Government Releases Report on CIA and Guatemala
by Dale Wimberley
(extended version of article to appear in =A1Presente!, New River Free Press=
,
Blacksburg, VA)
On June 28 the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) released a
53-page public report on its review of the Central Intelligence
Agency's and other federal agencies' actions related to the
torture, disappearance, or death of U.S. citizens in Guatemala
since 1984. President Clinton had ordered the IOB review in March
1995 in reaction to allegations linking Guatemalan Colonel Julio
Roberto Alpirez, reputedly a CIA "asset" (agent), to the 1990
death of U.S. citizen Michael DeVine and to the 1992 disappearance
of Guatemalan guerilla Efrain Bamaca, husband of U.S. citizen
Jennifer Harbury. The report covered the DeVine and Bamaca cases
as well as the cases of Sister Dianna Ortiz, who was kidnapped and
tortured in 1989, and 11 others. The public report, stated to be
"essentially the same as the classified version submitted to the
President," excludes "some highly sensitive information" (such as
names of "assets") contained in the full report.
The IOB report concludes that several federal agencies, and
the CIA in particular, responded inadequately to circumstances
surrounding human rights violations in Guatemala. The IOB
concluded that the CIA gave "insufficient attention ... to
allegations of serious human rights abuse made against several
station assets or liaison contacts" and "failed to provide enough
information on this subject to policy-makers and the Congress to
permit proper policy and Congressional oversight." However, the
IOB stopped short of concluding that government officials had
committed crimes in connection with these events, stating, "The
Board has notified DOJ [the Department of Justice] of its belief
that in the past the CIA violated Title 50 of the U.S. Code by
failing to keep Congress fully and currently informed.' The
Board notes, though, that this likely violation was not criminal,
that the CIA has taken remedial action, and that there appears to
be no threat of a continuing violation."
The IOB's review takes as a given "U.S. policy objectives in
Guatemala," which "included supporting the transition to and
strengthening of civilian democratic government, furthering human
rights and the rule of law, supporting economic growth, combating
illegal narcotics trafficking, combating the communist insurgency,
and advancing the current peace process between the government and
the guerillas." The IOB concludes that "U.S. intelligence
officials in Guatemala as well as in Washington endeavored to
support all these policy objectives.... Although the CIA's goals
in Guatemala were legitimate, achieving them and maintaining
influence in Guatemala required that the CIA deal with some
unsavory groups and individuals. The human rights records of the
Guatemalan security services were widely known to be
reprehensible, and although the CIA made efforts to improve the
conduct of the services, ... egregious human rights abuses did not
stop.... The value of what we hope to gain in terms of our
national interests must outweigh the costs of such unseemly
relationships and be worth the risks always inherent in
clandestine activity."
Among other noteworthy findings reported by the IOB:
o "Several CIA assets were credibly alleged to have ordered,
planned, or participated in serious human rights violations such
as assassinations, extrajudicial execution, torture, or kidnapping
while they were assets -- and ... the CIA's Directorate of
Operations (DO [i.e., clandestine service]) headquarters was aware
at the time of the allegations."
o There was no evidence that the CIA station in Guatemala was
a "rogue station"; rather, it kept DO headquarters well-informed.
Although DO headquarters advised the Guatemala station to avoid
use of agents alleged to have committed human rights violations,
the reward system for CIA station staff provided little incentive
to follow these requests.
o Contrary to some public charges, the CIA did not increase
funding to compensate for the virtual cessation of overt military
aid to Guatemala due to U.S. human rights concerns in 1990. "CIA
funding levels to the security services dropped consistently from
about $3.5 million in FY 1989 to about $1 million in 1995."
o The "clear preponderance of the evidence" indicates that
U.S. citizen Michael DeVine was not killed in the presence of
Colonel Alpirez, though Alpirez was involved in a cover-up of
Guatemalan soldiers' involvement in DeVine's death. Further, the
IOB "found no indication that CIA officials were in any way
complicitous in the death of DeVine, and no credible evidence that
any CIA assets or liaison contacts [official Guatemalan government
contacts] ordered or had prior knowledge of DeVine's death."
o Although one CIA report provided the basis for earlier
public charges that Colonel Alpirez had killed Efrain Bamaca,
Guatemalan guerilla and husband of U.S. citizen Jennifer Harbury,
many other intelligence reports and other evidence contradict this
charge. "We believe, but lack definitive proof," adds the IOB,
"that Bamaca's interrogation included torture and that Bamaca was
killed within about a year of being captured."
o Because the Justice Department continues to investigate the
torture of Dianna Ortiz, the IOB declined to make conclusions on
her case. The IOB found no evidence that U.S. officials,
including CIA officials, were involved in the death, kidnapping,
or torture of other U.S. citizens in Guatemala since 1984, the
beginning of the period covered by the review.
o "As intelligence on the cases was reported to U.S.
government officials," including officials of the State Department
and the National Security Agency (NSA), "very little of it was
shared with victims or their surviving family members."
o Contrary to earlier charges, there is no evidence that the
NSA or U.S. Army altered records about Guatemala in any cover-up
attempt.
o The Department of Defense (DOD) discovered in 1991, and
reported to Congress, that materials used by the School of the
Americas and the Southern Command to instruct Guatemalan and other
Latin American officers from 1982 to 1991 "appeared to condone (or
could have been interpreted to condone) practices such as
executions of guerillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion, and
false imprisonment." The DOD replaced these materials.
The IOB recommended that intelligence agencies formulate
clear guidelines on the use of assets alleged to have violated
human rights; that intelligence agencies incorporate into their
evaluation and reward systems an assessment of employees'
consideration of human rights abuse by assets; that the CIA and
the State Department should improve communications between their
officials; that the State Department and the NSA use intelligence
information in briefings of U.S. citizens who are victims of human
rights abuse abroad or are relatives of these victims; that the
CIA and DOD overhaul their systems of reporting to Congress on
intelligence matters; and that the U.S. should give more
information to U.S. citizens who are victims or relatives of
victims of human rights violations, the current Freedom of
Information Act being inadequate for this purpose. Some remedial
action has already been taken by the CIA and other agencies, the
IOB states.
In a July 1 press release, Jennifer Harbury and members of
Coalition Missing stated that they were pleased with the IOB's
acknowledgement of Guatemalan CIA agents known to have committed
severe human rights violations, of misleading CIA reports to U.S.
officials, and of the State Department's inadequate responses to
information requests from families of victims. However, with
reference to the State Department's actions, Harbury stated, "The
IOB report seems to treat such gross failures as mere matters of
human error, bureaucratic delay, or poor judgement.... We believe
that the United States government has carried out a pattern and
practice of intentionally refusing to investigate and act on
certain cases for reasons of political convenience."
As for the IOB's conclusions on the case of her own husband,
Harbury stated that "It is simply unreasonable to find that the
CIA generally knew of its assets' human rights abuses, but somehow
did not have contemporaneous knowledge of Bamaca's torture and
murder. The CIA in fact found Bamaca to be such an important and
promising prisoner of war that they notified the White House,
State Department and numerous other agencies some six days after
his capture that he was a prisoner and that the army would most
likely fake his death in order to fully take advantage of his
valuable information. Did the CIA think the Guatemalan army would
be bringing him breakfast in bed? Did they fail to follow up on
the situation of so valuable a prisoner even though he was in the
hands of their own assets? Did those assets not want to receive
payment for the information they were extracting through torture?"
Harbury called on the President and Congress to declassify
all government files related to Guatemalan human rights cases
since 1954 and to "enact laws prohibiting the payment of U.S. tax
dollars for information known to be extracted through the use of
torture, secret imprisonment and murder. Payments to known human
rights violators should also be prohibited except under unusual
circumstances of extreme national security. Such laws should
include close Congressional monitoring and stiff penalties for
violations." She also called for continued investigation and
disclosure in the individual cases reviewed by the IOB,
legislation requiring release of any U.S. government-held
information on human rights violations, and cancellation of visas
to known Guatemalan human rights violators.
In a separate statement, Sister Dianna Ortiz stated that
"thanks to the IOB, we at last have in writing what the U.S.
government has denied for years -- we have been fighting the dirty
war in Guatemala."
House Intelligence Committee member Robert Torricelli, D-
N.J., prompted the IOB review by his 1995 accusation that Colonel
Alpirez was a CIA agent and was involved in the murders of DeVine
and Bamaca. According to the Associated Press, on June 28
Toricelli stated that the IOB's conclusion that Alpirez was
ignorant of plans to detain and murder DeVine was "not credible,"
and that "there is also no reason to believe that [Alpirez] was
not also involved" in murdering Bamaca. Torricelli was quoted by
the Washington Post as saying that the report should have shown "a
greater level of outrage at the fact that American taxpayer money
was used by the CIA to pay Guatemalans who murdered, tortured, and
then covered up their crimes."
EPICA, the Ecumenical Program on Central America and the
Caribbean, issued a statement calling for declassification of the
entire IOB report. EPICA urged citizens to use media, including
talk radio and opinion pages of local newspapers, to pressure the
Clinton Administration to release the classified portions of the
document.
The entire text of the IOB's public report is available on
the World Wide Web at http://www.us.net/cip/iob.htm.
Dale W. Wimberley
Department of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University