/* Written 9:05 PM Aug 7, 1991 by cerisea in igc:reg.guatemala */ /* ---------- "Cerigua Briefs Jul 28 - Aug 3" ---------- */ CERIGUA WEEKLY BRIEFS, JULY 28 - AUGUST 3, 1991 State of Emergency Declared Over Cholera Epidemic Cholera is out of control in the southwest provinces of San Marcos and Quezaltenango, say medical personnel. Four deaths and another 60 cases of cholera have been counted. The total number of deaths, however, is unknown as all are not reported, according to Notisiete television report. At first the Guatemalan government and the business sector sought to restrict reporting on the outbreak of the disease saying that alarm would hurt the tourist and export businesses. One doctor was fired when he announced to the press that cholera had been diagnosed in a patient. El Grafico columnist Carlos Soto wrote that the country will be hit harder than Peru because of unsanitary conditions. Out of the 223,564 cholera cases in Peru, 2163 patients died, according to the Mexican press. Soto expects the incidence of cholera to be high in the capital since 1.2 million of its 2.8 million inhabitants are without safe drinking water and adequate sewage facilities. The epidemic has already reached the towns of Amatitlan, Antigua Guatemala, and Mixco near Guatemala City. Two cholera patients from Mixco were refused hospitalization for lack of space and medicine. The Suchiate and Naranjo Rivers in the southwestern provinces are almost completely contaminated with the bacteria, reports indicate. Most cholera patients have fallen ill after drinking the infected water or fishing or bathing in it. Officials warn that vegetables irrigated from the contaminated rivers or fertilized with fecal matter may be infected with the cholera bacteria. President Jorge Serrano declared a state of national emergency this week. With this action, the government has assumed control of the sale of foodstuffs in the streets and open air markets, and in other areas infected with cholera. Security forces shut down 350 street vendors in Quezaltenango, reported the daily Prensa Libre. CONAVIGUA Office Illegally Searched Uniformed National Police entered the office of the National Council of Widows of Guatemala (CONAVIGUA) shortly after midnight July 28 and searched the premises. The police rang the doorbell insistently, according to the women, while others shouted from the street for them to come out of the house. The police then fired a shot into the air and the women responded that they were not hiding anyone inside. The police entered and seached the house including the upper rooms, and shined flashlights into the faces of the sleeping women and children. A policeman took information from CONAVIGUA organizer Fermina Lopez and the women were charged with disturbing the peace. CONAVIGUA organizers also reported that member Maria Morales was accosted by a policeman outside the office and told to stop participating in the organization. Serrano's national security plan for the Immediate Tranquility for the Citizenry (TIP) allows security forces to enter a site without a search warrant. Supreme Court Chief Edmundo Vasquez has charged, however, that any search without a warrant from a judge is unconstitutional. British Journalist Murdered in Bank Scandal British reporter Anson Ng Yong was found murdered in his ransacked apartment in Guatemala this week shortly after the news broke of the worldwide bank scandal involving Guatemalan officials. Yong was a writer-economist for the London-based newspaper Financial Times and the U.S. publication Business International. According to the Mexican daily Excelsior, he had been investigating illegal deals of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International (BCCI) which involved payoffs to three Guatemalan generals. A nationalized British citizen of Malaysian descent, Yong had lived in Guatemala for eight years. Interior Minister Fernando Hurtado said that the murder was committed by common criminals and no political motive was involved. Homeless Child Found Tortured to Death The body of an unidentified street child was found near a garbage dump in Guatemala City. According to rescue workers, he was about eight years old and showed signs of torture, his eyes missing, and his skull severely damaged. Also, in the neighboring town of Mixco, a student, Sonia Morales Alvarez, was found shot in the head in a place known as "the body dump." The site acquired the name of "El Campanero" in the eighties because bodies were often left there by paramilitary groups. This past July, the bodies of seven victims were found at the site. Mexican Human Rights Groups Protest Guatemalan Account of Invasion The Guatemalan government said the June 4 invasion by Kaibil soldiers into the Mexican state of Tabasco was nothing more than a friendly get-together between Mexican and Guatemalan soldiers. The statement indicated that the soldiers took pictures of each other and conducted themselves as visiting tourists. The Guatemalan statement indicated that Mexican president Carlos Salinas was "satisfied" with the explanation, according to the Mexican daily El Financiero. Mexican human rights organizations will issue a formal protest to the Guatemalan government, which they accuse of sidestepping the disappearance of Mexican citizen Joaquin Lopez. The Tabasco state Attorney General's office has registered the names of the Guatemalan soldiers responsible, plus legal testimony of five witnesses who have confirmed that Lopez was violently kidnapped in Tabascan territory and taken away naked with his hands tied, reported the daily. Amnesty International is already investigating the case of a Mexican woman living in the Peten who was kidnapped by Guatemalan security forces. Clandestine Grave Investigated Four skeletons have been found so far in a clandestine grave opened in the village of Chontala, Chichicastenango, in the Quiche province. When teams of foreign investigators arrived, hundreds of civil patrollers had the area surrounded in an attempt to prevent entry into the gravesite where at least eight bodies are buried, according to the dailies Prensa Libre and El Grafico. Witnesses say that in 1981, a group of armed men dressed in olive drab murdered the victims inside an Evangelical chapel. Civil patrollers have threatened twenty-two relatives of persons buried in the mass grave. The local judge stated that judicial proceedings will continue in different parts of Chontala despite efforts by patrollers to hinder the search for the bodies. At least one hundred bodies are thought to be buried in the area. Inter-American Court Requires Guatemala to Protect 14 Activists The Inter-American Court on Human Rights ruled that the Guatemalan government must guarantee the safety of fourteen members of the Council of Ethnic Communities (CERJ). The activists have been threatened by the Civil Defense Patrols (PACs) or have witnessed abuses by patrollers from the village of Chunima, in the Chichicastenango district of the Quiche province. The unprecedented resolution by the Organization of American States court says that the goverment must report to the Court timely measures taken to protect the activists. Just before the ruling by the Inter-American Court held in San Jose, Costa Rica, two civil patrollers were arrested. Amilcar Mendez of CERJ said the arrest of Manuel Perebal and Manuel Leon from the village of Chunima was a government maneuvre to influence the Court's actions regarding Guatemala. For over a year and a half the two patrollers have operated in Quiche with complete impunity under the protection of both the Chupol military barracks and the local PACs. Cakchiquel Addresses UN Human Rights Group in Geneva Maya-Cakchiquel leader Francisco Cali called on the international community to examine the contradictions between international laws which protect the rights of indigenous peoples and the reality of the peoples of Guatemala. Various aspects of government counterinsurgency policy have primarily affected the indigenous communities, he said. Men and women have been threatened, murdered, and disappeared for protesting military control through the forced recruitment of indigenous youth, bombings and persecution. Despite concrete evidence against those ordering these repressive acts, impunity has become the order of the day and punishment the exception, said Cali. Peace talks between the Guatemalan government and opposition groups have sparked interest among the indigenous communities, especially since one of the complex issues for discussion is the rights and identity of the country's different ethnic groups. Cali addressed the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva, Switzerland on behalf of the Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) and the Guatemalan Peasant Committee of the Highlands (CCDA). 509 Extra-judicial Executions This Year The Guatemalan Human Rights Commission reported that from January 1 to July 20 of this year, the number of extra- judicial executions came to 509: 446 bodies found with unknown circumstances, 19 killed in seven massacres, 40 killed in conflict zones and 4 by authorities, according to the daily Prensa Libre. New Guerrilla Front Emerges The National Police station of Pueblo Nuevo Vinas was attacked by forces of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) in the Santa Rosa province. During the one hour confrontation, three police were wounded and two killed, including the provincial police chief. The rebels escaped with several weapons, ammunition and communications equipment. The daily Prensa Libre reported that some 300 to 400 guerrillas launched the surprise attack, which contradicts the Army High Command's statements that there are only 500 rebels in the armed movement. Insurgent Commander Pablo Monsanto told the Guatemalan press that the operation at Pueblo Nuevo Vinas was carried out by a newly emerged URNG front. CERJ Commemorates Third Year July 31 On its third anniversary, the Council of Ethnic Communities (CERJ) remembered the twenty-five activists of various organizations murdered in defense of human rights over the past three years. CERJ stated that even in the 20th century, the indigenous peoples continue to be dominated by colonialist rule and policies aimed at culturally and physically exterminating them. CERJ reiterated its commitment to eliminating the Civil Defense Patrols and forced military recruitment as well as ending impunity. CERJ expressed hope for a better future for the descendants of the great Mayan peoples. The motto of the human rights organization is "Runujel Junam" which means "Everyone Equal." Army Forces Students to Perform Military Service Eighty university students were captured illegally by Guatemalan soldiers and plainclothes agents and told they must perform their thirty months of military duty, said a student leader. The law states, however, that students are not obligated to serve in the armed forces while conducting academic studies. Student leader Otto Peralta of the University Student Association (AEU) at the University of San Carlos said the students were captured on their way to the university. Fifty were taken to the Mariscal Zavala Barracks and thirty went to the Justo Rufino Barrios Barracks. Catholic Church Backs Safe Return of Refugees Peace has other names - such as social justice, democratic consolidation, and unrestricted respect for the law which does not permit criminal acts to go unpunished, says Guatemalan Bishop Gerardo Flores. "We're not fooling ourselves into thinking that the 43,000 Guatemalans living in Quintana Roo, Campeche, and Chiapas [Mexico] can return home this year," said Flores. "Violence is a daily reality and the impoverished conditions are very harsh in Guatemala: 82% of the arable land is in the hands of 2.5% of the economicly active population. There are thirty-two official languages, the level of illiteracy is at 63% and the population is 73% rural," he said. The bishop remarked that only 2% of Guatemalan farmers actually have land to cultivate. This situation has given rise to the demand for land and is the main cause of the internal conflict, he said, and reiterated the full support of the Catholic Church for the safe return of the refugees to Guatemala. Flores made an official church visit to the Guatemalan refugees living in the camps in Chiapas, Mexico, reported the Mexican daily Excelsior. He is bishop of the Lower and Upper Verapaz provinces, and president of the Episcopal Conference of Guatemala. Illiteracy in Guatemala In Guatemala City, 55% of the population is illiterate, according to the Minister of Education Maria Luisa Beltranena in the radio newscast Patrullaje Informativo. In the rural areas, 79% cannot read or write, Beltranena said. CUC: Happy New Year! "After 499 years of foreign invasions, we are still celebrating the Guaxakil Bac as genuine proof of our resistance and defense of our Mayan culture," stated the Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) in a radio announcement on Guatemala Flash. "We will not forget our ancestors, nor will we allow indigenous history and struggle to be erased from memory...We celebrate this new year with much happiness...We will struggle together for a new dawn...Long live indigenous and ladino unity!" August 5 marks the beginning of the new year on the Mayan calendar. ***************** 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.