FIGHTING IMPUNITY FOR GENOCIDE IN GUATEMALA

(Another world is possible – Everyday in 2008)

 

BELOW:  “No More Military Impunity”, a photo essay by James Rodriguez about HIJOS (the text written by HIJOS), and “Oops, We Made a Mistake – Apologizing for Genocide”, a 1999 article by Grahame Russell, addressing the role the USA in Guatemala’s genocide.

 

Since 1995, Rights Action has funded and worked with dozens of CBOs (community based organizations) in Guatemala – including HIJOS [see below] - dealing with the crimes and trauma of the past (exhuming mass graves, building commemorative monuments and museums) and participating in legal and political efforts to have justice done for the genocide and State repression of 1960-1996, and particularly of 1978-1983.

 

To get on-off this elist: info@rightsaction.org.  Please redistribute this info all around.  WHAT TO DO: ver abajo.

 

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Wednesday, January 2, 2008

No More Military Impunity

Guatemala City, December 27, 2007

Text: Communiqué by H.I.J.O.S.
Photography & Sp-Eng Translation: James Rodriguez, www.MiMundo.org

 

“A number of social sectors rejected the December 13, 2007 ruling by the Constitutional Court (Guatemala’s highest judicial body), as it declared that Spain had no jurisdiction in prosecuting five former military leaders (including three former heads of state) and two civilians. All seven have been accused of Genocide during the 1980s as well as participating in the burning down of the Spanish Embassy on January 31, 1980, where 37 people were killed, including several Spanish citizens. Nearly 30 years have passed since hundreds of massacres took place and not a single person has been processed by law.” (1)

H.I.J.O.S. Guatemala emitted the following communiqué and … pronounced its opinions in public spaces.

FACING SUCH MILITARY IMPUNITY, WHICH ROAD IS LEFT FOR US?

 

 

By handing complete impunity to the high-ranking military officials responsible for Genocide between 1978 and 1985, the Guatemalan Judiciary system has stricken a severe blow against Justice. We, the children and family members of the hundreds of thousands of victims forcibly disappeared, tortured, and massacred, firmly REJECT THE CURRENT GUATEMALAN JUDICIARY SYSTEM AND DEMAND AN END TO IMPUNITY WHICH FEEDS THE EXISTING SYSTEM OF VIOLENCE.

 

In our history, there have been numerous processes seeking to build a different JUSTICE in Guatemala. Such processes, in conjunction with those involving popular resistance, have attempted to vindicate true justice which, along with dignity, remains as a key element which could and will pave the road to true equality.

 

Numerous different movements, including the revolutionary ones comprised by labor unions, teachers, students, peasants, and indigenous folk, in addition to the historical ones which have sought to find those forcibly disappeared by the Guatemalan State, have vindicated Justice from a perspective of transformation: Handing to the people once again what is rightly theirs, instead of snatching it away and giving it to the few who control the most.

 

Today, most of us who raise our voice were born and raised under the imposition of laws which defend a regime who has imposed its own justice by means of privileged courtrooms, clandestine prisons, mass graves, and torture centers, where military rule was applied to strictly benefit business interests by the methodic use of rape, mutilation and horrific torture methods like nail-pulling.

 

 

This so-called Law became a tool and weapon of mass destruction as the military governments’ plans were designed to scorch the earth and drain the water from the fish.

As we continued to grow, true justice continued to be rejected in the justice tribunals: First, because the accused commissioner was the General’s nephew, then, because the assassin was the sugar baron.

 

In such ways, the judiciary processes which we have witnessed have granted complete freedom to assassins by means of immunity and impunity. The civilian governments which one day claimed to stop the cycle of military coups, ended up protecting those who would oppress at their orders and, by doing so, placed a stronghold on their model of justice so as to truly open up to the global market and apply their neoliberal plans.

In the end, the LAW which they have imposed on us is the same one we reject, that which attempts against our wellbeing: a Law synonym with repression and impunity.

 

We once again vindicate and pledge our support to the true JUSTICE which will transform this system. And, as we continually decline the acceptance of their rotten system of laws and justice, we have and will continue to be pursued, harassed, and criminalized by the rich.

 

These self-named patriots, veterans in the application of terror, often seek justice outside our own borders. Yet, when it arrives, they once again recall the anticommunist speech despite having blatantly sold out our nation to the Empire of the North.

Nowadays, assassins and sell-outs constantly speak of Justice. Yet, simultaneously, they attempt to forcibly submit us to their insane plan for forgiveness as well as a reconciliatory plan imported from the minds of the north. How can reconciliation truly exist when justice is denied for the nation’s dead while the assailants mock history?

 

These are the reasons why we walk our path, raise the utopist banners of life, and refuse to give up our struggles: so as to justify the amnesia of the genocidal and betraying army. When the time comes, liberty will be denied to them; Justice will be on our side.

 

We will not give back the Justice which they imposed on us, because thanks to the example set by our heroes and martyrs we firmly believe that those who have carried out the orders are not the intellectual actors. Instead, we will direct our forces against those who have manipulated the system in order to maintain hegemony.

 

For us, JUSTICE will come on the day when all Guatemalans break the silence and point out those responsible. On the day when the monuments honoring assassins are brought down and instead, memorials honoring our loved ones are erected - They who offered their lives for political transformation for the masses. The day when Education retells the true history. The day when all families can go to a grave and mourn their loved ones who were forcibly disappeared. The day when the military can accept their mistake of having served the rich as well as foreign interests. The day when the soldiers, themselves sons of peasants, will turn about and offer their weapons to the service of the people and so as to signal those responsible for the economic and military atrocities.

 

Until that day comes, and while criminals and assassins continue to be freed and protected by the LAW of IMPUNITY, MEMORY and JUSTICE will continue to pursue them as well as the ones who today make the mistake of shielding those who have stained our history with blood and hunger.

 

The Impunity imposed today signifies that the people will have to build, from their own history, the processes of a struggle which will lead to the consolidation of Justice and Truth, in addition to the signaling, trial, and collective incarceration of the military and oligarchic assassins.

We reject and repudiate the high-ranking military officials and their accomplices responsible for impunity.

 

We don’t Forget, we don’t Forgive, we won’t Reconciliate. Justice Now!!

-H.I.J.O.S. (Acronym for: Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice, against Forgetfulness and Silence)

1 Orantes, Coralia. “Rechazan resolución de la CC en caso España”. Prensa Libre, December 18, 2007.

 

For more info, or to contact James Rodriguez: www.mimundo.org

 

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OOOPS, WE MADE A MISTAKE - APOLOGIZING FOR GENOCIDE!

By Grahame Russell, 1999

 

“For the United States, it is important that I clearly state that support for [Guatemalan] military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong.  The United States must not repeat that mistake”. (President Clinton, New York Times, March 11, 1999)

 

That is what President Clinton said.  That is all.  Clinton had traveled to Guatemala to meet with Central American leaders.  While there, he decided to “apologize” for 40 years of US-supported repression in Guatemala.

 

The President’s words were duly reported in the mainstream press.  That was all.  There was no outrage from editorialists and regular op-ed pundits; no public calls for judicial inquiries from high-ranking politicians.  No call for an Iternational Tribunal.  But for grassroots social justice and human rights groups, no critical comments were heard.

 

Not even the fact that United Nations Commission for Historical Clarification (“CEH”), whose report – “Memory of Silence” - was released February 25, 1999, concluded that genocide was committed in numerous Mayan-dominated regions of Guatemala, caused US politicians, pundits and academics to pause and reflect.

 

Seemingly, the US can provide direct and indirect economic, political and military support to repressive regimes that commit widespread atrocities against their own civilians, and then, once the worst years of repression are past, the US can clear its record by saying, in effect, “Ooops, we made a mistake.  We’re sorry.”

 

What the US did in Guatemala (and many other countries) over the past 40 years was not a “mistake.”  The US intentionally provided economic, military and political support to the Guatemalan military, police and death squads, that killed and disappeared over 250,000 mostly Mayan civilians, displaced 1,000,000 more from their rural homes and communities, and used torture and rape as tools of repression and terror.

 

[The Commission for Historical Clarification did not investigate or report on how many Guatemalans died over the past 40 years due to the imposed conditions of poverty, i.e. systematic violations of economic, civil, cultural, social and political rights.  However, the report does go into detail – see below - about the nature of the social-political-economic order that the US was supporting in Guatemala, an order that intentionally kept a majority of the population in conditions of poverty]

 

Clinton’s apology for “mistakes” actually serves to further cover-up the criminal nature of US policy and actions.  “The apology” serves to fortify the impunity with which the US often carries out its foreign policy.

 

MEMORY OF SILENCE

The UN’s Memory of Silence report goes further than any previous human rights report in analyzing the underlying causes of the conflict and reporting on the extent of the devastation, killing and loss.  Memory of Silence confirms what many grassroots social justice and human rights organizations have documented and argued in the past -- conclusions that were usually silenced or censored in the US.

 

Since 1954, systematic violations of political and civil rights (including massacres, disappearances, assassinations, torture and rape) have been the norm in Guatemala.

Racism against the Mayan majority has played a determinant role in the repression and historical economic exploitation.

The military-security apparatus (with the approbation and participation of the political and economic elites) has permeated most sectors and aspects of society.

The judicial and political systems have long been ineffectual and\or complicit in the repression.

 

HUMAN RIGHTS CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD IN CONTEXT

The report insists that to properly understand what happened in Guatemala, human rights work must analyze historical contributory factors, as well as the policies and roles of different actors, both inside the country and internationally.  To properly report on the repression in Guatemala, the CEH insists, one must go back to 1954 when the US orchestrated the military coup against the government of Jacobo Arbenz, ending the only 10 years of democracy in Guatemalan history, inaugurating the military regime and repression to follow.

 

After the coup, President Eisenhower’s administration called Guatemala a “showcase of democracy and development.”

 

“A SYSTEM OF MULTIPLE EXCLUSIONS”

Discounting anticommunist propaganda used in the US, and the west in general, to justify support for repression, Memory of Silence sets out the underlying causes of social justice and rebellion in Guatemala:

 

“The structure and nature of economic, social and cultural relations in Guatemala are marked by profound exclusion, antagonism and conflict – a reflection of its colonial history.  …  The anti-democratic nature of the Guatemalan political tradition has its roots in an economic structure marked by the concentration of productive wealth in the hands of a minority.  This established the foundations of a system of multiple exclusions. …”

 

THE ROLE OF THE STATE

“The State gradually evolved as an instrument for the protection of this system, guaranteeing the continuation of exclusion and injustice. …  [Moreover], the absence of an effective state social policy, with the exception of the period from 1944 to 1954, accentuated this historical dynamic of exclusion. …”

 

“The legislative branch and the participating political parties also contributed, at various times, to the increasing polarization and exclusion, establishing legal norms which legitimized the regimes of exception and the suppression of civil and political rights. …”

 

“VICIOUS CIRCLE”

“Thus, a vicious circle was created in which social injustice [systemic violations of economic, political, civil, cultural and social rights] led to protest and subsequently political instability, to which there were always only two responses: repression [systemic violations of certain political and civil rights] or military coups.”

 

“Faced with movements proposing economic, political or cultural change, the State increasingly resorted to violence and terror in order to maintain social control.  Political violence was thus a direct expression of structural violence.”

 

Similar conclusions could be reached about other countries where the US supported unjust political, racial and economic orders, held in place by repressive regimes.

 

GENOCIDE

Confirming that the US-backed army and related security forces were responsible for 93% of the political and civil rights violations (the URNG armed rebels were responsible for 3%), Memory of Silence concluded that genocide was planned and carried out by the State in numerous Mayan regions of the country.  Christian Tomuschat, head of the CEH, reported:

 

“The Mayan population paid the highest price for the logic of the armed conflict. … In various regions of the country, the military identified groups of Mayan people as natural allies of the guerillas. … This fact is evidenced by the aggressive, racist and extremely cruel nature of the violations that resulted in the massive extermination of defenseless Mayan communities.”

 

Memory of Silence:

 

“Through the massacres and so-called scorched-earth operations planned by the State forces, complete Mayan communities were exterminated, and their homes, livestock, crops and other means of survival were destroyed.  The CEH registered 626 massacres attributed to the [State] forces.  The massacres, scorched-earth operations, forced disappearances and executions of Maya authorities, leaders and spiritual guides were … an attempt …, above all, to destroy the cultural values that ensured cohesion and collective action in Maya communities.”

 

Responding to a question about genocide in Guatemala, and the role of the US, Christian Tomuschat said “the United States knew perfectly well what was going on.  It raised no objection and it continued its support for the Guatemalan army.”

 

APOLOGIES FOR “MISTAKES” OR REAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY?

“The release of the [CEH] report will be a major turning point in Guatemalan history,” says Gregory Grandin, director of Yale University’s Lowenstein Project. 

 

But, for this to truly be a “major turning point,” the US government, military and economic and academic elites must undergo a serious process of acknowledging the US role, making full compensation and reparations for the harms caused and change US policies and actions; this is not likely to happen.

 

Acknowledgement:

An official US apology must acknowledge and accept responsibility for the full extent of US policies and actions (covert and overt) during and since the 1954 coup.  This type of apology could only come about after the US government de-classifies considerably more information.  Hiding behind the catch-all notion of “national security”, the US has huge numbers of documents that would more than confirm full knowledge of and participation in repression and atrocities in many countries.

 

Accountability:

A complete apology must be followed by legal and political processes of accountability.  First, the US must publicly investigate the actions of government and military officials and agents.  Legal proceedings must be brought against officials and agents who contributed knowingly to the repression and atrocities.

 

Not to do this would continue to undermine the rule of law and efforts to have the truth known about what happened in Guatemala and the US.  It would also serve to keep intact the US structures of impunity that, for decades, have contributed directly and indirectly to repression and other atrocities in Guatemala (and elsewhere).

 

Second, compensation and reparations should be provided to the Guatemalan victims of US policies and actions.  Support for the work of the Clarification Commission in Guatemala was important, but in no way sufficient.  Neither is it sufficient that the US make loans for reconstruction and reconciliation projects -- loans are not reparations.

 

The US should fund an international commission of human rights experts (including US and Guatemalan citizens) to determine the amount of compensation owed and how it is to be distributed directly to the affected persons and communities.

 

Changing US policies and actions:

The US Congress must initiate hearings to investigate and change how the US has designed and carried out foreign policy in Latin America since World War II.  The atrocities and repression that the US supported and contributed to in Guatemala were not "mistakes" or "errors."

 

Government funds should be provided to NGOs to design and implement education and outreach programs, so as to ensure a full and proper debate and discussion about what has been and what should be US foreign policy.

 

“TRUTH COMMISSION” FOR THE UNITED STATES

There is no silver lining in the UN’s Truth Commission report - it is a devastating report.  Yet, the purpose of telling the truth about the past is not to despair at human planned and implemented atrocities, but rather to learn from the past, so that these crimes are not repeated.

 

To take this work forward, financial and political support must be given to grassroots human rights and social justice organizations and churches to work together to ensure that the US go through a complete process of atonement.

 

Citizens, organizations, churches, the press and politicians must work together to hold the US accountable for the death, destruction, loss and suffering caused by the US in numerous countries in the Americas.

 

It is time for an independent, high level, international commission to investigate and report on US policies and actions that, since World War II, that have contributed directly and indirectly to well planned and executed campaigns of repression across the Americas.  Any commission of this nature must be well thought out in advance and well funded, and it must have strong citizen support and participation across the US.

 

At the same time, increased financial support must be provided directly to NGOs and community based organizations (CBOs) working throughout the Americas to build societies based on the rule of law, political and economic democracy and guarantee of respect for all rights for all people.

 

Neither the truth about nor a simple apology for the atrocious crimes and genocide are enough.

 

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WHAT TO DO: info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org

 

ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE … EVERY DAY

Rights Action (a tax-deductible organization in Canada and USA) funds and works with community-based development, environment and human rights organizations in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and southern Mexico (Oaxaca, Chiapas); and educates about and is involved in activism related to global development, environmental and human rights struggles.

 

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