The Struggle Against Impunity in Guatemala.

• Date: 22 December 1999
• Author: Mejia, Raul Molina
• Published date: 22 December 1999
• Author: Mejia, Raul Molina

Introduction

ON AUGUST 15, 1999, MR. PARAM CUMARASWAMY, THE U.N. COMMISSION ON Human Rights Special Rapporteur on the Independence of the Judiciary, arrived in Guatemala. The Guatemalan government had invited him to monitor the widespread lack of justice in Guatemala after strong pressure had been applied to it nationally and internationally, particularly at the 1999 Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. After meeting with high-ranking members of the government and judiciary, as well as with an array of NGOs, the Special Rapporteur told the Guatemalan press that the failure to comply with the commitments contained in the 1996 Peace Accords vis-a-vis the reconstruction and proper functioning of the judicial system deeply concerned him.

This is not strange for Guatemalans, who no longer know where to seek justice. After being known for decades as a country where serious violations of human rights were a constant, Guatemala is fast becoming the example of a country with no rule of law. Impunity is a phenomenon that is the cornerstone of the judiciary's impotence. It is important for those seeking justice to perceive international concern regarding the absence of the rule of law, despite the implementation of the peace accords. In the fall of 1999, for example, a sentence was produced in the case of the Xaman massacre, which occurred in October 1995. All human rights activists were outraged by the court's handling of this case, where the responsibility of the armed forces was absolutely clear and no significant punishment was ruled. As a result, Xaman and many more cases where national justice is unfeasible will be taken to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and later to the Inter-American Court for Human Rights.

The profound overhaul of Guatemala's judicial system was one of the extremely important changes to the 1985 Constitution that Congress approved in October 1998. [1] However, those changes could not be implemented unless the population ratified them in a referendum. After overcoming a series of political and legal hurdles, the referendum was finally carried out on May 16, 1999. To the dismay of all of those who fully support the peace accords, the population did not participate as expected (abstentionism was at 80%), and the NO vote won, meaning the rejection of all constitutional reforms. This result was predicated on work performed by powerful right-wing sectors and organizations, which counted on the quiet but effective support of the armed forces and former paramilitary groups.

In the long and difficult process to overcome impunity, Guatemala has seen a significant step forward in the extraordinary report issued in February 1999 by the Commission for Historical Clarification, [2] and two steps back in the rejection of the constitutional reforms. Furthermore, the population, tired of criminal violence and the lack of justice, seems to be on the verge of electing an extreme right-wing government, which may further imperil the full implementation of the peace accords. The future looks bleak, despite the commitment of many Guatemalans, victims and their supporters, who continue to struggle for truth, justice, and redress.

Guatemala: The Land of Eternal...Impunity

Because of the wonderful climate its capital city and other highland places enjoy, Guatemala has been called "The Land of Eternal Spring." However, this country has other perennial, but less pleasant characteristics. One of them is impunity for gross violations of human rights. Since the Spanish Conquest that began in 1524, conquerors, victors, and rulers have enjoyed impunity and silent acceptance of their brutal and widespread crimes. The Conquest itself ended with the decimation of indigenous communities; those who survived were transformed into slaves and later into servants. In 1871, the Reform led by Justo Rufino Barrios expropriated by sword the lands that belonged to indigenous communities; again, poor Indians became a cheap labor force. In 1982, under General Rfos Montt, the Guatemalan government launched a campaign of genocide and scorched-earth tactics against the Mayan population, wiping out more than 440 indigenous villages. All of these historic and recent massacres, true acts of genocide, have been shielded by impunity, and those responsible for these heinous crimes who are still alive walk freely in Guatemala, despise justice, and enjoy all sorts of privileges.

This article will not deal with the crimes of an ancient past. It will rather concentrate on the recent internal armed conflict (1962 to 1996), and the attempt to build peace after December 1996. However, it is good to remember that Guatemala enjoyed a 10-year democratic spring from 1944 to 1954, which was abruptly terminated with the U.S. intervention in 1954. The invasion, financed, organized and directed by the CIA, was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Guatemalans, not people killed in actual combat or sentenced to death by proper tribunals, but people persecuted and assassinated, with no investigation of any of those crimes.

Politically motivated crimes continued after 1954, including the assassination of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, leader of the counterrevolution, by close associates, as well as the elimination of other political leaders, students, and trade union leaders. When revolutionary organizations began the guerrilla war in 1962, the armed forces responded by taking over the government in 1963 and establishing, for the first time in Latin America, the practice of detention-disappearance. [3] A few years later, Algeria- and Vietnam-style counterinsurgency tactics were employed in eastern Guatemala, where guerrilla organizations had set up their fronts, resulting in the deaths of thousands of peasants and workers. In 1978, General Lucas Garcia was installed as president of Guatemala, with the mandate of beheading the popular and democratic movements and eradicating the revolutionary movement. He initiated the most vicious campaign ever in urban areas, killing or disappearing leaders and members of political parties, st udent unions, faculties of the national university, trade unions, Christian organizations, professional guilds, journalist associations, grass-roots organizations, and so on. Yet the worst phase of counterinsurgency criminality was still to come.

In 1982, a coup d'etat against Lucas Garcia installed General Rios Montt as the head of government. He ruled from March 1982 to August 1983. In this period, over 70,000 persons were killed, particularly in the western highlands, and one million inhabitants, mainly indigenous peasants, were forced from their homes. Some 200,000 crossed the borders and became refugees in Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. Many others went into hiding in the mountains of Guatemala. The rest became internally displaced persons, living a marginalized life in the urban areas of Guatemala. [4]

Rios Montt was ousted by the armed forces in August 1983, and General Mejia Victores replaced him. Recently discovered in Washington, D.C., was a list of 183 people captured by the armed and security forces under Mejia Victores that was written as a report by a member of the armed forces (National Security Archive, 1999). Most of those captured were killed or disappeared. Mejia Victores denies ever having allowed such crimes to happen, and the army officially denies the authenticity of the document. Again, the purpose is to avoid investigation and prosecution. After the 1985 elections, the Mejia Victores government was replaced by the "democratic governments" of Vinicio Cerezo, Jorge Serrano, Ramiro de Leon, and Alvaro Arzu. Thousands of politically motivated crimes were added in the 1985 to l996 period, with very limited efforts by the Guatemalan state to eliminate impunity. Even today, the brutal assassination of Bishop Juan Gerardi in April 1998 stands as one of the most blatant cases of official cover-up , despite the assistance of the FBI in the investigation and the monitoring of the United Nations Mission for Guatemala (MINUGUA). [5]

Not a single case before 1986 was ever investigated. Very few between 1986 and 1996 were opened; even fewer were properly dealt with, and the situation ha not significantly improved since the signature of the peace accords. However today Guatemala counts on the extraordinary Clarification Commission's report, "Memory of Silence," which blames the Guatemalan state and its armed an security forces for 93% of the 200,000 mortal victims from 1962 to 1996. This report should be the basis of an extraordinary effort against impunity. Nevertheless, limitations to effective investigations persist, which are examined later in this article.

The Many Faces of Impunity in Guatemala

In an earlier co-authored work (McSherry and Molina, 1992), we identified three categories of impunity: (a) structural impunity, or the mechanisms and structures, institutionalized and legalized in the state, that serve to protect those who abuse state power; (b) strategic impunity, the active measures taken by state officials at specific moments, including laws, decrees, amnesties, or pardons to derail processes of, or demands for, truth and justice; and (c) political/psychological impunity, a dimension resulting from state terrorism, by which political options in a polity are restricted and controlled through the state's manipulation of fear. We review these three dimensions here in light of developments between 1992 and 1999.

The Structural Dimension

Our above-mentioned article examined structural means of impunity, particularly focusing upon Guatemala's 1985 Constitution and the system of military courts. When the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) negotiated the final peace accords with the government, it insisted on the need to reform the 1985 Constitution and to transform the military courts. The fundamental...