/* Written 3:44 PM Jul 16, 1993 by cerisea in igc:reg.guatemala */ /* ---------- "Cerigua Weekly Briefs" ---------- */ WEEKLY BRIEFS, JULY 15, 1993 Carpio's Widow Rejects Official Version Guatemala, July 14. Marta Arrivillaga, widow of slain politician and publisher Jorge Carpio Nicolle, says she does not believe her husband's murder was the work of common criminals. Carpio is a cousin of the new Guatemalan President Ramiro de Leon Carpio. Arrivillaga questions why officials have failed to question her as a witness, since she was at her husband's side when the murder occurred. Members of the campesino organization CUC also question the official version of Carpio's murder. Among those being held as suspects in the crime is a member of the CUC. The organization believes it is suspicious that this same individual was recently questioned by authorities about his role in the exhumation of a clandestine cemetery in Chichicastenango. The government claims a band of robbers is responsible for Carpio's murder. Interior Minister Arturo Ortiz says the group, known as "los churuneles," killed Carpio when his car had the "misfortune" of passing through a roadblock the criminals had set up July 3 to rob passersby on the highway to Chichicastenango. Ortiz says the assailants were poorly organized with no apparent leader, and that they stole money, watches and a pair of eyeglasses. Police have arrested twelve indigenous residents of Chichicastenango-- alleged members of "los churuneles," and charged them with murder. Authorities say they found stolen objects, a canvas knapsack, guerrilla propaganda, and firearms in the suspects' possession. Chichicastenango police say ballistics tests indicate that one of the guns confiscated was used to kill Lieutenant Colonel Juan Furlan last year. One of the men arrested, Tomas Perez Perez, is an activist with the Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC). The Guatemalan Human Rights Commission has also denounced Perez' arrest. According to journalist Marta Altolaguirre, the assailants left many valuable objects behind. She says also that they wore new rain ponchos and matching ski masks to hide their faces, and that everyone present heard one individual give the order to kill Carpio. This would seem to contradict officials who say the group had no leader. Members of Carpio's National Centrist Union (UCN) party go even further. Arturo Cordova, head of the UCN, says "they took a few things from the people travelling with Carpio to make it look like a robbery, but really the goal was to assassinate the UCN leader." Arturo Amiel, another UCN representative, says Interior Minister Ortiz is "not being clear." Amiel points out that the army, not the National Police, was first to arrive at the scene of the crime. For his part, Ortiz has said that "emotions" are causing party members to doubt that their leader was murdered by common criminals. A legislator who sits on the Congressional Interior Committee says mere possession of URNG propaganda is no reason to arrest people He says everyone involved in the peace talks-- "even the president"--has URNG documents. Carpio's widow made a plea for a more thorough investigation. "We are not accusing anyone of the murder, but we want justice. Because of the violence in Guatemala, I am one more widow." Amnesty International Says Guatemala Among Worst Guatemala, July 13. Guatemala ranks with Haiti, Colombia and Brazil as one of the worst violators of human rights in Latin America, according to this year's annual report by Amnesty International. Security forces assassinated at least 200 civilians in Guatemala during 1992, the report says. Those targeted were indigenous people, grassroots and human rights activists, journalists and judges. The violating countries in Latin America "make no serious attempt to bring to justice those responsible for recent or past violations, and security agents continue to commit crimes with impunity," says Amnesty International. Any debate of human rights issues in Guatemala, however, opens up "a Pandora's Box the army would rather keep sealed," in the words of Horacio Centanino in an editorial in the July 13 edition of the Los Angeles daily, La Opinion. "Just the thought of an international commission reviewing the past sends chills up the spine of the armed forces." A recent series of attacks in Guatemala suggest human rights violations continue unabated. Assailants fired at Father David Berrera as he was driving to his parish in San Raymundo near the capital July 8. Local police officials cited by the Archbishop's office admitted they believe the attack was of a political nature. "Common criminals don't operate that way," they said. In another attack, armed men broke into the home of the mayor of Concepcion, Solola on July 11, seriously wounding the mayor and his wife. In two separate incidents the next day, activists reported they were seized, interrogated and released by unidentified armed men. A Coban representative for the Center for the Study, Education and Promotion of Human Rights (CIEPRODH), Mayra Hernandez Ventura, was accosted while travelling on the highway to Lake Amatitlan. The assailants stole her appointment book filled with phone numbers relating to her work, and asked her about the other CIEPRODH representative in the area. The same day, UNSITRAGUA labor federation leader Byron Morales denounced the kidnapping of a fellow union member, who requested anonymity for security reasons. Morales says the unionist was asked questions about labor counsel Fernando de Leon, and about Morales' ties to a guerrilla group. "One month after the coup of May 25...nothing has changed. The fundamental powers in the society that had inflicted pervasive violence, poverty, and other human rights violations remain unaltered. The military is intact, some believe [it is] stronger than ever," reports former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who led a June human rights delegation to Guatemala. His report calls on President De Leon to begin to demilitarize the country immediately, fully integrate the majority Mayan population into the society, and investigate those responsible for the recent coup. "Every interest with power warns the new president to be cautious, go slow, an argument for the status quo. And the people know that in all the golpes [coups] and new governments of the past forty years, nothing has changed." De Leon Seeks Support Abroad Amid Criticism at Home Guatemala, July 14. President Ramiro de Leon left today for the Brazilian resort of Salvador de Bahia to build international support for his "pacification" plan at the third Iberoamerican Summit. Days before in an interview with a Mexican daily, he confessed that his greatest wish is to complete his two and a half years in office with the signing of a peace accord to end Guatemala's thiry-year civil war. Criticism of his peace plan within the nation, however, may prevent his dream from coming true. There is criticism of the government proposal to ignore previously reached accords that focused on resolving both the war and the problems underlying it. Under De Leon's plan, international organizations would oversee a new series of peace talks between the government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) to end the fighting. Meanwhile, a separate body, called a Permanent Forum for Peace, would bring together diverse sectors of society, including the guerrillas, to tackle the nation's social, economic, and political problems. Critics point out that the Forum lacks both enforcement power and a timeline, which are necessary to make decisions about a human rights Truth Commission and indigenous rights. President De Leon clarified the proposal he announced last week, saying that only the Forum would be convened in Guatemala, while negotiations between the warring parties would continue in Mexico. Union leaders question government ability to guarantee the safety of guerrilla leaders while in Guatemala, given the recent assassination of prominent politician Jorge Carpio. El Grafico columnist Carlos Rafael Soto says that inviting the insurgency to enter the country legally "makes no sense." He says that would put the army in the untenable position of providing protection for the guerrillas while they work to "politically" overthrow the regime. The government, for its part, seems less concerned with the opinion of the guerrillas than of the former mediator, Bishop Rodolfo Quezada. De Leon has made a series of public statements asking Bishop Quezada to accept his new role within the new Permanent Forum for Peace. El Grafico's Carlos Soto says it's a mistake to remove the Bishop from the government-guerrilla negotiations and set him up to lead a "motley and confused" forum. Torture of Child Prompts Call to Suspend Aid Guatemala, July 12. An organization defending the rights of street children is calling on foreign governments to stop funding Guatemala's National Police after two officers burned a 16-year-old boy with acid. Casa Alianza, the Guatemalan affiliate of the New York-based Covenant House, says the latest incident demonstrates ongoing "institutionalized violence by the National Police against defenseless street children." Casa Alianza intends to challenge the extent to which police torture of street children may continue "without affecting funding" by the United States, Spain, Israel and Chile of this "repressive institution." Two uniformed police officers assaulted street child Esvin Flores in Guatemala City on May 22, according to Casa Alianza. Flores says the officers demanded money or stolen goods, and when he was unable to produce any, took him under a bridge where one beat him with the butt of his pistol and the other spilled acid on his face and chest. Casa Alianza director Bruce Harris has asked for a legal investigation but says he is not optimistic. "The case of the child burned 22 times with a cigarette by police in March of this year was never investigated. They make a big fuss and say they'll investigate, but as in the last incident, it never amounts to anything. Impunity rules." The agency says there are 20 outstanding arrest warrants, mostly against government or private security forces for abuse of authority and torture of street children. "Some of the warrants are two years old, waiting for the National Police to arrest its own agents." Another child advocacy group, working to put an end to glue sniffing by Latin American street children, says the Minneapolis-based H.B. Fuller company is violating its widely-heralded 1992 promise to stop production of "Resistol" glue in Guatemala and Honduras. Increasing public pressure, culminating in a special report on NBC's Dateline news program in July 1992, led the company's board of directors to pass a resolution to stop producing and selling solvent-based adhesives "where they are known to be abused" until "alternatives can be developed that effectively prevent product misuse and abuse." But the Coalition insists that an effective deterrent--adding the nauseant mustard seed oil to the glue--has already been safely used by other companies to put an end to misuse. The company's promise to pull its product from the shelves won praise from groups including the Council on Economic Priorities and Business Ethics magazine. But Fuller continues to produce the glue for the industrial market in both countries, and Resistol produced in El Salvador has been found in stores in Honduras, according to the Coalition. "Contrary to public perception, [H.B. Fuller] has not stopped solvent-based glue production anywhere in Latin America, nor has the company discontinued sales in accordance with board policy." Inhalation of solvents is known to cause brain and liver damage, and child advocates have pointed to glue sniffing as one of the greatest problems street children face, both for its immediate health effects, and for the wrath they incur when security forces find them high on glue. Commission Demands President Make Good on Promises Guatemala, July 10. President Ramiro de Leon should officially recognize communities living in hiding in the mountains as civilian populations and order all government branches to do the same, according to a multilateral commission seeking to protect the communities in Quiche province. The Commission, made up of religious, humanitarian, and popular organizations, announced today that a delegation will begin "permanent accompaniment" for those Resistance Communities (CPRs) in the Sierra and Ixcan that have been subject to repeated bombings and harassment by the army. "The President should remember he made a commitment to the CPRs; he named an assistant human rights ombudsman to the CPR in the Ixcan, and offered another to the CPRs in the Sierra," said the commission. While he was Human rights Ombudsman, De Leon called on the Serrano administration to recognize the CPRs as civilian communities. That commission confirmed that the army was bombing the communities when a delegation made a February visit to the CPRs. One of the delegates, a Quetzaltenango unionist, was critically wounded on his way home from the visit. He sought exile after receiving death threats while he was recuperating in the hospital. In late February, bombings of the CPRs forced hundreds of residents to flee across the border to Mexico, where they were pursued by the Guatemalan military. The army maintains that the communities living in the mountains support area guerrilla forces, providing a shield for their operations. Highest Incidence of Cholera in Guatemala San Jose, Costa Rica, July 13. Cholera has hit Guatemala the hardest, according to the Panamerican Health Organization. Over half of the reported 11,000 cases of cholera in Central America during the first half of 1993 occurred in Guatemala. ***************** 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.