Jennifer Harbury case: article about justice still unserved in Guate

I got this report from Colleen, my instructor from my 2 other Dragons trips. We were supposed to meet Jennifer Harbury in October but it didn't work out. I read one of her books, "Bridge of Courage", which is an amazing collection of candid testimonies made by guerrilla members on Volcan Tajumulco, where Jennifer spent 30 days in the early 90s living with the guerrilla. Her case is one of thousands of cases in which people were disappeared kidnapped by the government, who has yet to take responsibility and action to serve justice. Most of the abductors and masterminds of the torture and killings that went on are still free, some are in congress, and one is even a likely front running presidential candidate.  Jennifer's case is compelling as an individual one but it is also a symbol, and her win would be a victory for thousands who don't have the money and power to fight the government the way she has been for the past 17 years but have gone through the same sufferings.

Rights Action - February 26, 2011 Guatemala Impunity Watch Bamaca Case to Take Guatemalan Presidential candidate, Organized Crime Kingpins and CIA Assets to War Crimes Trial "The fact that one person implicated in her husband's torture and killing is Otto Perez Molina, a likely front running Guatemalan presidential candidate, is generating a tremendous backlash that puts Jennifer at greater risk than ever." BELOW:  An article by Annie Bird explaining the importance of the "Bamaca case" in Guatemala, which could play a key role in the current crossroads in Guatemalan history. Bamaca case website: http://www.casobamaca.org/ Earlier this week, Jennifer Harbury presented the Bamaca Case to the press, unveiling that her husband's torturers include a CIA asset, an organized crime kingpin and Otto Perez Molina, a Presidential hopeful; a case that could help wrest control of Guatemala from the grips of organized crime networks and war criminals. Stay alert to respond when the need arise.  Making calls, raising funds and all other support will be key. * Please re-publish this information, citing author and source * Come with RA on "Democracy Monitoring" delegation to Guatemala - "Pre Elections Delegation", July 3-9, 2011, and "General Elections Delegation", September 6-13, 2011 * To get on/ off RA's listserv: www.rightsaction.org * What to do: see below FOR MORE INFORMATION, ENGLISH & ESPANOL: Annie Bird, 202-783-1123, annie@rightsaction.org * * * * * * * A PRESIDENTIAL 'FRONT-RUNNER', WAR CRIMINALS, ORGANIZED CRIME KINGPINS AND CIA ASSETS ACCUSED IN BAMACA TORTURE By Annie Bird, annie@rightsaction.org Earlier this week Jennifer Harbury presented the Bamaca Case to the press, unveiling that her husband's torturers include a CIA asset, an organized crime kingpin and Otto Perez Molina, a Presidential hopeful; a case that could help wrest control of Guatemala from the grips of organized crime networks and war criminals ------------------ Earlier this week, Texas immigration attorney Jennifer Harbury released a statement presenting information gathered over her almost twenty-year struggle, first seeking to save her husband's life, then to know the truth about his illegal detention, torture and death, and most recently with the possibility of achieving some measure of justice in Guatemalan penal courts. Over the past year, the legal case in Guatemala has made significant advances toward prosecution, but as Guatemala enters an electoral year, the fact that one person implicated in her husband's torture and killing is a likely front running presidential candidate, Otto Perez Molina, is generating a tremendous backlash that puts Jennifer at greater risk than ever. Her struggle is made ever more current by the growing, gruesome violence in Guatemala, with signatures chillingly similar to the 1980's tortures and killings, and by the reappearance of political killings by death squads linked to police and military in neighboring Honduras. The Department of Guatemala has a murder rate of 90 per 100,000.  The investigations of the UN sponsored Investigative Commission Against Impunity, CICIG, are revealing the 'parallel structures' that protect organized crime today.  Meanwhile, emblematic cases against impunity for the crimes by the military in the 1980s make faltering advances but hit blockade after legal blockade.  It is becoming increasingly clear that the same mechanisms of impunity that protect organized crime today protect the military from prosecution. EVERARDO's CAPTURE AND TORTURE The story of the capture of Efrain Bamaca, and then his extended and brutal torture and eventual presumed death, was pieced together by Jennifer over the past two decades through declassified CIA, Department of Defense and State Department documents, court testimony by military officers and escaped captives, and other sources. Jennifer's husband was known to her, and for most of his life, as "Everardo," a commander in the Guatemala National Revolutionary Unit, URNG, but was born Efrain Bamaca.  He grew up in a family of "mozos colonos," farmworkers who for generations are born, work and die on plantations in extreme poverty.  He fought 17 years in the ORPA of the URNG, eventually becoming commander of the Luis Ixmata Front. Jennifer, a Texas immigration attorney, met him while doing research in Mexico where URNG commanders were spending time leading up to the peace negotiations. Everardo was captured on March 12, 1992 by the Quetzal Joint Task Force, FTQ, of the Guatemalan army, and taken to the Santa Ana Berlín military base in San Marcos, Guatemala.  In April 1992 he was taken by helicopter to Guatemala City to the headquarters of "El Comando" death squad in "La Isla", Zone 6, by the Ambulatory Military Police. He was later taken to Quetzaltenango, and then in July 1992 to the 18th Military Base in San Marcos.  In the most likely version of his death, he was killed and dismembered, then buried in a sugar cane field in Escuintla sometime after May 1993, possibly as late as mid 1994. TORTURED BY A CIA ASSET Eyewitnesses and declassified documents describe torture during his detention.  In the Santa Ana military base, an eyewitness testified to seeing Major Sosa Orellana, Major Soto Bilbao, Major Gómez Guillermo, and various G-2 'specialists' torturing him over a month with beatings, physical and psychological abuse and constant interrogations during the first month of his capture. He was then sent to Guatemala City, but again in July 1992 he was seen by a witness who recognized him, chained to a bed, wrapped in bandages, being tortured by a CIA asset, Col Julio Roberto Alpirez, and Major Soto Bilbao, in coordination with Sosa Orellana.  CIA documents note he was kept for a time in a full body cast. After initiating legal denouncements, negotiating with generals, and undertaking a 32 day hunger strike in Guatemala in October 1994, all asking that her husband be presented to courts and his torture stopped, Jennifer went on to undertake a hunger strike in Washington in 1995, which helped spur questions from the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee.  Though the CIA initially withheld the information it had from the Senate, a State Department employee later provided CIA memos to the Senate showing that a CIA asset, Col. Julio Alpirez, had tortured Everardo and had also killed hotel owner Michael Devine, a US citizen.  The documents also implicated Alpirez and another officer, Lt. Col. Carlos Ochoa, in cocaine trafficking.  Ochoa had been arrested in 1991 and the Constitutional Court ordered his extradition to the United States, but nine days later the Chief Justice was killed and the remaining judges altered the ruling. CIA CLEANS HOUSE, BUT THEN TURNS TO "CONTRACTORS" This scandal coincided with the completion of an internal CIA review of the role the CIA played in drug trafficking related to the CIA backed Contra supply operation.  The Washington Post reported that approximately 1000 CIA assets and operatives were dropped from the CIA payroll between 1995 and 1997 for participation in egregious human rights violations and criminal activities, as well as for 'low performance'. At the same time a series of internal directives were issues to place limitations on the activities of those placed on CIA payrolls. This was the largest housecleaning in CIA history.  But the ensuing 15 years has seen a tremendous growth in the use of private intelligence contracting firms. Blackwater was founded in McLean, Virginia, the home of the CIA, in 1997.  The CIA asset directly implicated in Everardo's torture, Guatemalan Colonel Julio Alpirez, lived in McLean from approximately 1997 until approximately 2008. As a former Blackwater employee and CIA "contractor" in Pakistan is now being held for shooting two men in the back, the history and evolution of the relationship between the CIA and contractors they hire to do illegal activities like torture and assassination is extremely relevant. THE SERRANO MILITARY INTELLIGENCE NETWORK Top ranking military intelligence officers when Everardo was captured were soldiers who had built their earlier careers as regional commanders directly undertaking the genocide of the 1980s.  They form a complex network where military officers use pseudonyms and belong to secretive brotherhoods, with names like "El Cofradia" and "El Sindicato" - networks that are similar to, or perhaps interchangeable with death squads that also bore names, like "los Lobos" (active in the Joint Task Force Quetzal, FTQ, that captured Everardo).  These military-linked groups participate in organized crime, car fencing, gun running, drug trafficking, human trafficking, etc. The head of the Presidential Guard, EMP, (the key intelligence agency) was General Francisco Ortega Menaldo.  The head of National Defense Directorate (EMDN) was General Jorge Roberto Perussina Rivera.  And the head of the infamous Military Intelligence G-2 unit was General Otto Perez Molina, the direct commander of Col. Sosa Orellana, in charge of G-2 within the Quetzal Joint Task Force.  Both Perez Molina and Perussina Rivera were apparently in the Santa Ana Belen military base the day Everardo was captured.  Both Ortega Menaldo and Perez Molina had been reported to be on the CIA payroll. Everardo's 1992 capture took place at a key moment in Guatemala's history.  The peace negotiations were starting and civilian, elected (though in flawed processes) governments were being experimented with for the first time since the CIA backed coup in 1954. THE POWERS BEHIND THE PRESIDENTS: MILITARY INTELLIGENCE  - ORGANIZED CRIME NETWORKS Jorge Serrano Elias was president from 1991 until 1993, when he attempted to pull off a Peruvian Fujimori-style self-coup.  General Roberto Perussina and General Ortega Menaldo were reportedly two of the three military figures behind the coup. General Ortega Menaldo is a head honcho in an infamous organized crime network which embeds organized crime structures within the virtually all agencies of the State, especially the justice system, in order to guarantee impunity.   Ortega Menaldo was close to former Guatemalan president Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004), now on trial for corruption, though he served as president, details from the trial make it seem as though Portillo, who apparently only received of funds stolen, was the fall guy for Ortega Menaldo. A key backer of the Serrano self-coup, Perussina was named Minister of Defense in the transition government.  Though retired from the military he forms part of the current government of Alvaro Colom, running Guatemala's La Aurora airport, and is reported to be Ortega Menaldo's right hand man.  Many Ortega Menaldo associates were named to positions in the Colom government, apparently via Carlos Quintanilla, the Secretary of Admistrative and Security Matters (SAAS).  Quintanilla was fired by Colom in 2008 and charged with spying on the President, but absolved. Many suspect Quintanilla's involvement in the death of the Minister of Governance in a plane crash shortly before Quintanilla was fired. JENNIFER's SUPPORTERS ATTACKED IN THE UNITED STATES In 1995 Ortega Menaldo was working in Washington as personnel director of the Inter American Defense College of the OAS, and later as Guatemala's representative to the Inter American Development Bank.    In July 1995 Colonel Jose Luis Fernandez Ligorria, a close associate of Ortega Menaldo, began attending the College, though he was reported to already be present in Washington when the Guatemalan government, through military representative's in Washington, signed a lobbying contract with Robert Thompson to do damage control surrounding the Bamaca case in April 1995.  Throughout 1995 people close to Jennifer in the US were subject to threats, culminating in the January 1996 bombing of her lawyer's car. Fernandez Ligorria, was implicated by investigative journalists. Recently Guatemalan press reports have implicated Fernandez Ligorria as a key leader of the Zeta narco-paramilitary group. PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL IMPLICATED IN EVERARDO KILLING, AND MANY MORE CRIMES Otto Perez Molina was a front running presidential candidate in the 2007 elections, won by current president Alvaro Colom, and though he has not yet announced his candidacy, Perez Molina is expected to run in this year's presidential elections. Though many of Perez Molina's closest associates over the years have been deeply implicated in organized crime activities, Perez Molina bills himself as the anti-crime candidate. The web of military intelligence, organized crime and politicians is an extremely complex network.  It is riddled with rivalries, and its tentacles seem to reach everywhere. The prevalent analysis has been that there are two principal military allied secret organizations that protect, politically and militarily, the interests of organized crime. The "Cofradia," associated with Francisco Ortega Menaldo and Alfredo Molina, held the behind-the-scenes power in the Portillo government and apparently has influence in the Colom administration, and is rivaled by the "Sindicato" that some associate with Otto Perez Molina.  However alliances are ephemeral and by nature hard to detect, and in reality all have collaborated at different times for common goals. Perez Molina's 2007 presidential campaign took place amidst constant accusations of participation in violence and criminal activities.  Some investigations implicate him in the April 1998 killing of Bishop Juan Gerardi, even placing him at the park in Zona 1, Guatemala City, on the night of Gerardi's murder. There is no doubt that he oversaw hundreds of massacres in the 1980s, as he commanded the military base in Quiche during the worst years of State terrorism and genocide, and various sources name him as having personally conducted torture. PARALLEL STRUCTURES CONTROL THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AND ENFORCE IMPUNITY The CICIG was created in 2007 to combat the infiltration of the State by organized crime networks, like that headed by Francisco Ortega Menaldo. CICIG, under the leadership of Spanish prosecuting attorney Carlos Castresana, excelled at its job, uncovering scandal after scandal. Castresana's last battle, before his return to Spain, was ensuring that a "clean" Attorney General was named, and provides a revealing illustration of how organized crime networks have maintained impunity. In June 2010, after an organized crime operative was appointed as the Attorney General, the new AG, Conrado Reyes, set about destroying cases that had advanced under the protected space afforded by the creation of CICIG. Castresana resigned in protest, revealing evidence uncovered in distinct investigations, such as the murder/ suicide of attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg, which demonstrated that Reyes was in effect working for organized crime. Though Castresana's evidence contained too many elements to begin to describe here, an interesting point in Castresana's presentation revealed the close collaboration of a Supreme Court magistrate, Hilario Pineda Sanchez, in protecting those responsible for Rosenberg's killing.  Pineda Sanchez continues to serve in the Supreme Court. Key cases against Guatemalan military officers and soldiers implicated in genocide, torture, and other crimes committed during the 1980s have not been able to advance because of legal hoops and obstacles set up precisely to construct impunity, and facilitated by corrupt justice official like Judge Pineda Sanchez.  For example, the abusive use of injunctions as a way of stymieing judicial processes was commented on by the Inter American Court of Human Rights. The case against those responsible for Everardo's killing and torture has hit another roadblock as the Constitutional Court granted a preliminary injunction levied by Col. Julio Alpirez, sending the case back yet again to the lower courts and blocking Jennifer from introducing her evidence. The Dos Erres case, that charges Kaibiles with carrying out a massacre in 1982, hit a similar wall recently, as has the Rio Negro massacres case and all others seeking to end impunity, some of which now have spent almost two decades in the courts. This is not the normal frustration victim's families often experience with the limitations and guarantees of due process.  This is a criminal conspiracy that subverts the justice system.  It is what allows criminals not only to undertake political killings, but also to engage in drug trafficking, and many other types of organized crime. This Constitutional Court's term is up in April, so human rights advocates are gearing up for a fight similar to the year long struggle to get a clean Attorney General. Stay tuned, Guatemala is at a crossroads.  The new Constitutional Court and the general elections this year will determine whether the structures of impunity cement into place the organized crime State or present an opportunity in the struggle for a society built on justice. * * * BACKGROUND - THE SEARCH FOR EVERARDO In January of 1992, the Luis Ixmata Front (Front) of the Guatemala National Revolutionary Unit, URNG, which operated the Voz Popular radio came out of the Tajamulco Volcano, under the command of Comandante Everardo, aka Efrain Bamaca.  The Front began making its way south along Guatemala's South Coast. The army responded by forming the Quetzal Task Force (FTQ) that operated out of the military base at Santa Ana Belen, made up of soldiers from the region, and included many members of "El Comando," a military intelligence (G-2) death squad based out of La Isla in Guatemala City. There were frequent battles.  Then, on March 12, 1992, a patrol of the Front was ambushed by the FTQ beside the Rio Ixcucua and was forced to flee, the last glimpse fellow combatants had of Comandante Everardo he was alive but being closed in on by the army. Coincidentally, a command meeting had been convoked for the afternoon of March 12, 1992 in Santa Ana Belen.  Approximately 80 officials were present that morning, and after hearing about "the death" of someone from the Luis Ixpata Front, the Director de la Estado Mayor de Defensa Nacional Roberto Perussina Rivera arrived at the base at approximately 4pm.    On March 13, the army made a public statement that a body of a guerrilla combatant had been gathered after the confrontation the previous day at the Ixcucua River, and that it was flown to the town of Retahuleu and buried anonymously, "John Doe".    Given the testimony of those under Everardo's command that he had been captured alive, the URNG was concerned that he was still alive and being tortured, so they requested forensic documentation to corroborate the Army's statement via the government Human Right Procurators office (PDH).  The army facilitated an accurate description of Everado, with a detailed description of his face.  In the same letter the Army noted that he had committed suicide to avoid capture, however given the caliber of the weapon he was carrying when captured, the URNG knew that the suicide would have destroyed his face, making such a detailed description impossible.  The URNG requested an exhumation of the grave, which the PDH petitioned and was scheduled to occur in May of 1992, but the General Procurator of the Nation (an office with some of the functions of an Attorney General) interrupted.  The Guatemalan army was experimenting with a program of subjecting prisoners to prolonged torture with the objective of breaking them psychologically not only to extract information, but to enlist them as ongoing collaborators, essentially functioning as part of the death squads.  As part of this process, after prolonged torture followed by signs of collaboration, prisoners were given a growing degree of freedom, to move around inside the military base, to leave the base under supervision, to leave the base without supervision, etc.  Toward the end of 1992, one of these prisoners, originally captured in 1991, was able to escape to Mexico.  He found Jennifer and told her that he had seen Everardo alive and being horribly tortured by Col. Alpirez and Sosa Orellana in a San Marcos military base. Jennifer went to Guatemala, filing legal petitions to the Government of Guatemala and the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights. She asked for the exhumation of the grave that had not been exhumed the previous May. In preparing the exhumation request, Jennifer reviewed the paperwork associated with the "John Doe" burial. The height and characteristics described by a Justice of the Peace that signed the official paperwork claiming to have collected a body from the shore of the Ixcucua River on March 12, 1992 in the company of Sosa Orellana matched Everardo, but the report of the coroner that examined the body before its burial described a very different, much shorter man.  When the grave was finally exhumed in August 1993, forensic scientists found a shorter man, 18 to 20 year old, with a five year margin of error, while Everardo was 35 years old.  This body matched the description of Cristóbal Che Pérez, a young soldier under the command of Sosa Orellana, who G-2 specialists later claimed had been killed by order of Major Sosa Orellana.  Cristobal had been bound by his ankles, severely beaten to the body and head, stabbed, strangled and shot.  The cause of death was determined to be suffocation and contusions to the head and body. It was clear that the body in the grave was not Everardo.  However, the army had provided a very precise description of Everardo.  This led Jennifer to the conclusion that he had been captured alive and was being tortured.  In October 1994 she embarked on a 32 day hunger strike outside the National Palace in Guatemala.  Then, as it became increasingly clear to her that the US government had information that was not being shared with her, she embarked on a hunger strike outside of the White House in Washington, DC in March 1995, which ended upon the release of information to her by the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee, information that confirmed her husband's death. If the trial of those accused in Everardo's torture is allowed to proceed, Jennifer should obtain an exhumation of the likely site of her husband's burial, and finally conclude the search for Everardo