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News :: International Relations |
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Guatemala City: Reporter Killed, Government Terrorist Mobs Roam City |
Current rating: 2 |
by jonah (repost from Global IMC)
(No verified email address) |
24 Jul 2003
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Journalist Killed in Guatemala City by Terrorists Supporting Rios Montt and the Frente Republica Guatemalteco (FRG) |
I am writing from Guatemala, Information Below is From Various News Sources Here:
For Immediate Release: July 24, 2003,
Journalist Killed in Guatemala City by Terrorists Supporting Rios Montt and the Frente Republica Guatemalteco (FRG)
Bands of Citizens Armed with Sticks and Slingshots, Armed by the Ruling FRG Terrorize the Capital
Guatemala City, Guatemala, Central America-- This morning a 65 year old reporter for Noticiero Notisiete, a Guatemalan television station, was killed in Guatemalan city in an intensifying situation. He was killed by a group of masked men who ran at a group of reporters and shot. Meanwhile, bands of citizens carrying sticks, slingshots and burning tires all supplied by the ruling FRG are terrorizing Guatemala City in actions aimed a quelling non-violent protests that have been occurring to stop the candidacy of former military dictator Rios Montt of the FRG. The ruling FRG has supplied these campesinos with radios to communicate, lunch and transportation to the Capital. One campesino reported that the FRG bribed them with fertilizer to participate. The FRG has also ordered police to not intervene and there are almost none visible on the streets of Guatemala City.
Former military dictator Rios Montt, responsible for the massacre of thousands of Guatemalans during the worst part of the civil war in Guatemala in the 1980s has used bribery and threats to potentially become a candidate for Guatemalan presidency in elections that will occur in November, despite a Constitutional law that no person who overthrows the Guatemalan government will be allowed candidacy. Rios Montt has said that he can not be held responsible for the violence that he predicted would occur today in the capital in response to growing protests against his potential candidacy.
During the coming week the Corte de Constitutionalidad, the highest court of Guatemala will decide whether Rios Montt's candidacy will be accepted. Much reporting has occurred on bribery and threats both of decision-makers and citizens of Guatemala by the FRG. Guatemalans are clear that there is no possibility of an honest election if he is allowed to participate, and many fear for their lives if he should through bribery and corruption win the election in November.
Human rights organizations and Guatemalans are calling upon citizens of other nations to provide support and protection as the situation intensifies. |
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Hundreds March In Xela, Guatemala Against Human Rights Violator |
by Jeff G
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
24 Jul 2003
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July 24, 2003
Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala
by Jeff Giaquinto
Between 200 and 500 demonstrators marched tonight in Quetzaltenango, second largest city in Guatemala demanding that Efrain Rios Montt not be allowed to run in the November elections.
Chanting: "Yes to life, No to Genocide," the students, professors, and others marched from the university and rallied at the city's Parque Central.
The protest comes amid weeks of back and forth between the nation's Supreme Court of Justice and Supreme Court of Constitutionality regarding whether or not Rios Montt can register as a candidate. At the head of the march were university students distributing leaflets containing a resolution listing the crimes of Rios Montt, and denouncing his ruling party, the FRG.
QUICK BACKGROUND
General Efrain Rios Montt seized power in a military coup in early 1982 and oversaw some of the worst massacres in Guatemalan history. He is known to be responsible for the Guatemalan military's policy of "scorched earth" in which whole villages suspected of being sympathetic to the leftist guerrillas were massacred. The 36 year civil war left 200,000 dead and 50,000 refugees. Many details of the horrific torture and murder of dissidents and suspected dissidents by the military were made known to the world through the testimonio of Rigoberta Menchu Tum, recipient of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize.
Since the Peace Accords, signed in 1996 by the government and the guerrilla movement (URNG), the country has known relative peace, but corruption is widespread and the root causes of the war-- desperate poverty, landlessness, racism and discrimination against the indigenous cultures-- have not improved much. The current governing party is the FRG, which is known to be thoroughly corrupt. For instance, it is widely known that the FRG illegally uses government funds and workers to paint their symbol on virtually every building and tree in the country, (such painting is a typical element in electoral campaigns here.)
An amendment to the Guatemalan constitution specifically bars the leaders of the military coups of the 1980s from running for president, but that hasn't stopped Rios Montt from trying. Though the current president, Alfonso Portillo, is of the same party, everyone knows that Rios Montt really calls the shots. The highest court of the land is the Court of Constitionality, which convieniently contains a majority which are known to be in the pocket of the FRG. After being denied many appeals, this Court ruled in Rios Montt's favor last week. But due to a legal technicality, the lower Court of Justice has the power to review such cases, and thus his ambitions are temporarily thwarted.
What will happen next is unclear. Rios Montt has publicly threatened that he can't be responsible for what his supporters (which, implicitly, includes his huge, heavily armed, private guard,) may do if he is denied the chance to run. Here in Xela, both a law student and a social work student stated that they will need to change their theses now, since both focused on issues of human rights abuses. These two students were explicit that their lives would be in danger if Rios Montt were to consolidate his power by being "elected" president. Insane as it may seem, voter fraud and other forms of electoral corruption are so wide-spread that if Rios Montt is allowed to run, many fear that he could "win" somehow.
For more info see:
http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/montt.htm |
