•  Home
•  Who We Are
•  What We Do
•  Media Centre
•  Publications
•  Humphrey Award
•  Reference
•  Links
•  Contact Us

Impunity: Obstruction of Justice in Guatemala

Exoneration of a senior army officer convicted for the assassination of Myrna Mack.

Versión en ESPAÑOL

Montreal, May 16, 2003 - Rights & Democracy considers the May 7 exoneration of a senior army officer previously convicted for plotting the 1990 assassination of anthropologist and human rights defender Myrna Mack Chang a major setback for justice and the rule of law in Guatemala.

Myrna Mack was stabbed to death on September 11, 1990. At the time, she was researching human rights abuses committed by the Guatemalan army against internally displaced communities.

Rights & Democracy is especially concerned that, in overturning the October 2002 conviction of Colonel Juan Valencia Osorio, Guatemala's Fourth Appeals Court took advantage of the opportunity to vindicate the notorious military intelligence unit for which he worked. At the time of Myrna Mack's murder, Colonel Valencia was commander of the security department of the elite Presidential General Staff (Estado Mayor Presidencial, or EMP).

In 1993 EMP Sergeant Noel Beteta ?lvarez was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for the murder of Myrna Mack. Despite numerous acts of intimidation targeting witnesses, lawyers and judges associated with the case, charges were eventually brought against three senior EMP officers, including Colonel Valencia, General Edgar Godoy Gait?n and Colonel Juan Guillermo Oliva Carrera. In October 2002 a trial court sentenced Colonel Valencia to 30 years, acknowledging that Myrna Mack had been the victim of a politically-motivated crime.

Nevertheless, in its May 7 ruling, the Appeals Court chose to focus on whether the EMP could be held institutionally responsible for Myrna Mack's death, disregarding the evidence implicating Colonel Valencia.

"This decision is a reminder that Guatemala has made no significant progress in the investigation and prosecution of thousands of extrajudicial executions and hundreds of massacres committed during the course of the armed conflict," Rights & Democracy's President Jean-Louis Roy said today. "Such setbacks serve to undermine the 1996 peace accords that put an end to Guatemala's brutal 36-year civil war."

In the past three years, Guatemala has been the subject of increasingly rigorous United Nations and Organization of American States scrutiny. In a recent communiqu?, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers expressed concerns about Guatemala's capacity to provide citizens access to legal services. Meanwhile, the UN mission in Guatemala continues to report evidence of "persistent excesses" in military spending, contradicting Guatemala's obligations under the terms of the 1996 peace accords.

Rights & Democracy urges Canada, as a member of the Consultative Group of donor countries and institutions currently meeting in Guatemala, to ensure that international cooperation assistance be used to support the struggle against impunity. The Consultative Group should make it clear that it will defend the humanitarian and democratic space needed for Guatemalan human rights defenders to work without fear of reprisal.