Justice and Accountability

On January 31, 1980, campesino groups from northern Quiché and members of the student group Frente Estudiantil Robin Garcia (FERG) took over the Spanish Embassy to denounce the massacres that were being carried out by the Guatemalan military against indigenous communities in the highlands. At the time, the occupation of embassies was a well-known and effective strategy that was used to call national and international attention to particularly serious human rights violations. The groups had come to Guatemala City in the hopes of meeting with news outlets, Congress, and the Organization of the American States (OAS), to no avail; no one was willing to publish their testimonies of severe violence at the hands of the military.

Despite other successful and peaceful embassy takeovers that called much-needed international attention to Guatemala, the police responded to this takeover with extreme force. Acting on orders that no one get out alive, police set fire to the embassy with flamethrowers. Of the nearly 40 people inside, only two – Spanish Ambassador Máximo Cajal and a campesino man Gregorio Yujá – would survive the initial attack. A day later, Yujá was taken by force from the hospital bed where he was recovering from the serious injuries sustained in the fire. His body, showing signs of torture, was dumped a day later in front of the University of San Carlos.

That same day, thousands of university students held a memorial for the victims at the Paraninfo. Leaving the memorial, two student leaders were killed by agents with the infamous Commando Seis – a wing of the now defunct National Police responsible for forced disappearances, torture, and other crimes against humanity carried out in Guatemala City during the armed conflict, under the command at the time of Pedro García Arredondo. Another student was disappeared by the National Police during a funeral procession for the Spanish Embassy victims.

The trial in Guatemala

On January 19, 2015 – 35 years after the fire – former Police Chief Pedro García Arredondo was convicted of murder and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He was also convicted for the murder of the two students killed outside the Paraninfo and sentenced to an additional 50 years. This verdict adds to the 70-year sentence he was already serving for his role in the 1981 forced disappearance of student leader Édgar Sáenz Calito.

Notably, other high-ranking officials – now deceased – were named in connection to the case, including former President Romeo Lucas García and former General Director of the National Police Colonel Germán Chupina Barahona. The former Interior Minister Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz is also implicated in the case. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

NISGUA, through ACOGUATE, provided accompaniment to the plaintiffs in the case – the Rigoberta Menchú Foundation – before, during, and after the trial.

For more:

• “The answer to ‘Who started the fire…’ at the Spanish Embassy”
• “Pedro García Arredondo Convicted and Sentenced to 70 years in prison for the murder of student leader”

On October 19, 1981, the Guatemalan army entered the community of El Jute, Chiquimula and forcibly disappeared eight people – Jacobo Crisóstomo Cheguén, Miguel Angel Cheguén Crisóstomo, Raúl Cheguén, Inocente Gallardo, Antolín Gallardo Rivera, Valentín Gallardo Rivera, Santiago Gallardo Rivera, and Tránsito Rivera. After much organizing by their family members, the public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation in 2005. Later that year, three former military commissioners – Salamón Maldonado, José Domingo Ríos Martínez, and Gabriel Álvarez Ramos – and a former Colonel stationed at the military base in Zacapa, Marco Antonio Sánchez Samayoa – were detained on charges related to the case.

While the case was sent to trial in April 2008, the military’s continual efforts to adversely apply the National Reconciliation Law – known as the “Amnesty Law” – prevented arguments from being heard until September 2009. Survivors lived in the same communities as family members of the accused and faced intense threats during the trial. On December 3, 2009, the court convicted the three former military commissioners (one of whom had died during the trial) and former colonel for illegal detention and forced disappearance and sentenced them to more than 53 years in prison each. All subsequent appeals were denied.

At the time of the sentence, Colonel Marco Antonio Sánchez Samayoa was the highest-ranking military officer sentenced for crimes against humanity in Guatemala. As part of the sentence, the judges also ordered investigations into others in the military chain of command who may also bear responsibility for the forced disappearances – including former Head of the Army Benedicto Lucas García and former Defense Minister Ángel Aníbal García. The ruling also opened the door for the investigation of a second case, El Jute II, in which other officials and soldiers stationed at the Zacapa military base in 1981 tortured and raped community members.

NISGUA, through ACOGUATE, provided international accompaniment to the group of family members who sought justice for these disappearances and continue to work for justice in the El Jute II case. We also provided accompaniment to the Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM), one of the organizations that supported the survivors in their search for justice.

For more:

• “Guatemala: Forced Disappearance and the Search for Justice in El Jute” – Article published on UpsideDown World by former NISGUA accompanier, Josh McLeod.

In 2009, former military commissioner Felipe Cusanero Coj was sentenced to 150 years in prison for the forced disappearance of six community members between 1982-1984 in Choatalúm, Chimaltenango. Cusanero Coj wielded a significant amount of power over the communities in the area. He worked out of an army base where rape, torture, and summary executions took place.

The Choatalúm trial opened in 2008 as the first forced disappearance case in Guatemala. The case languished in the courts for over a year as the Constitutional Court determined whether Cusanero could be legally tried for the crime of forced disappearance. Forced disappearance was not recognized by Guatemalan state as a crime against humanity until 1996, more than a decade after the disappearance of the six people in question. In July 2009, the Constitutional Court resolved that forced disappearance is a permanent and ongoing violation of human rights, opening the door for the crime to be prosecuted as an ongoing offense.

On August 31, 2009, the court sentenced Cusanero to 150 years in prison for his role in forcibly disappearing Santiago Sutuj, Alejo Culajay Ic, Lorenzo Avila, Filomena López Chajchaguin, Encarnación López López and Mario Augusto Tay. Though Cusanero is now in prison, he refuses to provide any information as to the whereabouts of the disappeared. In the words of the survivors, “From the beginning, that is all we wanted.”

The verdict marked the first time a member of the military was found guilty for crimes committed during the Internal Armed Conflict, and thereby set an important precedent for future prosecutions of forced disappearances. NISGUA, through ACOGUATE, provided accompaniment and advocacy support to the plaintiffs and other community members in the case, as well as to their lawyers, the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH).

For more:

• “Disappeared but Not Forgotten: A Guatemalan Community Achieves a Landmark Verdict” – Original article written for NACLA by former accompanier, Amanda Kistler
• Report: Making strides towards justice, chipping away at Guatemala’s wall of impunity.

Former members of the Civil Defense Patrols in Plan de Sánchez convicted for crimes against humanity.

For more:

• Paramilitaries Sentenced to Thousands of Years for Plan de Sánchez Massacre – information translated from a press statement by CALDH.

Survivors of sexual violence and sexual and domestic slavery successfully prosecuted former officials for the first time in history.

For more:

• Sepur Zarco: Breaking the silence around sexual violence. – Article from Impunity Watch
• This spring, stand for gender justice! – NISGUA organized “House Parties” to express solidarity with the women survivors and draw connections with local feminist struggles for gender justice in the United States.