Dirty Wars and Democracy

 Latinamericanist – 31 May 2009

It is very difficult to tackle the demons of past conflicts, as is the case with looking back at Guatemala’s civil war. Yet that hasn’t stopped some activists and scientists from uncovering the mass graves of Guatemala’s dead and trying to bring some form of justice to so many victims:

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Upside Down World, April 11, 2009

Source: Mimundo.org
Versión en español aquí..

On January 1976, General Kjell Laugerud, former President of Guatemala, signed the first loan accord with the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) for the construction of the Pueblo Viejo-Quixal hydroelectric plant (1977-1983). Such project included the “flooding of the Chixoy River basin and much of its valley. The newly erected reservoir would directly affect and forcibly disappear 23 villages or localities (affecting around 3,445 residents), 45 archaeological sites, numerous crop areas and natural resources.” Known today as the Chixoy Reservoir, the artificial lake measures approximately 50 KM in length and reaches up to 50 meters in depth. (1)
“During the years of the military dictatorships, various administration and management positions in government-run offices were held by military personnel: the main directors of the National Electrification Institute (INDE in Spanish) and Departmental Governor posts are some examples.” The INDE was directly in charge of the construction and management of the Pueblo Viejo-Quixal hydroelectric plant. (2) Read the rest of this entry »

Written by By Kate Doyle and Jesse Franzblau; Monday, 23 March 2009: Upside Down World

Source: The National Security Archive

Declassified documents show U.S. Embassy knew that Guatemalan security forces were behind wave of abductions of students and labor leaders. National Security Archive calls for release of military files and investigation into intellectual authors of the 1984 abduction of Fernando García and other disappearances.

Following a stunning breakthrough in a 25-year-old case of political terror in Guatemala, the National Security Archive today [March 17,2008] is posting declassified U.S. documents about the disappearance of Edgar Fernando García, a student leader and trade union activist captured by Guatemalan security forces in 1984. The documents show that García’s capture was an organized political abduction orchestrated at the highest levels of the Guatemalan government.

Guatemalan authorities made the first arrest ever in the long-dormant kidnapping case when they detained Héctor Roderico Ramírez Ríos, a senior police officer in Quezaltenango, on March 5th and retired policeman Abraham Lancerio Gómez on March 6th as a result of an investigation into García’s abduction by Guatemala’s Human Rights Prosecutor (Procurador de Derechos Humanos—PDH). Arrest warrants have been issued for two more suspects, Hugo Rolando Gómez Osorio and Alfonso Guillermo de León Marroquín. The two are former officers with the notorious Special Operations Brigade (BROE) of the National Police, a unit linked to death squad activities during the 1980s by human rights groups. Read the rest of this entry »

The Latinamericanist.com – March 24, 2009

Another dimension has been added to the troublesome aspect of adoptions in Guatemala when the government revealed yesterday that civil war orphans had been placed up for adoption.

According to the government investigation, there has been at least one confirmed case of two children illegally put up for adoption after their parents were killed in Guatemala’s civil war. Evidence suggests that hundreds of other orphans from the country’s 36-year war were put up for adoption and were likely taken in by U.S. families said the director of the government’s Peace Archive, Marco Tulio Alvarez.

Alvarez added that the final report is expected to be revealed by next month. Yet what they uncovered was reminiscent of “Dirty War” orphans illegally adopted in Argentina:

“In the analysis carried out, patterns of activity can be established that show the ease with which the adoption procedures were handled to hide the violation of rights of Guatemalan children through forced disappearance,” he said.

Alvarez did not rule out that members of Guatemala’s police and armed forces could be implicated in the selling of the children.

He said that during the civil war, the children of people “disappeared” by the security forces were sent to government-run orphanages, and that some of those youngsters were then sold to adoptive parents.

“In these cases, many human rights of the children were violated” and all the indications found so far “make one think that the business was very profitable”, Alvarez said.

Guatemala had been one of the main sources for adoption by U.S. parents for many years with nearly 5000 kids adopted in 2006. Yet the State Department put a halt to Guatemalan adoptions last September citing the lack of “regulations and infrastructure necessary to meet its obligations under the convention.”

Online Sources- AP, thandian.com, BBC News, Washington Times

National Security Archive, March 9, 2009 (posted in Upsidedownworld.org)

In a break in one of Guatemala’s most notorious human rights crimes, a Guatemalan police officer has been arrested in connection with the abduction and disappearance 25 years ago of labor activist Edgar Fernando Garcma. The arrest yesterday of Hictor Roderico Rammrez Rmos is the result of an investigation of Garcma’s case by Guatemala’s Human Rights Prosecutor using records found recently among the massive archives of the former National Police.

Garcma was kidnapped by police agents in Guatemala City on February 18, 1984, during a wave of government repression targeting the left. He was never seen again. The policy of terror used by the Guatemalan security forces to intimidate and destroy perceived “subversives” during the country’s 36-year civil conflict resulted in the disappearance of an estimated 45,000 civilians and the death of some 200,000, according to the Historical Clarification Commission in 1999.
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GUATEMALA CITY (AFP) – Feb. 26, 2009 — President Alvaro Colom Wednesday formally apologized to the victims of the country’s 1960-1996 civil war, 10 years after a UN-sponsored report came out on the atrocities largely committed by the military.

“As president of the republic, head of government and commander in chief of the army I ask for your forgiveness, because the system was at fault,” Colom said at a ceremony on National Dignification Day commemorating the estimated 200,000 civil war victims.

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