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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Death Squads Operating Against Guatemalan Exiles In Texas |
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by Jennifer Harbury
(No verified email address) |
03 May 2001
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Sent by: June Brashares june (at) globalexchange.org
From : Jennifer Harbury
To : Human Rights Network
Wednesday, April 25, 2001 |
Dear Friends, I am writing today to ask for your help in protecting the lives of one of the key witnesses in Everardo\'s case, Otoniel De La Roca Mendoza. The G-2 agents from the army\'s Jaguar Justiciero death squad have tracked him over the last four years to his home here in the United States, and have been making truly frightening threats against him and his children. More frightening still, they called him from the San Antonio Texas bus station. They\'re here.
I know that I am still alive because of your tireless calls and letters on my behalf during my hunger strike. It does make a difference and a very big one. So I am asking that yet one more time you pick up your phones. If the Jaguar Justicieros think we are too tired to object when they arrive here in the U.S. to terrorize our Guatemalan friends, then we are in real trouble indeed.
As many of you will remember, Otoniel was a prisoner of war who was captured by the Guatemalan army in the mid 1980s and subjected to very severe torture, including suffocation in a hood filled with pesticide, drownings, beatings with a bat, and electrical shocks which left permanent nerve damage. Like Everardo, he became a long term prisoner of the G-2, or intelligence division, which was trying to psychologically break prisoners for their information through long term abuse.
In Otoniel\'s case, they made sure he did not later attempt to escape. They knocked down a church door and captured his two small children, keeping them on the same base where he was being held and tortured. His wife , sister, and both parents had already been murdered. He was an unwilling prisoner for many years, and witnessed Everardo\'s capture and abuse.
In 1997 I helped him to escape from Guatemala and testify to the OAS . We barely got out of the country then. Just before he testified in D.C. , he received a deluge of calls reminding him that his children, now adolescents, were still in Guatemala and could easily be killed. He testified nevertheless, giving invaluable information not only about Everardo, but the entire network of G-2 death squads, including the names and pseudonyms of 23 Jaguar Justiciero members. Much of this information appeared in the United Nations Truth Commission report later on.
Slowly but surely, Otoniel was able to get his new wife and baby, his older children, and his brothers and sisters safely to the United States, where they have been working hard and learning fast. Meanwhile, he has again and again contributed information to various human rights activists to assist them in their work against impunity. Throughout the last several years, the army has tried again and again to locate Otoniel by watching the homes of all friends and family members for calls and letters, and threatening and intimidating them in an effort to learn his whereabouts. One close friend fled Guatemala last winter as a result of the heavy threats she was receiving.
Now the military is more frenzied than ever, because we have just won Everardo\'s case in the Inter-American Court of the OAS in San Jose Costa Rica. It was a one hundred page unanimous decision which declared the \"dirty war\" tactics of torture and kidnapping outright illegal for once and for all, no exceptions, not even when the victim is a comandante of the URNG forces. This was shocking enough to the army, but they now face the damages hearing in Costa Rica, when the Court will decide what kind of sanctions to impose. These will be civil in nature, as the Court has only civil jurisidction, but the army is not willing yet to admit to any unlawful actions at all, let alone pay for any crimes committed.
So it appears that they are on a rampage, and Otoniel, as a star witness, is their target together with his family. Sometime last week, some agents decided to try a telephone call to a much younger sister of Otoniel\'s wife, Elizabeth. This family knew nothing about Otoniel or his painful history. The agents made up a story about needing to reach her about some boxes that had been shipped , and the girl obliged by giving them a telephone number. At the end of last week , (April 19 and 20) the agents called the home where Otoniel, his children and brothers are all living together. They reached his sister in law and told her that they were Church workers calling from San Antonio, and that Elizabeth\'s brother was very ill in San Antonio and needed help?.that he had just traveled with a coyote across Mexico. The young woman promptly called Elizabeth at work..
Elizabeth herself was already leery because a few months ago, someone had called her to set up an appointment at the clinic for Otoniel, but for a time hours after they closed ( in short, they were inviting him to a dark and empty neighborhood). When she had called back, no one at the clinic knew anything about the \"appointment\" or the caller. So this time Elizabeth was yet more cautious.
She called Otoniel, who went to a street telephone and called the number. He was again told that Elizabeth\'s brother was there at the church and very ill. Otoniel demanded to speak to the \"brother\" and asked him his name and the name of both parents, and the man answered correctly. (Otoniel had never met this brother so he could not judge the voice).
As all seemed to be in order, Otoniel asked what he needed, and the man asked for money to be wired to him for a ticket to Denver. Otoniel wired the cash, without his address. He then called back one more time. The \"brother\" answered again and then a different voice came onto the phone. \"SO AT LAST! WE HAVE FOUND YOU!\" the voice boomed over the phone. The man yelled obscenities, telling Otoniel that they had been looking for him for years, and accusing him of selling out to me, and letting me buy him. Then he said that they had \"forgiven\" his mistakes ( of being a URNG member) the first time, and had spared him and his children ( though they had killed his parents wife, and sister), but that this time it would not be the same and that he would pay very, very dearly for his errors and that his family would as well. They also threatened to frame him and drag him back to Guatemala (a threat they have made before.)
At this point Otoniel hung up, then quickly called the operator to have her trace the number he had dialed. The number was not at a church, it was at the Greyhound Bus station in San Antonio Texas. When Elizabeth called home that night, she learned that her brother was sitting right there, he had never left home at all.
Friends, this truly frightens me. Otoniel left Guatemala in 1997 and testified in 1998. We thought that he and his family were safe here at long last. Yet the G-2 officials have obviously tracked him for the last three years with a malice, cunning and perseverance that gives me chills. They clearly want him punished as an example to others who might decide to talk. This man is a torture survivor who was nevertheless willing to risk speaking out about everything he witnessed. His younger brother and sister were babies when the army dragged away their mother, grandmother and aunt, leaving them screaming alone on the floor throughout the night. His two adolescent children were dragged from a church to the base while he was tortured, then forced to live nearby and report in several times a week to guarantee that Otoniel would not attempt to flee. This family does not deserve to live in fear or suffer any more pain or loss.
As a final note, I would like to make public the fact that someone broke into my home in Texas just before these calls were made (weekend of April 8, 2001). They took the lock from my back gate, opened a window with a fine sharp object (knife?) and stole only the computer, not the credit cards, jewelry, cd player or other usually inviting items. This is the border area and break-ins are not uncommon, but the burglar usually tosses a few things around and opens drawers and closets looking for a few valuable items or even \"gifts \" for a girl friend. This time was surgically neat.
I decided not to be paranoid, even though I knew the army was boiling over the reparations hearing, and even though stealing computers is a standard G-2 intelligence gathering activity. Then again, it turns out that our G-2 \"pals\" really were right here in Texas that very week. I can\'t prove anything, but I do wish for everyone to take note.
For now though, the emergency is Otoniel de La Roca Mendoza and his entire family. Please help them ! The army is testing us to see whether or not this case will still cause public outcry if they begin to administer punishments. They need to hear from us. Every call does count.
Abrazos, Jennifer
PLEASE CALL, WRITE, OR FAX THE GUATEMALAN EMBASSY NOW !
Tell them :
1. You will not tolerate any reprisals against Otoniel De La Roca Mendoza, his family or his friends, either here or in Guatemala. No tragic accidents.
2. You demand a full investigation into this attempt to terrorize a witness in U.S. territory and that steps be taken by the government to control the army, in particular the G-2 death squads like the Jaguar Justicieros.
3. That if anything happens, you will demand the extradition of all Guatemalan military officers involved in drug trafficking to be extradited for trial here, starting with Col. Alpirez, who is on the DEA corrupt officer list.
4. That you will be bringing this matter to the attention of your Congresspersons.
PLEASE DO CALL YOUR CONGRESSPERSON AS WELL AND TELL THEM WHAT IS HAPPENING.
ASK THAT THEY TOO CALL THE EMBASSY.
Guatemalan Embassy, Tel. 202-745-4952 corrected fax 202-745-1908
Email : ambassador@ guatemala-embassy.org
2220 R St. WASHINGTON D.C. 20008
UNITED STATES CONGRESS : 202-224-3121
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