Last week there was an important program on the KPFK (Los Angeles Pacifica
Radio 90.7) morning show DEMOCRACY NOW. It featured Jennifer Harbury and
Sister Diana Ortiz. Host of the show was Amy Goodman.
You probably all know about Jennifer Harbury, the US attorney who 's
husband,a Guatemalan Mayan guerrilla leader, was tortured and killed by a
CIA operative. Her insistence, hunger-striking and perseverance finally
brought about major revelations of the CIA's role in support of Guatemalan
death squads, although much information is still being concealed.
Sister Diana Ortiz has a similar story. She is a nun and was working in a
Guatemalan village, teaching children to read and write. For this subversive
activity she was arrested--maybe abducted is a better word--taken to a
clandestine prison in Guatemala City, burned with cigarettes 111 times,
gang-raped and thrown into a pit "saturated" with dead bodies and dying
people. (Note: the other day I accidentally burned myself with a cigarette.
Try it.)
I think this took place about six years ago. Sister Ortiz says that one of
the men who abducted and tortured her--Alejandro--spoke poor Spanish, but
once addressed her in perfect English.
Sister Ortiz is keeping a silent vigil in front of the White House, speaking
only for one or two hours a day. She wants the government to release any
records they have about this event, the full text of the intelligence
oversight board report, and any other information the government has about
CIA participation in human rights abuses in Guatemala from 1954 until the
present.
Jennifer Harbury urged that we contact President Clinton and ask him to
immediately declassify all human right files. She said this is a necessary
first step the healing of Sister Ortiz and the many other victims. She says
there is lots of evidence that the CIA has been working very closely with
the Guatemalan army and death squads. Many torture victims report the
presence and participation of "tall, blondish North Americans."
"What are our tax dollars doing paying the salaries of foreign torturers and
death squad members?" Jennifer asked. "We need the truth.
"Sister Ortiz must know what happened...she must know why...she must know
what happened to the other victims. Or she will never begin to heal."
And the perpetrators must be brought to justice. Two hundred thousand
people, maybe more, have been tortured and killed in Guatemala. If the army
gets away with this, and nothing happens, they will kill another 200,000 in
the next generation, Jennifer said.
She added that a large percentage of the worst human rights offenders in the
hemisphere, including the colonel who tortured and killed her husband, are
graduates of the infamous School of the Americas, the US Army's death squad
training facility. We should insist that the School of the Americas be closed.
--Pe
ter Rashkin
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Peter Rashkin <cortes@kaiwan.com>
SPANISH DAGGER PUBLICATIONS
PO Box 3008
Long Beach, CA 90803
Read THE DAGGER on line at
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