From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Date: 28 Jul 92 17:07 PDT
Subject: AI: Children of the Street
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1473800116:000:9346
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Jul 28 17:07:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: AI: Children of the Street

/* Written  5:06 pm  Jul 28, 1992 by hrcoord in cdp:ai.general */
SAY
June 1992

CHILDREN OF THE STREET: LIFE AND DEATH AMONG GUATEMALA'S HOMELESS
CHILDREN

by Ron Lajoie

Nahaman Carmona Lopez was considered a menace to some sectors of
Guatemalan society. He was bad for business, bad for tourism. He
wasn't really much good for anything.

It wasn't that Nahaman himself was so much trouble. It was just that
there are so many like him on Guatemala City streets. He died on
March 14, 1990 with six broken ribs, two broken fingers, open
wounds to head, cheeks, and back, a punctured liver, severe concussion,
and with bruising over 60 percent of his body. Four policemen had
literally kicked him to death. Nahaman Carmona was 13 years old.

Nahaman Carmona belonged to a loose, ragtag community of street
children - the orphaned, the displaced, the abandoned, the handicapped -
who live on the streets of Guatemala City. According to charitable
agencies working with street children in Guatemala, some 5,000
children, some as young as five years old, live on the streets of
Guatemala City. Here they search garbage dumps for food, sleep
under parked cars or on the sidewalk. Most survive by stealing,
begging and prostitution. Some sniff glue to help overcome their
hunger pangs and keep warm.

Since 1990, police forces in Guatemala City have turned to harsh,
dangerous, and life-threatening practices against street children.
Because of the public's fears of what they see as a rising crime
rate and the street children's use of glue, there has been some
support to put a stop to crime.

Nahaman was born in San Salvador. In 1987 his family fled the civil
war of El Salvador and built a two-room shack in one of the poorest
neighborhoods of Guatemala City. There was no work; their father
drank and the children were left to fend for themselves.

Nahaman and his older brother, Israel, found work - washing cars,
selling bubble gum - for perhaps a dollar a day. Their father took
the money and spent it on liquor, and if it wasn't enough, would
beat the boys. The two young brothers left home; their sister left
soon after them.

After two years on the street, the brothers entered a street
children's shelter run by Covenant House. Nahaman could not adapt
to life there, and after a couple of months, on March 3, 1990,
he left for the street with some friends.

The next morning Nahaman Carmona was siffing glue with a bunch of
friends when four National Policemen and one Policewoman found them.
Six boys managed to run off, but four others were surrounded by the
police. The police began pouring the glue on the boys' head, as
is normal police practice. Nahaman resisted. He paid for it with
his life.

Nahaman was thrown to the ground and the four policemen started
to kick him "to teach him a lesson." His screams could be heard
three blocks away. Left for dead by the police, Nahaman's friends
came back half an hour later to find him covered with paper flowers
and pieces of white crepe, a common custom in Guatemala when
children die. After two unsuccessful attempts by his street companions
to get help, Nahaman was finally taken to a state-run hospital
by a volunteer ambulance.

Nahaman didn't get immediate medical treatment even though he was
in a coma, and when he finally was treated, it was too little too
late; he never regained consciousness. Nahaman died at dawn on
March 14, 1990.

In March 1991, after considerable international and national pressure
and for the second time in the history of Guatemala, the four police
officers accused of the fatal beating of Nahaman Carmona were
brought to trial, found guilty, and sentenced to 10 to 15 years in
prison.

Four months later, in July 1991, the sentences were overturned on
a technicality - the hour indicated for the beating of Nahaman was
given as 2.30 a.m. while it had been established that it had taken
place at 0.20 a.m. After long delays, a re-trial took place, and
in April 1992 the four policemen were found guilty of homocide and
sentenced to 12 to 18 years in prison; the accused are currently
appealing the sentence.

Covenant House, or Casa Alianza as it is known in Latin America,
has been at the forefront of efforts to demand investigations into
police abuses against street children since 1990.

"It's sad to say, but in Guatemala people are not concerned," says
Bruce Harris, Covenant House's Executive Director for Latin
America, of public indifference to the plight of Guatemala's street
children. "This is a country where 70 percent of the population
lives in poverty. People have their own problems to deal with.
Policemen feel they can take liberties with the children and do as
they like."

Harris maintains that pressure from AI membership remains one of
the strongest sources of pressure from the Guatemalan Government
today. "I am telling you, if it wasn't for Amnesty International,
I would probably not be talking to you now. I would already be dead.
That is the way problems are dealt with in Guatemala."

Francisco Tziac was Nahaman's friend and he is the key witness against
the four policemen. Since Nahaman's killing, Francisco has been 
singled out by uniformed and plainclothes police and has been abducted,
severely beaten, and threatened on many occasions.

In December 1991 Francisco, now 17, was again abducted by two men as
he was walking with two other street children. He was forced into
a pick-up and taken to Olympico Bridge, where he was kicked and
insulted by one of the men. This same man then took a gun out of his
holster and said "Here you are going to die." While the two men
argued over whether they should kill him, Francisco managed to 
escape and fled to Covenant House. Francisco says that the man with
the gun was wearing an identification tag around his neck similar
to those used by the armed forces.

One afternoon in April 1992, Francisco arrived at the Legal Aid
office of Covenant House. He was bleeding from his nose and mouth.
He said that he had just been attacked by three armed men who
caught him stealing from a car. Francisco's assailants asked him
about Bruce Harris and told the boy that it was Harris who made
the street children steal. The men then released him. Covenant House
staff took him to the hospital.

While Francisco Tziac was waiting at the emergency room, a National
Police agent came to interrogate him about what had happened to
him. The police agent told Francisco that he would have to wait at
least two hours before anyone would take care of him at the hospital.
Francisco left the hospital and went into hiding.

Olga Odilia Jimenez Fajardo was the Covenant House social worker who
found Nahaman at the hospital. Throughout the rest of 1990 and early
1991 she received threatening phone calls and personal threats of
abduction and sexual abuse. In May 1991 an unidentified man in plain
clothes tried to grab Olga Jimenez as she walked to work.

A week later, four unidentified men got out of a car and coerced Olga
Jimenez into it. After about half an hour, she was forced out of the car.
Her abductors took off all her clothing and told her to tell them what she 
knew. They asked about several people who were lviing in her house,
about Covenant House and about whom she had spoken to in the hospital
about Nahaman Carmona. Then she was raped.

Olga Jimenez survived because one of the men found her National Police
Hospital work identification badge in her purse. She was subsequently
operated on for internal injuries as a result of the rape. In the
fall of 1991 another attempt was made by unknown assailants to abduct
Olga Jimenez and a series of attempts were made against her husband
and a friend of theirs who was writing her thesis on street children.
They are all now in exile.

These are only two examples of repeated attacks against people 
associated with Nahaman Carmona and Covenant House, attacks which
Amnesty International believes were designed to intimidate witnesses.

What Can You Do?

Members of the police forces of Guatemala beat and kill street
children because they know they can get away with it. Tell the
government of Guatemala that you do not accept such impunity and
that it must protect street children and their advocates. Let the
President of Guatemala know that street children like Nahaman
Carmona and Francisco Tziac are not invisible or forgotten.

Please write to the President of Guatemala and express your concern
at the series of incidents against Francisco Tziac, a key witness
in legal proceedings against four policemen currently in prison
for the killing of Nahaman Carmona Lopez, and who appears to have
been singled out as a target by the security forces; ask that his
physical security be guaranteed by the authorities, and urge that
immediate investigations be undertaken into these incidents and
that those found responsible be brought to justice. Ask what
investigations have been made into the death threats and rape of
former Covenant House staff worker Olga Jimenez Fajardo.

Write to:

S.E. Jorge Serrano Elias
Presidente de la Republica de Guatemala
Palacio Nacional
Guatemala, GUATEMALA

Please send a copy of your letter to:

Covenant House/Casa Alianza
Apartado Postal 2704
Ciudad de Guatemala, GUATEMALA

An airmail letter costs 50 cents.