[A-List] Guatemala: Return of death squads

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Return of Guatemala's death squads
By Andrew Bounds
Financial Times; Jun 08, 2002

The bullet that killed Guillermo Ovalle as he was eating lunch in
a Guatemala City cafe delivered a simple message: the death
squads are back.

Mr Ovalle worked for the foundation set up by Nobel peace prize
winner Rigoberta Menchu, one of a number of organisations trying
to prosecute generals responsible for atrocities in the country's
genocidal civil war. Shadowy armed groups now appear to be trying
to intimidate them into silence.

Shortly after Mr Ovalle was killed in what appeared to be a messy
hold-up someone called the foundation and played a funeral march
down the telephone, confirming the incident was anything but
accidental.

The assassination in May was the most serious of a growing wave
of attacks on human rights activists in Guatemala, including
kidnappings, beatings, break-ins and death threats. The methods
have all the hallmarks of those who prosecuted the dirty war
against leftist guerrillas and the indigenous Mayan population,
particularly in the 1980s, and who still fear prosecution.

Six years after the conflict ended Hina Jilani, the United
Nations' top human rights official last week called on the
government to "unmask" the death squads.

President Alfonso Portillo admitted clandestine groups with
military links existed but said he was powerless to combat them.
It is perhaps no coincidence that the attacks are increasing as
the human rights community celebrates the anniversary of its
greatest victory, the conviction on June 8 2001 of three soldiers
for involvement in the murder of a crusading bishop. They
included a colonel, the highest ranking military officer to be
jailed in Guatemala.

Juan Gerardi, the auxiliary bishop of Guatemala City, was
bludgeoned to death in his home on April 26 1998, two days after
presenting an exhaustive report detailing the army's role in
hundreds of massacres in a war that killed 200,000.

The court found Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, his son Capt Byron
Lima Oliva, Jose Obdulio Villanueva and Mario Orantes, Msgr
Gerardi's assistant, guilty of involvement in a murder plot
hatched by the army.

The verdict came after three months of evidence and three years
of investigation marked by incompetence, interference and delays.
It was achieved under great diplomatic pressure from the
international community, which saw the Gerardi murder as a test
case for ending the army's impunity.

However, a year on and with an appeal pending, it looks more like
a one-off victory.

"I think it was a historic verdict. But we cannot talk of the end
of impunity because there are so many unresolved cases," said
Edgar Gutierrez, who worked on the Gerardi report and is now in
government. "It is the exception to the rule."

Such cases include genocide charges laid against former heads of
state, including Gen Efrayn Ryos Montt, head of Mr Portillo's
Guatemalan Republican Front and president of Congress.

A recent UN report said the armed forces remained overmighty and
prepared more for internal repression than external conflict.

In violation of UN-monitored 1996 peace accords, the two units
responsible for most human rights abuses - the presidential
bodyguard, to which Capt Lima and Mr Villanueva belonged, and
military intelligence - have not been disbanded.

Nery Rodenas, one of the church's lawyers in the Gerardi case,
says it is probable that the soldiers' appeal, scheduled for
July, will succeed.

The prosecution evidence was mostly circumstantial. His office
tried and failed to replace the presiding magistrate, who has a
reputation for being soft on the army.

One year later, observers agree, another Gerardi-style killing is
far more likely than another Gerardi-style conviction.

Full at:
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