Dayton Pledge of Resistance
Special Interest: Guatemala
Call for Guatemalan SolidarityGuatemalan Elections: Rios Montt is Back
(Guatemala Solidarity Network)Guatemala Steps Further Towards its Dark Past (Amnesty International)
Momostenango Project (Marjorie Kovler Center)
Call for Guatemalan Solidarity
(From Portside, the news, discussion and debate service of the
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism)
As you may have been reading in the US press or alternative media Guatemala is in a urgent situation. In elections here Rios Montt, who was responsible for the deaths of literally tens of thousands of Guatemalans in the 1980s and early 1990s, has manipulated the system through bribes and threats to become one of the presidential candidates. Many people are literally frightened for their lives that he may be allowed to run, and that through his power manipulate the electoral process through bribes and fear he may again become president. Major protests are occurring here; it is possible that he might be removed from the running. We, students at Proyecto Linguistico in Guatemala are working to organize in solidarity. I would ask that people in the United States organize rallies at Guatemalan Embassies and call upon the US government to more actively condemn Rios Montt's participation. Also, please check out the Guatemala Solidarity Network and other similar organizinations.
Please forward this e-mail and keep your eye out for more actions and updates!
Thank you,
Jonah
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Guatemalan election
season opens
(http://www.guatemalasolidarity.org.uk/election_season.h tm)
Guatemala Solidarity Network
(http://www.guatemalasolidarity.org.uk/)
As the Guatemalan election season opened in May this year, a number of the major parties, including the ruling FRG (Guatemalan Republican Front), called for elections to be respectful and non-confrontational. However, human rights groups are fearful that Efrain Ríos Montt's intention to stand as the candidate of the ruling FRG party will lead to an escalation of the recent wave of intimidation against the human rights community. Furthermore, the recent re-organisation of the pro-FRG civil defence patrols (achieved through the government's compensation programme) and the financial backing of the drugs lords suggest that the FRG's campaign will be far from clean.
On May 15, 2003 the magistrates of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) officially called the 2003 general elections for November 9. Magistrates also announced that 158 deputies will make up the Congress of the Republic as of November, 45 more than the current number. 331 local mayors will also be up for election.
The FRG chose General Efrain Ríos Montt, who led a coup to topple Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia in 1982 and presided over the most violent period of the Guatemalan conflict, as their presidential candidate despite a ban on former coup leaders running for president. Article 186 of the constitution expressly forbids people who have carried out coups from running for the presidency.
Guatemala's Supreme Electoral Court, which banned Montt, the current head of Congress from running in 1990 and 1995, ruled against him once again in June this year. "The law has not changed," said Miguel Solis, the court official who made the decision. Ríos Montt said he would appeal the decision in the constitutional court. The indications are that he will win his appeal.
US officials and independent human rights groups said they fear that the former president's influence over the courts has grown over the past three years whilst he has served as president of Congress. President Alfonso Portillo has suggested that he did not believe the court would block Ríos Montt's presidential bid. Also working in Ríos Montt's favour will be his childhood friend Guillermo Ruiz Wong who was sworn in as president of the constitutional court in April and who will have responsibility for ruling whether Ríos Montt could legally run for election. "There is nothing stopping Ríos Montt from becoming the next President," he concluded.
Analysts suggest that the former military general has a good chance of winning the election, despite facing legal charges of genocide in Guatemala and in Spain. The FRG has emerged as the richest and strongest political party of the 21 parties which are predicted to campaign since the main opposition PAN (National Advancement Party) split into two.
Many Guatemalans remember Rios Montt as a strong ruler who cracked down on crime, wiped out rebels and brought order to a country in chaos. He can also count on the support of over 270,000 ex-PAC (civil defence patrols) which has been secured by the promise of compensation for their services to the nation (i. e. collaboration with Rioss Montt's brutal repression during the conflict). The reorganisation of the PAC in order to register for compensation has already led to escalating intimidation in rural communities and is a point of great concern to the human rights community and victims of the violence.
In a surprising but welcome statement, the United States denounced the candidacy of Ríos Montt and suggested that bilateral ties would be severely threatened if Ríos Montt took up presidency of Guatemala. It was the first time in recent memory that Washington has explicitly denounced the candidacy of a right-wing candidate for a Latin American presidency. Denunciations of left-wingers, particularly in Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua are common under the Bush administration. "We would hope to be able to work with and have a normal, friendly relationship with whoever is the next president of Guatemala," said spokesman Richard Boucher. "Realistically, in light of Mr. Ríos Montt's background, it would be difficult to have the kind of relationship we would prefer," he added. Those remarks helped spur the State Department to speak out now, according to sources, in order to make clear to the FRG that bilateral ties would suffer if Ríos Montt returned to the presidency.
These bilateral ties are not particularly strong at present, and the US is concerned about corruption, human rights and drugs. The US government estimates that a quarter of drugs entering the US from South America pass through Guatemala and has decertified Guatemala as an ally in the fight against drug trafficking.
Officials who spoke with reporters after Boucher's statement, cited Ríos Montt's 18-month tenure as president in 1982-1983, when his brutal repression included the massacres of tens of thousands of indigenous Mayans and the destruction of hundreds of their villages, as a point of particular concern. Perhaps the two legal cases currently being brought against Ríos Montt on charges of genocide, have had an influence on the US decision.
It is particularly ironic that Washington now considers the former dictator unsuitable given the lengths to which the Reagan administration went to support Ríos Montt at the height of the counter-insurgency campaign. Reagan met with Ríos Montt in Guatemala City in 1983 and insisted to reporters afterwards that the Guatemalan leader had received a "bum rap" from the media and human rights groups, who at that time were reporting large-scale massacres by the military in the Mayan Highlands. After the visit, the Reagan administration lifted the ban on US sales of military equipment to Guatemala that had been imposed by Jimmy Carter, claiming that Ríos Montt, "has taken significant steps ... in promoting respect for human rights". It even circulated a study that attempted to debunk Amnesty International's claims that entire villages were being wiped out.
"We wish the State Department had been more critical of Ríos Montt back in 1982 and '83," said Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch. "We're glad that the US government now, in hindsight, recognizes the gravity of the abuses that took place 20 years ago," she said.
The challenges of the next six months call for a much bigger role for the international community in Guatemala. Let us try to maintain the interest of the International community.
(sources: Christine Laur, CALDH, Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, USA)
Guatemala Solidarity Network 20 Felday Road, London SE13 7HJ
Email gsn_mail@yahoo.com ©Guatemala SolidarityNetwork 2003.
All rights reserved.
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Guatemala: Steps further towards its dark past
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
****************************************
PRESS RELEASE
AI Index: AMR 34/043/2003 (Public)
News Service No: 172
16 July 2003
"Guatemala's government appears condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past, instead of seeking to confront the structures and individuals responsible for gross human rights violations carried out during the armed conflict." Amnesty International stated following the Constitutional Court's decision allowing General Efrain Rios Montt to contest the presidential election.
General Ríos Montt presided over one of the bloodiest periods of Guatemala's armed conflict and, along with other former members of his military high command and those of former President Romeo Lucas García (1978-1982), is subject to a domestic legal suit for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide.
"Rios Montt is implicated in thousands of killings, 'disappearances' and cases of torture comitted during his term as President. The approval of his candidancy is an insult to the victims and augurs badly for Guatemala's post-conflict transition," the organization stated.
As the country prepares for general elections this November, political violence has cranked into overdrive. In recent weeks, human rights groups have denounced a systematic campaign of death threats and acts of intimidation against party activists and independent journalists. Growing numbers of witnesses, lawyers, journalists and human rights advocates are being forced into hiding and exile.
"These patterns of violence are disturbingly reminiscent of the repression of Guatemala's bloody and brutal past," the organization stated.
In a further backwards step, the process of intelligence reform in Guatemala is also being hampered by a lack of will to break with the past. The guatemalan government is at present considering legislation that sets in place the parameters under wich the Secretaria de Asuntos Administrativos y de Seguridad(Secretariat of Administrative Affairs and Security of the Presidency, SAAS), will function. The SAAS is the civilian body that will replace one of the Guatemala's most infamous military inteligence units the Estado Mayor Presidencial (Presidential High Command, EMP).
"We are seriously concerned that the proposed reforms to the legislation may have in place a framework that, whilst civilian in theory, retains characteristics that resemble the military intelligence structures of the past. Such window dressing is unacceptable," Amnesty International stated.
Amnesty International reiterated its concerns that any replacement of the EMP should ensure the subordination of all military intelligence structures to civilian oversight and introduce a process to identify EMP officers implicated in human right abuses, purge them from state employment and bring them to justice in accordance with Guatemalan and international law.
"Without such measures, the replacement of the EMP risks merely 'recycling' its repression into a new unit, perpetuating the cycle of violence and impunity," Amnesty International reiterated.
Furthermore, last week, the day after repeating his pledge to abolish the EMP to the United Nations Special Envoy in Guatemala, it was made public that in June 2003 President Portillo approved a further behind-the-scenes transfer of 14 million Quetzales
(approximately $2 million US) to the EMP from other government dependencies.
"The fact that President Portillo continues to funnel additional moneys to the EMP, despite his promises to do away with this unit, reveals a truly spectacular dissonance between words and deeds," Amnesty International said today.
The Guatemalan government also appears to be taking advantage of the climate of violence in Guatemala to justify further militarization measures. Since 11 July, in a further contravention of the 1996 Peace Accords, more than 300 troops have been involved in combined operations, or fuerzas combinadas, with the Policía Nacional Civil, National Civil Police (PNC), to carry out law enforcement functions in the capital Guatemala City.
"Amnesty International calls on the candidates in this year's election to commit themselves to addressing the disastrous direction the country has taken on human rights matters and reversing the pernicious steps toward re-militarization" the organization emphasized.
"Without clear and courageous action from the country's political leadership, Guatemalans will continue to suffer from the country's bloody legacy".
Background
Despite in theory being consitutionally prohibited from running for presidential office due to his participation in a 1982 coup d'etat , Guatemala's Constitutional Court ruled on 14 July that former military head of state General Efrain Rios Montt, was elegible to run as presidential candidate in the November 2003 elections. This ruling overturned those previously made by other courts in Guatemala, including the Supreme Court.
Officially tasked with providing security to the President and Vice-President, the EMP, often in collaboration with common criminals and clandestine security groups, has conducted surveillance, harassment and extrajudicial executions of key human rights leaders, including Bishop Gerardi and anthropologist Myrna Mack. The 1996 Peace Accords called for the EMP's abolition, but more than six years later, President Portillo has repeatedly augmented its budget. President Portillo has repeatedly promised that the EMP will be replaced by a new unit by October 31st of this year.
Public Document
For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org
For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org