From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: TRUTH COMMISSIONS IN GUATEMALA AND EL SALVADOR
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 02:13:45 GMT

/** carnet.alerts: 75.0 **/
** Topic: TRUTH COMMISSIONS GUAT AND SAL **
** Written  5:36 pm  Aug 12, 1992 by codehuca in cdp:carnet.alerts **
Dear peacenet reader, we are publishing here three short articles
on the peace processes that are going on in El Salvador and
Guatemala. We believe there is a lot of work the international
community can do in this regard and hope these articles are
useful. Please send comments, etc. to Grahame Russell

1- EL SALVADOR - TRUTH COMMISSION

In the last edition of the BRECHA we published a personal look,
by a member of CODEHUCA, at the creation of the Truth Commission
in El Salvador, at some of the reasons why the Commission was set
up and at the stories of some of the Salvadoran people who are
pinning so much of their suffering and hope on the Commission.
After so many years of state and military impunity, the Truth
Commission offers a real, if not limited chance to have some
justice done. In this edition the BRECHA looks more closely at
some of the obstacles that the Commission is facing.

Democracy cannot be built on top of a huge trap door that covers
a horrendous history of systemic human rights violations, a
history that has left over 70,000 (mostly) civilian deaths and
another 7-8000 disappeared persons. This political repression is
added to the vaste social and economic inequalities that in large
part led to the conflict.

To break the silence - Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay have
all lived through experiences of Commissions (governmental or
non-governmental) set up to investigate crimes committed
systematically by the state or its agents against civilians.
These Commissions have had, as their principle objective, to
break the silence covering the crimes of the past and help to put
an end to the impunity of the state security forces. 
     "We want it brought out in the open so that the world is
     aware of what the army did in this country", said Alejandro
     Chicas, one of the few survivors of the 'El Mozote' massacre
     (December 1981) that left an estimated 1000 civilians dead.

The Commissions have, as part of their principle objective, to do
some sort of justice for the victims, or family members and loved
ones of victims, subjected not only to indescribable crimes and
violations but also to the repression of silence and fear.
     "It is not vengeance people want. I sense a tremendous need
     for someone to simply tell the truth. In many ways it is
     like the Nazi Holocaust: the worst thing you can do is deny
     it ever took place", said Thomas Buergenthal, member of the
     Truth Commission in El Salvador.

The Truth Commission in El Salvador is already facing obstacles,
that may well impede an honest completion of their work. The
international community must actively pressure, in the U.S. (See
article apart) and El Salvador, for a successful outcome to this
work.

i- Fear - The greatest difference between El Salvador and the
reconciliation processes that occurred in South America is that
in El Salvador few of the institutions of the state (executive,
judiciary, and particularly the armed forces and other security
forces) have been changed. For persons who have suffered
repression at the hands of the state, or who are loved ones or
family members of persons who have been assassinated, disappeared
or tortured, there still exists a great deal of fear to speak
out.

ii- Resistance from the state and armed forces - Thomas
Buergenthal, member of the Truth Commission, stated, in an
interview after the Commission began its work mid-July, that "It
is going to be very difficult for us to get the evidence in some
cases". He went on to say that there may be a cover-up of crucial
information. This cover-up can only occur by the state forces -
they control all the possible evidence concerning the crimes and
human rights violations.  

iii- 6 month limitation on the work of the Commission - It is a
serious limitation that the Commission has been given only 6
months to complete its work. Much of the evidence needed to prove
particular cases is close to impossible to obtain for a number of
reasons:
     - in many cases years have gone by since the commission of
     the crimes,
     - in most cases the security forces carried out their
     repression in secrecy, keeping no records of their
     clandestine activities, and destroying any evidence that
     might link them to the crimes,
     - there will most probably be resistance from the government
     and military sectors to fully cooperate with the work of the
     Truth Commission. "It is a huge show put on internationally
     to finish what is left of our armed forces and justify a
     substitution of judicial power", former Attorney General
     Mauricio Colorado was quoted as saying in the Diario de Hoy
     newspaper.
     - 6 months is a small amount of time to investigate a small
     number of murders and disappearances, let alone the tens of
     thousands of cases that ought to be investigated in El
     Salvador, to do justice to the victims, and be a
     contribution to the reconciliation process, and 
     - as mentioned above, many Salvadorans will take at least 6
     months to begin to overcome their fear, let alone publicly
     present their particular testimony to the Commission to be
     investigated. Human rights violations continue to occur in
     El Salvador (to a lesser degree than before the peace
     accords were signed by the government and the FMLN) and each
     violations serves to remind people that repression is alive
     and well.

iv- The role of the U.S. - The United States, as is so often the
case, is playing a key role in the investigations of the Truth
and Ad Hoc Commissions (the Ad Hoc Commission is a second
commission that is investigating the personal responsability of
members of the High Command of the Armed Forces of El Salvador)
in El Salvador. 

Another article in this edition of the BRECHA (see below) looks
at the fact that both Commissions have made it clear that they
will need and want access to information concerning the El
Salvadoran military that is controlled by the U.S. government. As
the other article sets out, the State Department has not been
forthcoming with this much needed information.

v- No capacity to judge - As in the case of commissions that
carried out investigations in South America, the Truth
Commission's findings in El Salvador are non-binding. It has no
power to name the alleged guilty parties and bring them before
either national or international courts for the commission of
crimes against humanity. 

To put an end to impunity - CODEHUCA is concerned about this last
point because the Truth Commission is working under the auspices
of the United Nations. When it has finished its work its report
will most likely receive considerable international coverage.
CODEHUCA fears that the image presented is that justice will have
been done and that therefore reconciliation is almost complete.

The danger is that if this occurs hardly a dent will have been
put in the armour of impunity that has protected that armed
forces and its agents in all of their criminal activity. Bringing
individual offcials to trial not only responds to accepted norms
of criminal justice but also it is a clear blow against impunity
- it is a clear statement that if members or agents of the
security forces commit crimes of human rights violations they can
and will be brought to trial.

v- CONCLUSION - CODEHUCA calls on the international community to
educate themselves about the work of the Truth Commission in El
Salvador and become active in their countries, particularly in
the United States, pressuring government officials to be
responsible for the full completion of the work of the Truth
Commission. The United States government has long been involved
in supporting unjust economic orders and supplying military aid,
training and weaponry to these two of the most repressive
militaries in the Americas.


2-   THE FUTURE OF IMPUNITY OF THE SECURITY FORCES IN EL SALVADOR
     The United States government holds key to work of the Truth
     Commission in El Salvador (and perhaps in Guatemala in the
     near future)

CODEHUCA is making a special appeal to United States citizens and
organizations that work on human rights and humanitarian issues
with respect to El Salvador (and Guatemala). Now, perhaps more
than ever, there is something vital that U.S. citizens and
organizations can do to truly help the causes of justice and
reconciliation in Central America.

Presently in El Salvador, two internationally appointed
Commissions - the Truth Commission (see above) and the Ad Hoc
Commission (that is investigating the personal responability of
members of the High Command of the El Salvador Armed Forces) -
are investigating 12 years of systematic human rights violations
and who are the government and military officials or agents, and
state institutions responsable for the violations. 

The outcome of their work is vital to El Salvador's process of
reconciliation and the fragile transition to democracy.

The 'catch' or the 'twist' is that much if not most of the
important information, that could serve as evidence to prove the
responsability of particular officials, agents or institutions in
the commission of human rights violations, lies in the hands of
the U.S. government.

That the U.S. government controls access to information that is
vital to the outcome of a semi-judicial investigation taking
place in El Salvador is testimony to the level of U.S. involvment
of training, financing and arming of the El Salvadoran security
forces over the last decades.

James McGovern, an advisor to Congressperson Joe Moakley, said
'there are only two sources of information concerning what
happened during the war [in El Salvador]. One is the El Salvador
Armed Forces and the other is the United States'.

Three members of the Ad Hoc Commission recently travelled for a
second time in less than one month to Washington to try and have
access to State Department materials concerning El Salvadoran
army officials. During the first trip to Washington, the State
Department refused to open its files to the members of the Ad Hoc
Commission. 

Much of the outcome of the Ad Hoc Commission's work depends on
whether or not it can gain access to U.S. government information.
Congressperson Moakley has offered to help the Ad Hoc Commission
(and the Truth Commission for that matter) to obtain any
information they might need. In 1989 Moakley carried out a full
investigation into the massacre of the Jesuit priests. His report
was based in large part on information collected and controlled
by the U.S. government. He concluded, in the report, that various
members of the High Command of the El Salvadoran Armed Forces
were directly or indirectly responsable for the massacre.

THIS IS A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE - CODEHUCA insists upon a simple
point. To point out that the United States government holds the
key to a part of the investigations taking place in El Salvador
(and possibly in Guatemala in the near future) is not to indulge
in idle political commentary. The role of the U.S. government is
crucial as to whether the impunity of the security forces in El
Salvador is ended or not. 

Since their first trip to Washington in July, the Ad Hoc
Commission has been sending to Washington lists of Salvadoran
military personnel allegedly involved in human rights violations.
It is then up to the U.S. to confirm or deny the allegations.

We are confronted with the extraordinary situation that is the
U.S., that has long been supplier of military weaponry, financing
and training to the El Salvadoran armed forces, is now in the
position of effectively being judge of them, in that they can
unilaterally decide to release or not release information. 

All the more reasons that U.S. citizens and organziations must
get involved to pressure the U.S. government to fully disclose
all information it has concerning the El Salvadoran army. Whether
an end to impunity occurs in El Salvador or not is in large part
dependent, as is so often the case, on what happens in the U.S.


3- LOOKING IN THE ASHES - Chapter Guatemala

     'Are you looking for the fire? Well, look for it in the
     ashes ... . This is what we have been trying to do since the
     liberation. We have looked in the ashes for a truth about
     the past, a truth to affirm, despite all that has happened,
     the dignity of all human beings, dignity that exists for now
     only in the memory. Thanks to these efforts, the survivors
     will find a justification for their survival. Each of their
     testimonies counts. Each of their memories will be a part of
     the collective memory. ... It is clear that nothing can
     bring the dead back to life. But ... thanks to the work and
     efforts to determine and expose the truth, the guilty will
     no longer be able to kill the dead a second time ... '.
     (Elie Wiesel, during the 1983 trial of Klaus Barbie)

I went to Guatemala and found many people needing and wanting to
look in the ashes, to find out a truth, a truth about 100,000
assassinated and 40,000 disappeared persons. Guatemala has the
reputation of being the world's number one "disappearer" of
civilians. 

"It is not vengeance people want. I sense a tremendous need for
someone independent to simply tell the truth. In many ways it is
like the Nazi Holocaust: the worst thing you can do is deny it
ever took place", said Thomas Buergenthal, member of the Truth
Commission in El Salvador. I felt a similar need in Guatemala -
that, at a minimum, the truth must be told.

I went to Guatemala and found many people hoping. They were
hoping for a chance, however small, to put an end to years and
lives of impunity of the Armed Forces and Civil Defence Patrols.
They were hoping to pull the mask off 38 years of repression, to
pull the earth off the estimated over 200 clandestine cemeteries
and find murdered loved ones.

And they were hoping to pull the disguise off the face of the
"democratic" government and military (the most repressive in the
Americas in the last 38 years) of Guatemala, a country better
known for its tourism, Mayan ruins and indigenous clothing, than
for its repressive and almost genocidal military tactics.

The Mutual Support Group (Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo - GAM) is a civic
organization comprised of mainly Indigenous persons, each of whom
has had one or more family members or lovers disappeared. The
GAM's main objective is to discover the whereabouts of the bodies
of the disappeared, and to bring the responsable persons and
state institutions to trial. 

The GAM held a one day workshop on Friday July 30 to discuss ways
in which the civic organizations can again try and pressure the
Guatemalan Congress to carry out a 7 year old government promise
to create an Investigatory Commission to find out what happened
to the detained and disappeared people.

The majority of the people in attendance were Indigenous women
and their children - women whose husbands, and\or children and\or
loved ones had been disappeared by the Guatemalan military or
PACs - the Self-Defense Civil Patrols that are directly under the
military's command. 

The majority of the people who attended were soft spoken
Indigenous women, intimidated by lives of repression and
suffering, intimidated because they "don't speak spanish that
well", a second or third language for them all. 

Intimidated, they sat and listened patiently throughout much of
the morning, a silent mourning to the tens of thousands of
disappeared, as a number of government officials and human rights
experts debated in spanish the merits and pitfalls of forming a
Commission.

Finally a member of their community stood and spoke with them in
their own languages, telling them they could speak and ask
questions in their own languages, and it would be translated.
Slowly, one after another, they stood and spoke, recounting parts
of their personal testimonies - breaking the silence imposed by
repression, racism and poverty. They spoke and addressed many of
the simple and basic issues that an Investigatory Commission will
have to address.

"They should form the Commission now. We know who killed my
father", said a young girl, the first to break the silence, and
state the obvious.

"My worry is for the future of the children", says a middle aged
mum, from El Quiche, "the children of the kidnapped people whose
cadavers turned up thrown on the roads and highways, dead, with
hands tied, and torture signs ... So, we need justice now, and
new mechanisms to ensure that justice will work".

An old women, of the Cachikel people, asks why it has taken so
long and they still haven't set up the Commission: "How many
times will they play with our pain, laugh at our suffering, send
police to beat us, forcibly drag people like Nineth from the
National Palace, ...?"

"Us poor people, the only thing we own, the only wealth we have
are our families, and even this they take it away from us. ... It
is a right to have our husbands by our sides - it is a right to
form a family". (A middle age woman, trembling).

Commission of Truth and Justice - The other issue that was
discussed at length was the possibility that soon, as a result of
the United Nations sponsored peace negotiations between the
government and representatives of the URNG (Unidad Revolucionaria
Nacional Guatemalateca), a Commission of Truth and Justice might
be formed to investigate human rights violations that have such a
part of Guatemalan life for so many decades. (See other article)

Ultimately there should be no debate as to which or both of the
Commissions is formed and put to work. The women present at the
forum and perhaps millions of other Guatemalans desperately need
either or both Commissions to be formed and authorized to carry
out full and open investigations. 

The dignity of each person and the collective memory of Guatemala
demand that these Commissions be formed. If Guatemala is ever to
become a just and democratic country, it will have to honestly
address its past and present of institutionalized human rights
violations. 

CONCLUSION - CODEHUCA believes the international community can
and ought to play an important role in pressuring for these
Commissions to be formed. Since 1954, the international community
and particularly the United States have played a major role in
economically and militarily supporting the reigning political
(military and economic) order in Guatemala. During the 38 years
since 1954, as the Guatemalan military and economic sectors have
waged a war against their own population, they have received
extensive military and economic support from the international
community. 


4- WHAT TO DO?

With respect to both the Truth Commission work already underway
in El Salvador, and truth commission work that hopefully will
soon be underway in Guatemala, CODEHUCA suggests the following as
actions:
- become aware that these processes are vital if ever the
"transitions" to democracy are ever to succeed in Guatemala and
El Salvador,
- bring this issue to the attention of your politicians so that
future relations (diplomatic, financial, commercial) between your
governments, banks, commercial and tourist companies with
Guatemala and El Salvador are somehow contingent on a full and
proper investigation of the crimes and human rights violations in
those countries, 
- urge your governments to support the United Nations sponsored
peace negotiations, and work to have the 6 month mandate in El
Salvador extended,
- urge your governments to make it known to the Guatemalan and
Salvadoran authorities that they are willing to help out in any
way to ensure proper and complete investigations,
- contact your local and national media to let them know about
these efforts.

Feel free to use any or all of these materials. Please send
comments and questions to Grahame Russell.
** End of text from cdp:carnet.alerts **
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive