/* Written 6:02 PM May 6, 1994 by cerisea in igc:reg.guatemala */ /* ---------- "Cerigua Weekly Briefs" ---------- */ CERIGUA WEEKLY BRIEFS, NUMBER 15, MAY 3, 1994 Parties To Discuss Fate of Violators Mexico City, May 2. Representatives of the government and the URNG met today in Mexico City to begin talks on the formation of a Truth Commission to investigate "past" human rights violations, according to government peace commission president Hector Rosada. Final discussions on the Truth Commission will take place in Oslo at the end of May, Rosada said. Last week Guatemalan clerics gathered at an Ecumenical Forum called for the formation of a Truth Commission to investigate past human rights abuses, and to guarantee the safety of returning refugees. An anonymous death threat circulated last month against the religious organizations that took part in the forum suggests that some want to prevent public debate on the issue. The establishment of a commission to identify those responsible for human rights violations committed during the three-decade civil war has been a major stumbling block in the negotiation process, but grassroots groups say it is essential. Survivors groups like GAM and CONAVIGUA, which first organized to demand the return of disappeared family members, say without a truth commission, reconciliation will be impossible. Speaking at the Ecumenical Forum, military representatives said the army would cooperate with any commission investigating human rights violations committed during the armed conflict, as long as it was "universal, just and equitable". Defense Minister General Mario Enriquez, however, was critical of a possible Truth Commission. Such a commission could have "biased objectives and try to damage the moral of the army," he said. But if the government accepted the proposed commission, the army would respect its conclusions, he added. A death threat that circulated in the week before the forum accused religious organizations of "making declarations and holding forums that defend the ideology and struggle of the URNG." The letter targets in particular the Assembly of Civilian Sectors headed by Monsignor Quezada Toruno. This Assembly was set up to provide a forum for citizens groups to present their views to the government and the URNG. Armed Conflict and Verbal Battles Continue Guatemala, April 30. As both sides negotiate to bring Guatemala's armed conflict to an end before the end of the year, army and guerrilla fighting continues. Presumed guerrillas, in two separate incidents, ambushed groups of soldiers, just after an army general declared Guatemala's rebel forces "dead." Reports in the Mexico City daily excelsior of an army offensive against guerrillas along the Mexican border indicate that military strategists aren't counting the rebels out. Four soldiers were taken to a military hospital, after being wounded by guerrillas who had blocked traffic along the Pan American highway at Columba Costa Cuca, Quetzaltenango on April 27. The day before, five reporters accompanying a military patrol witnessed an ambush by presumed guerrillas in Playa Grande, Quiche in which two soldiers were killed and two wounded. One of the journalists, Mario Reyes Barrios, said the patrol of 25 was attacked by six rebels, who later took refuge in the forest. General Victor Vasquez Echeverria, commander of the Santa Cruz del Quiche army base, had said the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) was a "cadaver, and the only thing left was to open up a grave and bury it." "Militarily, the guerrillas are under control," he said. "The terrorist delinquents fire three bullets at an army base so they can later count it as a military action." Norway, which has had a strong diplomatic role in negotiations to end Guatemala's 33-year civil war, will send a delegation of army officers to Guatemala on May 3 to meet with high-ranking army officers. From there, they will travel to Mexico to meet with guerrilla leaders. Norway will host talks to discuss the creation of a Truth Commission in late May. Judge on Military Case Receives Death Threats Guatemala, April 30. A judge is being threatened with death after he overturned the decision of a military court that granted full liberty to two generals allegedly involved in a fraudulent helicopter purchase. Appellate Judge Mario Diaz said he began receiving threats by phone soon after he ruled that there was indeed sufficient evidence to resume proceedings against former Defense Minister Hector Gramajo and General Edgar Godoy for their role in the illegal procurement of Sikorsky helicopters in June 1988. Two years ago, another judge hearing the case, Raul Perez Santos, was forced to seek exile in Canada after escalating harassment culminated in a beating by four armed men. The generals participated in the purchase of three Sikorsky helicopters from the government of Jordan, through a Miami- based arms dealer. The price of the helicopters rose to five million dollars, from the original two million, apparently to accommodate pay-offs to the two generals and to the brother of then-president Vinicio Cerezo. A 1991 Time magazine report linked the Jordanian brokering the deal, Munther Bilbeisi, to the BCCI banking scandal. Former prisoner Jorge Lemus gathered testimony from jailed soldiers who were subordinates of the generals. He says he will also turn over to the Attorney General evidence of General Godoy's involvement in the 1990 murder of U.S. citizen Michael Devine and the 1991 murder of Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack, according TV Notisiete reports of April 26. Judges in this same court received death threats while hearing the Myrna Mack case last year. An army specialist who has threatened to name the officers who ordered the murder is in jail for the murder. Death Penalty for Kidnappers Guatemala, May 1, 1994. Congress has passed a bill allowing the death penalty for kidnappers of children and the elderly. The government- sponsored penal reform recommends capital punishment for cases where the victim is under 12 or over 60 years of age, seriously injured, suffers psychological trauma or is killed. Since most kidnap victims are political activists, some say the legislation intended to appease wealthy families who have been victimized by kidnappers and to calm widespread fears of "baby-snatching," rather than to end the "disappearances" which have long plagued Guatemala. Legislators say they passed the death penalty for kidnappers to "end the wave of violence" against business leaders and their families, and trade unionists, and to stop the abduction of minors. President Ramiro de Leon, who proposed the reform, said abduction has become "a lucrative business" in Guatemala. Agribusiness executive Fraterno Vila Giron, who was kidnapped by men wearing Mobile Military Police uniforms, was released yesterday after three months' captivity. Despite the new legal measures, fear that strangers are stealing children has not subsided. The presence of Guatemalan census takers in Chaparroncito, Ipala, Chiquimula so frightened the children of a rural school that they ran to find their parents, who chased the government workers away armed with sticks and rifles. Capital punishment will not end kidnaping or resolve any of the nation's other problems, say Guatemalan grassroots leaders. Armando Sanchez of the trade union federation FENASTEG, said the new law does nothing to end "the corruption which exists in the application of the law," while 1992 Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu said the death penalty is no way to combat crime, since it doesn't "correct the social problems" which give rise to delinquency. According to popular organization leaders, impunity and lack of law enforcement enables ongoing kidnaping and disappearances. The Guatemalan Human Rights Commission reports 192 extra-judicial executions during the first ten months of former Human Rights Ombudsman De Leon Carpio's administration, most of the victims rural peasants. Other human rights violations under the De Leon government include 35 cases of people detained or disappeared, 117 attempted murders and 303 death threats. Refugees to Fly Home Mexico, April 28. Another 210 Guatemalans left Mexico yesterday and joined the 13,000 refugees who have returned home, according to CEAR, the Guatemalan government repatriation agency. After more than a decade in exile, refugees from 15 camps in Chiapas entered Guatemala accompanied by representatives of national and international organizations. They are to make their way to communities in San Marcos and Huehuetenango, said CEAR spokesperson Mario Castaneda. The next group of refugees scheduled to return will travel in Hercules planes provided by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), he added. Until now returnees have crossed the border in bus caravans, but the 446 families planning to return May 13 will fly from Mexico to Playa Grande in the Ixcan, Quiche. According to CEAR, more than 3,000 refugees have returned home so far this year. Refugees resettling in Peten province say the Guatemalan government is making their resettlement more difficult. Representatives of the Northern Return (Vertiente Norte) say CEAR is backing out of commitments it made in October 1992 accords to help acquire land. Specifically, CEAR has prohibited refugees from settling the "El Quetzal" plantation, in La Libertad, which was chosen with government approval after passing environmental impact tests. The Northern Return says groups of exiles headed for the San Cayetano plantation will reenter Guatemala May 10, and others going to El Quetzal will cross the border June 27. Parliament Warns Against Free Trade Agreement Guatemala City, May 3. Joining the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would devastate the Central American regional economy, the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) has warned. "Central America is not ready to compete with the three nations that form the largest market in the world," in the words of PARLACEN's Commission for the Promotion of Exports and Investment. "A large part of the [region's] agricultural and industrial producers, unable to compete [with U.S. companies] would go under." A partnership with the North American trade bloc would eliminate the preferential treatment Central American nations currently enjoy under the Generalized System of Preferences and the Caribbean Basin Initiative. Through those programs, most products from Central American nations currently receive the same access to U.S. markets as Mexican goods. Textiles, sewn garments, and sugar are the exceptions. The PARLACEN Commission also warned that a free trade agreement with the United States would worsen the region's already large trade deficit with that country. Businesses would focus on competing on the world market, rather than on producing goods for domestic consumption to substitute for imported ones. Official figures for 1993 have not yet been released, but in 1992 Guatemala imported about twice as much as it exported. Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua are currently discussing the possibility of signing a free trade accord with Mexico. Costa Rica has already signed one. One World Bank official says Latin American nations also need to set up "social security networks" to protect the "poorest of the poor" from bearing the burden of economic adjustment policies. Data from Bank Vice President for Latin America, Norman L. Hicks, suggest Guatemala's poor may be in the most precarious position in the American continent. Hicks said Guatemala and Brazil have the most uneven distribution of wealth in the region. The poorest 20% of the population possesses only 2% of the nation's income, compared to an average of 4% in other Latin American nations. Elections Back On Guatemala, April 28. Elections to select new Congressional representatives one year early are on back on track, after the Constitutional Court reversed a temporary suspension. Last week the Supreme Court upheld an injunction filed by MAS legislator Carlos Arroyave that early elections violated his right to complete his term in office. The Constitutional Court, however, found no basis for the suit, leaving the elections to take place as scheduled, on August 14. The Constitutional Court also rejected a suit by four citizens that the constitutional reforms promoted by the De Leon government are unconstitutional. Some politicians had called for the suspension of MAS' registration as a political party because of its attempt to postpone the elections. But the party of ex-President Serrano seems to have preempted further criticism by expelling Arroyave, author of the fated injunction, from its ranks. ***************** 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. 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