AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 1995
(this report covers the period 1.1.94-31.12.94)
GUATEMALA
The number of extrajudicial executions increased significantly over the previous year. Victims included human rights workers, indigenous activists, suspected government opponents, returning refugees, students, academics, trade unionists and journalists. Several fatalities resulted from apparent excessive use of force by security forces and so-called ''civil patrols'' – civilian militias in which Guatemala's largely indigenous peasants are forced to serve. At least 30 ''disappearances'' were reported, as were incidents of torture, including rape. Harassment and intimidation, including death threats, were widespread.
The security forces continued to commit human rights violations with virtual impunity; little or no progress was made in bringing to justice those responsible either for new violations or for violations committed under previous administrations. Several clandestine cemetery sites were exhumed by independent forensic doctors, who unearthed remains believed to be those of primarily indigenous non-combatant victims of large-scale extrajudicial executions carried out by the army during its counter-insurgency campaign of the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, there were no convictions of those believed to be responsible. Similarly, little progress was made in investigating more recent extrajudicial executions.
In March 1994 the government and the armed opposition signed a un-brokered human rights accord committing the government to respect human rights and to take firm action against impunity. The accord set the agenda for reaching agreement on refugees and the displaced, indigenous peoples, a cease-fire, constitutional reforms and a peace treaty, due to be signed in December. In June, in the context of the un-brokered peace talks, the two parties agreed on a Clarification Commission to look into human rights and ''acts of violence'' that had ''caused suffering to the Guatemalan people''. However, the Commission was due to start work only when a final accord was signed by both sides and it would not be empowered to name perpetrators or initiate proceedings against them.
In August the armed opposition withdrew from the talks, saying that continuing violations were symptomatic of the government's failure to respect the accord; the government countered by saying that the opposition was still carrying out attacks in which civilians died. The peace talks restarted in October.
The March accord also mandated the establishment of the Misión de Naciones Unidas para Guatemala (minugua), un Mission for Guatemala, to monitor compliance with the accord. After many delays, the un began deploying technical set-up staff in Guatemala in September.
There was some controversy as to whether the establishment of a Clarification Commission would mean that the un's Special Expert on Guatemala, mandated to examine the human rights situation in Guatemala and offer assistance to the government on human rights matters, would no longer be needed. In a January report, the Expert called for investigation of past abuses and dissolution of the civil patrols.
Only days after the signing of the March accord, President Ramiro de León Carpio reportedly considered suspending constitutional guarantees and increasing the internal security powers of the armed forces following a wave of violence sparked by the 1 April shooting of the President of the Constitutional Court, Eduardo Epaminondas González Dubón. President de León had been elected by Congress in June 1993 to finish the term of President Jorge Serrano, who was forced to leave office following a failed ''self-imposed'' coup (auto-golpe) (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Judge González Dubón had been viewed as instrumental in reversing the attempted coup. Although a number of common criminals were initially arrested, highly placed government officials publicly stated that there was no evidence to link them to the crime; by the end of the year, there had apparently been no convictions. In October Judge González' son, an employee of the Human Rights Procurator's Office, was dismissed, after describing its investigations into his father's death as ''inefficient''.
The number of extrajudicial executions escalated during the year. Those targeted included human rights workers, indigenous activists, suspected government opponents, returning refugees, students, academics, trade unionists and journalists. By mid-July 1994 the Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala (odhag), the Archbishopric of Guatemala's Human Rights Office, had recorded more than 160 extrajudicial executions. Also in July, the country's Human Rights Procurator accused the government of being responsible for an increasing wave of violence in the country; by the end of the year his office had recorded 287 victims of extrajudicial executions.
Victims included Pascual Serech, a Cakchikel from Panabajal, Chimaltenango Department, who was shot and mortally wounded by three armed men in August. He had been a member of the Panabajal Human Rights Commission which actively opposed forced recruitment into the army, forced service in the civil patrols, and the many abuses, including ''disappearances'' and extrajudicial executions, reportedly carried out by the military in Panabajal. Before he died, Pascual Serech reportedly named the local military commissioner, a civilian agent of the army, and his two sons, as his assailants. By the end of the year, no arrests had been reported.
Manuel López returned to Guatemala from a Mexican refugee camp in May 1994. He was found dead, his hands tied and his body showing signs of ill-treatment, near a temporary settlement for returnees in El Quiché Department in October. In 1992 refugee representatives and the Guatemalan Government had agreed a plan for the return of refugees living in un High Commissioner for Refugees (unhcr) camps in Mexico. The government, opposition and un representatives signed a further accord guaranteeing the safety of all returned refugees and displaced communities in June 1994, in the context of the peace negotiations. Yet, since returns began in 1993, there have been numerous reports of threats, attacks and harassment against returnee communities, particularly in El Quiché, reportedly carried out by members of the army and their civilian adjuncts.
Several street children were extrajudicially executed by the police or government-licensed private security agents. They included 10-year-old Daniel Rosales and 13-year-old Rubén García González who were shot and killed by two private policemen in September 1994 as they slept on a street corner. Two policemen were reportedly detained in connection with the incident, but by the end of the year the case against them had not been concluded.
In August, two people died when riot police and private security agents apparently used excessive force in evicting peasants peacefully occupying the San Juan del Horizonte estate in Quetzaltenango Department to press the estate owners to pay the legal minimum wage. According to reports, police opened fire, killing Efraín Recinos Gómez, a trade unionist helping to bring food to the demonstrators, and Basilio Guzmán Juárez, an estate worker. Several others were wounded, two seriously, and over 40 taken into short-term detention. In September the Quetzaltenango departmental police chief was dismissed on the grounds that he had not complied with National Police guidelines for such evictions. The police said they were considering proceedings against him and that internal inquiries would continue to determine the degree of responsibility of the 300 police agents who participated in the operation. The badly mutilated body of Diego Orozco, a leader of the estate's rural workers' association, was found some 60 kilometres away shortly after those arrested during the eviction were released. Trade union sources alleged that private security police had first tortured him, and then thrown his body from a helicopter.
Over 30 people were reported to have ''disappeared''. In January Lorenzo Quiej Pu, a member of the Consejo Nacional de Desplazados de Guatemala (condeg), National Council for the Displaced of Guatemala, ''disappeared'' after leaving for work. The government informed the un Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances that the police were investigating, but condeg expressed fears that the investigations might be aimed at intimidating other condeg members, particularly Lorenzo Quiej's brother, a condeg leader, and might be related to plans to cause their ''disappearance''.
Alleged victims of torture during the year included Jorge Alberto and Gilberto Moral Caal, who were arrested by police with other Pokomhí Mayans in March in San Cristóbal Verapaz, Alta Verapaz Department, following the beating of a foreign tourist. Townspeople attacked the tourist, a us citizen, believing she was involved in the alleged kidnapping and ''export'' of Guatemalan children for adoption and the organ trade. The attack was one of several similar incidents around that time, which were reportedly instigated by people working closely with the army.
In January, two young indigenous girls from San Miguel Chicaj, Baja Verapaz Department, a Quiché-speaking region, said they had been raped by a group of men led by the local military commissioner, well-known in their area for previous abuses. The girls decided not to press charges after a representative of their village was threatened and insulted when he went to the local military base to file a complaint concerning the alleged rapes.
When victims of violations attempted to pursue complaints through the courts, they, their relatives, witnesses, lawyers and judges involved in the cases were themselves victimized on a number of occasions. Judge María Eugenia Villaseñor was forced to flee Guatemala temporarily in September after she received a series of threats, apparently connected to her involvement in a number of high-profile human rights cases. In July an anonymous caller told Judge Villaseñor he would kill her if she did not drop the cases. Shortly afterwards, a policeman assigned to protect her was seized by men in plain clothes, beaten, and interrogated about her. Judge Villaseñor had been involved in two cases in 1993 in which members of the security forces had been convicted of human rights crimes (see Amnesty International Reports 1993 and 1994). She had also sentenced Noel de Beteta, a low-ranking member of the security section of the Estado Mayor Presidencial (emp), presidential guard, to 30 years' imprisonment for the 1990 killing of anthropologist and writer Myrna Mack (see Amnesty International Reports 1991 to 1994.) Assertions first reportedly made by Noel de Beteta in 1993, that he carried out the killing under orders from a superior, were not pursued (see Amnesty International Report 1993). In 1994 Guatemalan radio reportedly broadcast a tape of Noel Beteta describing how he was given the order to carry out the murder by his superior officer.
Witnesses and relatives were threatened in the course of inquiries into the apparent extrajudicial execution of prominent politician and publisher Jorge Carpio Nicolle in July 1993. A us citizen, the wife of opposition commander Efraín Bámaca who has been missing since 1992, also reported intimidation by officials during her campaign to press the government for information. She believed that her husband was secretly detained by the military; they maintained that her husband was killed in combat (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Foreign forensic experts helping exhume victims who had been extrajudicially executed by the army in the late 1970s and early 1980s also reported threats, as did relatives of those believed to be buried in the clandestine cemeteries.
Amnesty International addressed the government repeatedly, calling for inquiries into reported violations. It also repeatedly reiterated to both the government and the opposition that it was vital for the Clarification Commission and minugua to ensure that those responsible for gross violations in Guatemala in recent years, including massive extrajudicial executions directed largely at Guatemala's indigenous peoples, did not benefit from any sort of pre-trial amnesty that would in effect grant them impunity for violations.
In July Amnesty International published details of a selection of unresolved extrajudicial executions in Guatemala since President de León took office, cases in which sufficient information already existed for a Clarification Commission to initiate immediate in-depth inquiries. The organization also pointed out at that time that since President de León had come to office, it had already called on him to initiate inquiries on over 50 separate occasions involving reported or feared violations against some 300 people.
In March, in a written statement, Amnesty International urged the un Commission on Human Rights to continue to monitor the situation in Guatemala, pointing to the marked increase in death threats and other forms of intimidation. In June the organization drew the attention of the International Labour Conference's Committee on the Application of Standards to recent ''disappearances'' and extrajudicial executions of trade unionists and members of rural workers' associations in Guatemala.
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