30 April 1998 Edition
Bishop killed for exposing death squads
By Dara MacNeil
On 22 April last, former Guatemalan guerrillas warned that the country's 18 month-old peace accord was in danger of collapse.
Leaders of Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) - now reconstituted as the country's de facto civil opposition - said the danger to the peace accord lay in official failure to confront vested economic and political interests.
The URNG said this failure was in direct contravention of commitments contained in the December 1996 agreement. In particular they cited official failure to institute constitutional changes, begin a process of real land reform and initiate changes to the country's financial and tax system.
Spending on health and education is almost non-existent in this impoverished Central American country, while those with substantial incomes pay virtually no tax.
Indeed, so skewed in favour of the wealthy elite is the system that no less a body than the IMF recommended Guatemala increase its social spending and raise its ludicruously low tax rates. This is the reverse of traditional IMF policy.
In addition, the issue of land reform remains central to any lasting settlement, given that the vast bulk of the country's land is held in huge estates by a numerically tiny, usually white minority.
The URNG warning was important as it revealed that the right-wing government of Alvaro Arzu appears to possess neither the will nor the wit to confront the entrenched privilege that lies at the heart of Guatemala's divisions.
And if Arzu's government - elected by a mere 37% of the electorate - will not tackle these bastions of privilege, how can they ever be expected to tackle the most entrenched of all: the army.
Three days after the URNG issued its warning, on Friday 23 April, Bishop Juan Geradi participated in the launch of a Catholic church-compiled document which detailed army atrocities committed over four decades of military rule.
The document was born out of the work of the Human Rights' office of Guatemala's Catholic Church and had taken three years to prepare. In many respects the document represented a triumph for similar civil organisations, such as the Project for the Recuperation of Historical Memory which, as the name suggests, was established to ensure that the full horror of the years of army rule are made known. The recent document is, in essence, a means to combat the preferred official response to the years of brutality: amnesia.
Bishop Juan Geradi was instrumental in compiling the newly-released document, which was hardly surprising given that he served as Bishop for the Quiche region during the worst years of state terror. An estimated 75,000 people are believed to have been murdered in Quiche alone, many of them during the 1980s.
Indeed, Geradi himself was forced to go into exile for much of that period. He only returned to Guatemala in the late 1980s. His forced exile was mirrored by people like Rigoberta Menchu, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner who was forced to spend many years abroad.
What was crucial about the document presented by Juan Geradi on 24 April, was that it contained crucial information on some of the estimated 150,000 state murders committed during the years of military rule. The data included names, dates and vital forensic evidence. In short, the document provided evidence enough for legal action to be taken on many of those murders.
It also implicated a leading military figure: General Jose Efrain Rios Montt. The General - a fanatical evangelist who claims to converse with God- ruled Guatemala during 1982-83.
During his time in office, an independent human rights body recorded in excess of 14,000 murders. Almost 11,000 of those killed were murdered in a series of large-scale massacres.
This was the outcome of the General's own counter-insurgency strategy of `scorched earth.'
The killings were, by any standards, barbaric. Most are recorded in a publication produced by Guatemala's Independent Human Rights' Commission.
The publication details cases of people being forced to drink concoctions of lethal chemicals; people who had their fingers, toes, arms and legs amputated one-by-one; others who had their internal organs cut from their body whilst still alive.
The problem for Bishop Juan Geradi was that General Efrain Rios Montt is still a powerful figure in Guatemala. In particular he enjoys the respect of many within the army, and the country's wealthy elite.
What the elected government of Guatemala had thus far failed to do, Bishop Geradi had done - by presenting documentary evidence against Rios Montt he effectively confronted the most powerful of Guatemala's elites.
Last Sunday, 26 April, Juan Geradi paid the ultimate price for his bravery. He was beaten to death by unknown assailants at his home in Guatemala City.
His murder bears strong parallels to that of another prominent cleric, Archbishop Romero. A week before he was gunned down, Romero had publicly called for an end to US military aid to El Salvador.
The butchery of General Rios Montt may be extensively documented, but it remains unmentionable. Juan Geradi broke that rule. His crime was deemed to be unpardonable.
The issue of human rights continues to provide a stuttering dynamic of sorts, for relations between the US and Cuba. Though the US once (wrongly) occupied the moral high ground - and covered up its own brutal record in Latin America - those days are coming to a close. Last week, the US delegation to the 54th session of the UN Human Rights' Commission put forward a motion condemning alleged Cuban breaches of human rights.
However, for the first time since 1993 the motion was defeated.
Although 15 countries supported the US, 19 voiced opposition and 18 chose strategic abstention.
The vote has been hailed throughout Latin America as a victory for the southern hemisphere over the rich north. Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina welcomed the result, and characterised the US resolution as part of a process whereby ``the rich have always sought to put the poor in the defendant's chair.''
Indeed, even the President of the UN Human Rights' Commission was heard to welcome the move. Jacob Selibi said the vote showed how a small country could stand up to a more powerful one. Selibi astutely noted that the vote would be helpful for the UN, insofar as it would allow the international body to give priority to more important global issues, such as poverty and access to development. In the past, valuable time, energy and resources have been expended investigating spurious US charges against Cuba.
Selibi's remarks reinforce the impression that many countries have grown weary of the charade that is the US `human rights' campaign against Cuba.
Nonetheless, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - Mary Robinson - has so far failed to condemn either the US campaign, or its blockade of Cuba. Mrs Robinson has been invited to do so on several occasions since taking office late last year.
Her position is in stark contrast to such august champions of human rights as the US Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber, along with retired US military personnel, numerous US politicians, leading US corporations and the Pope have backed moves to end the US blockade on food and medicine. Recent US press reports indicate that the Clinton White House is also supportive of new legislation to end the ban on the export of food and medicine to Cuba.
The current ban violates every known human rights' convention, a fact that appears, strangely, to have escaped the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
On 22 April last, former Guatemalan guerrillas warned that the country's 18 month-old peace accord was in danger of collapse.
Leaders of Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) - now reconstituted as the country's de facto civil opposition - said the danger to the peace accord lay in official failure to confront vested economic and political interests.
The URNG said this failure was in direct contravention of commitments contained in the December 1996 agreement. In particular they cited official failure to institute constitutional changes, begin a process of real land reform and initiate changes to the country's financial and tax system.
Spending on health and education is almost non-existent in this impoverished Central American country, while those with substantial incomes pay virtually no tax.
Indeed, so skewed in favour of the wealthy elite is the system that no less a body than the IMF recommended Guatemala increase its social spending and raise its ludicruously low tax rates. This is the reverse of traditional IMF policy.
In addition, the issue of land reform remains central to any lasting settlement, given that the vast bulk of the country's land is held in huge estates by a numerically tiny, usually white minority.
The URNG warning was important as it revealed that the right-wing government of Alvaro Arzu appears to possess neither the will nor the wit to confront the entrenched privilege that lies at the heart of Guatemala's divisions.
And if Arzu's government - elected by a mere 37% of the electorate - will not tackle these bastions of privilege, how can they ever be expected to tackle the most entrenched of all: the army.
Three days after the URNG issued its warning, on Friday 23 April, Bishop Juan Geradi participated in the launch of a Catholic church-compiled document which detailed army atrocities committed over four decades of military rule.
The document was born out of the work of the Human Rights' office of Guatemala's Catholic Church and had taken three years to prepare. In many respects the document represented a triumph for similar civil organisations, such as the Project for the Recuperation of Historical Memory which, as the name suggests, was established to ensure that the full horror of the years of army rule are made known. The recent document is, in essence, a means to combat the preferred official response to the years of brutality: amnesia.
Bishop Juan Geradi was instrumental in compiling the newly-released document, which was hardly surprising given that he served as Bishop for the Quiche region during the worst years of state terror. An estimated 75,000 people are believed to have been murdered in Quiche alone, many of them during the 1980s.
Indeed, Geradi himself was forced to go into exile for much of that period. He only returned to Guatemala in the late 1980s. His forced exile was mirrored by people like Rigoberta Menchu, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner who was forced to spend many years abroad.
What was crucial about the document presented by Juan Geradi on 24 April, was that it contained crucial information on some of the estimated 150,000 state murders committed during the years of military rule. The data included names, dates and vital forensic evidence. In short, the document provided evidence enough for legal action to be taken on many of those murders.
It also implicated a leading military figure: General Jose Efrain Rios Montt. The General - a fanatical evangelist who claims to converse with God- ruled Guatemala during 1982-83.
During his time in office, an independent human rights body recorded in excess of 14,000 murders. Almost 11,000 of those killed were murdered in a series of large-scale massacres.
This was the outcome of the General's own counter-insurgency strategy of `scorched earth.'
The killings were, by any standards, barbaric. Most are recorded in a publication produced by Guatemala's Independent Human Rights' Commission.
The publication details cases of people being forced to drink concoctions of lethal chemicals; people who had their fingers, toes, arms and legs amputated one-by-one; others who had their internal organs cut from their body whilst still alive.
The problem for Bishop Juan Geradi was that General Efrain Rios Montt is still a powerful figure in Guatemala. In particular he enjoys the respect of many within the army, and the country's wealthy elite.
What the elected government of Guatemala had thus far failed to do, Bishop Geradi had done - by presenting documentary evidence against Rios Montt he effectively confronted the most powerful of Guatemala's elites.
Last Sunday, 26 April, Juan Geradi paid the ultimate price for his bravery. He was beaten to death by unknown assailants at his home in Guatemala City.
His murder bears strong parallels to that of another prominent cleric, Archbishop Romero. A week before he was gunned down, Romero had publicly called for an end to US military aid to El Salvador.
The butchery of General Rios Montt may be extensively documented, but it remains unmentionable. Juan Geradi broke that rule. His crime was deemed to be unpardonable.
Growing support for Cuba
The issue of human rights continues to provide a stuttering dynamic of sorts, for relations between the US and Cuba. Though the US once (wrongly) occupied the moral high ground - and covered up its own brutal record in Latin America - those days are coming to a close. Last week, the US delegation to the 54th session of the UN Human Rights' Commission put forward a motion condemning alleged Cuban breaches of human rights.
However, for the first time since 1993 the motion was defeated.
Although 15 countries supported the US, 19 voiced opposition and 18 chose strategic abstention.
The vote has been hailed throughout Latin America as a victory for the southern hemisphere over the rich north. Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina welcomed the result, and characterised the US resolution as part of a process whereby ``the rich have always sought to put the poor in the defendant's chair.''
Indeed, even the President of the UN Human Rights' Commission was heard to welcome the move. Jacob Selibi said the vote showed how a small country could stand up to a more powerful one. Selibi astutely noted that the vote would be helpful for the UN, insofar as it would allow the international body to give priority to more important global issues, such as poverty and access to development. In the past, valuable time, energy and resources have been expended investigating spurious US charges against Cuba.
Selibi's remarks reinforce the impression that many countries have grown weary of the charade that is the US `human rights' campaign against Cuba.
Nonetheless, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - Mary Robinson - has so far failed to condemn either the US campaign, or its blockade of Cuba. Mrs Robinson has been invited to do so on several occasions since taking office late last year.
Her position is in stark contrast to such august champions of human rights as the US Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber, along with retired US military personnel, numerous US politicians, leading US corporations and the Pope have backed moves to end the US blockade on food and medicine. Recent US press reports indicate that the Clinton White House is also supportive of new legislation to end the ban on the export of food and medicine to Cuba.
The current ban violates every known human rights' convention, a fact that appears, strangely, to have escaped the High Commissioner for Human Rights.