, according to a radio ad in Guatemala Flash placed by residents of Chunima and other villages in the Chichicastenango district of Quiche. National Police Persecuting Student Leaders Two student leaders of the Association of University Students (AEU) have been the target of intimidation by the National Police Department of Criminal Investigations. Otto Peralta and Carmen Reyna have been harassed since they denounced the human rights situation in Guatemala before the 47th General Assembly of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland last February. The AEU leaders met with Minister of Interior Fernando Hurtado in the company of San Carlos University rector Alfonso Fuentes to express their concern over increasing harassment of university students and to demand an investigation of recent student kidnappings and murders. Press Censorship Minister of Interior Fernando Hurtado has ordered censorship of reports on acts of violence, according to the Guatemalan daily La Hora. Carlos Soto, columnist for the paper El Grafico called it an "act of moral and ethical corruption and a complete violation of the citizen's right to be informed." Soto said that police routinely remove news stories on government officials and influential people. Decisions as to what the public should know are made in the National Police Center of Joint Operations, said the columnist. Security Plan: Immediate Tranquility for the Citizenry Censorship of coverage of the violence comes in the wake of President Serrano's plan for Immediate Tranquility for the Citizenry (TIP) which calls for more budget money to be allotted for security personnel and civilian dress for intelligence agents. Participating in the new security plan are government security and intelligence agencies, the Ministries of Defense, Interior, and Labor, with the Attorney General's Office serving as consultant on legal procedures. The plan targets common crime with no mention of politically motivated violence, reported the Mexican daily El Dia. Military barracks will be used to hold persons arrested in TIP operations as there are not enough jails, according to radio newscast El Independiente. Police Chief Accuses State Employees of Corruption Treasury Police Chief David Cordon called the workers in customs and migrations agencies corrupt and asked for a law to allow the death penalty for corruption among public employees, according to the Guatemalan dailies Prensa Libre and El Grafico. The Migration Employees Union (STM) attributed Cordon's remark to his years with Lucas Garcia when he served as Treasury Police Chief under that dictatorship. The union described Cordon as a "close collaborator" with the Lucas regime. Armando Sanchez, leader of the National Federation of State Workers' Unions (FENASTEG) called the police chief's statement irresponsible. Amnesty International Report on Guatemala Guatemalan security forces "in or out of uniform" continue to harass and intimidate government opponents, says an Amnesty International report from Caracas, Venezuela. "Death squads are not uncontrollable groups of armed civilians as some governments would have us believe." The report says that the number of children who have died from torture has increased and that the hundreds of victims of disappearance show signs of torture before execution. Fumigations Damaging Staple Crops Chemical spraying in the San Marcos province will cause a shortage of staple foodstuffs in the coming year, said Father Andres Giron, president of the Congressional Human Rights Commission. Fumigations against marijuana and poppy plants by the military and the Treasury police are seriously damaging small farmers' bean and corn crops. San Marcos Congressman Evelio Fuentes said that U.S. anti- drug agencies are also assisting the military in spraying the toxic chemicals. A Mexican paper El Orbe reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was spraying the rural areas of Guatemala along the Mexican border with the highly toxic herbicide Paraquat. Three Bell 212 helicopters and three Ayres Turbo Thrush planes are used by the DEA to fumigate the area, the paper indicated. Mexico Protests Guatemalan Invasion The Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary (SRE) officially protested the invasion by the Guatemalan military into Mexican territory beginning May 29 and lasting ten days. The SRE requested an investigation into the invasion as well as the kidnapping of Mexican citizen Joaquin Lopez by the Guatemalan army on June 4. The Human Rights Commission of the Mexican state of Tabasco said that Lopez is being held at the military barracks at El Naranjo in the Peten. ***************** 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.