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Article Excerpt
A UN special human rights rapporteur who carried out a five-day investigation in Guatemala in late May concluded that clandestine armed groups were making threats and committing abuses against human rights defenders and other social activists. The UN representative, Hina Jilani of Pakistan, said credible evidence linked clandestine groups to the army and national police. Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo has questioned Jilani's conclusions.
Jilani's visit was a result of ongoing complaints by human rights groups. Human rights leaders in Guatemala claim that there have been approximately 150 cases of violence against members of human rights groups during the Portillo presidency.
Guillermo Ovalle, treasurer of Fundacion Rigoberta Menchu, was murdered in April (see NotiCen, 2002-05-30). Minutes after the killing, foundation members reported receiving an anonymous phone call with a funeral march playing in the background.
Ovalle's murder also coincided with threats against forensic anthropologists carrying out exhumations of mass graves dating from the civil war.
Ovalle's murder came only days after a Spanish court had agreed to hear the foundation's complaint against former de facto president Gen. Efrain Rios Montt (1982-1983) and others for alleged human rights crimes during the country's civil war (see Update, 1991-03-06).
Amnesty International claims that Rios Montt, head of the governing Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG), is directing the clandestine groups that threaten and commit abuses against activists who investigate atrocities committed during the war.
Rios Montt is now retired from the military and serves as president of the Guatemalan Congress, although a corruption scandal forced him to turn effective control of that body over to his daughter, who is also a legislator (see NotiCen, 2001-04-19).
UN representative denounces "climate of...
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