The Constitutional Court protects soldier accused of the disappearance of 7 people
Photo: Activists criticize the implementation of the Reconciliation Act in cases of crimes against humanity In late 1970, a personal struggle between the military commissioner Salomo Maldonado and family members of the village The Jute Maldonado resulted in a complaint to several people for having links with the guerrillas. In the years most violent anti-insurgency policy, on October 19, 1981, eight of them were missing under the command of Mario Enrique Sánchez Samayoa, a colonel in the military area of \u200b\u200bZacapa, with the participation of Maldonado and two military commissioners more.
In 2000, relatives of the victims formed the Committee with the aim of prosecuting the colonel and three commissioners for crimes of torture and enforced disappearance. Since been leading a legal fight strewn with appeals and injunctions. The criminal court judge decided in 2005 that there would be no trial for enforced disappearances, but kidnapping and abduction. The 4 defendants have more than three years in prison on remand.
At the beginning of December 2008, the victims of the Jute and accompanying groups and organizations know how effective was the decision of the Constitutional Court, by which Colonel Sánchez Samayoa amnesty and retire measures coercion, arguing that the crimes of kidnapping and abduction can pass under the National Reconciliation Act, which is not the case for the crimes of enforced disappearance.
ACOGUATE takes 3 years accompanying the Victims Committee, noting the precarious security situation in which families live and take this fight for justice.
A LEGAL PROCESS SLOW
The legal process began in 2001 when the Foundation for Mutual Support Group (GAM) filed a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the disappeared. Throughout the process there have been many remedies, appeals and tipping the scales that were alternately to and fro. In particular, the case proceeds in 2005 when the Office of Human Rights, following investigations, prosecution and claims made for trial in the Eleventh Court Criminal Trial.
the offense
The definition of the crime as kidnapping or abduction rather than disappearance, the latter crime against humanity and that does not support the extinction of criminal liability is a key to the process. The Office of Human Rights made the charge of crimes, enforced disappearances, crimes of duty to humanity and illegal detention in real competition, while the criminal trial judge, Cojulum changed the definition of the first on the abduction or kidnapping , which itself is pardoned under Articles 2 and 4 of the National Reconciliation Act.
GAM
addition, various non-governmental human rights (Myrna Mack Foundation and the Center for Justice and International Law) have highlighted the alarming attitude of the Attorney General, by silencing the change, as well as their passivity to be withdrawn not involved as part of the First Chamber of the Court of Appeal in 2005 (1).
Not so in Choatalum, which opened criminal proceedings against Felipe Cusanero, a former military commissioner accused of forced disappearance of 6 people between 82 and 84. The judge in this case did admit this classification. The event runs from April in the table of the Constitutional Court, having argued Cusanero lawyers retroactivity of the law. The crime of enforced disappearance did not exist until the year 1996 (see previous article for more information on the case).
But back to El Jute, it is noteworthy that the testimony of witnesses and relatives of the village say the crime of torture as one of those charged by the defendants.
The content of the decision of the Constitutional Court referred to the acts of the defendants were part or on the verb "prevent, deter, prosecute or punish political crimes, which inevitably relates to people disappeared with the guerrillas. But the resources of the PDH and the MP have pointed out that this argument has not been sufficiently tested and is not an excuse for the disappearance of these people (2).
addition, the State of Guatemala has signed numerous international treaties that require it to ensure the protection of people and the state's responsibility to crimes against humanity. The decision of the Chamber of the Court of Appeals, now ratified by the Constitutional Court dangerously contravenes the Geneva Convention, the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, the recommendations of the Committee Against Torture on not using the National Reconciliation Law in these processes, and the same authorities of the Supreme Court (3).
"mixed feelings" IN THE JUTE
The committee comprises 27 people, witnesses and relatives of the disappeared in 1981, living in El Jute but also in neighboring villages like El Limon, from which the Commissioner Maldonado . Group members living next of kin of the commissioners imprisoned since 2005, and this conflict is always a risk for them. In recent years, faced several death threats and intimidation by the Maldonado family.
With the decision to grant amnesty to Colonel Sanchez comes to committee members a new wave of insecurity. They wonder about the possible Colonel actions or reactions to them, when you leave in January 2009 after three years in prison. They worry also that the three commissioners come out, what seems most likely against amnesty for Sanchez. GAM
stressed that the three commissioners, noting the case of Colonel, made a request to be granted amnesty too. Meanwhile, the State is not blaming the face of threats received by its citizens and can not rely on state institutions to ensure the safety of members of the group. While GAM believes that institutions do not have the skills and resources to ensure the safety of people's committee what worries them not only now but long term, optics continue fighting for several years at other levels of justice. The physical vulnerability, local daily and is further accentuated with the lawlessness that feels (4).
This Court decision is a blow to the Committee members who have years of wasting energy to fight and to keep alive the will and hopes against widespread impunity. Strongly criticizing the release of Colonel Sanchez Samayoa a committee member said "The colonel is the one who bears the burden of guilt, the three commissioners were only messengers. The colonel, he does think and premeditated acts, and he was released! "
People evokes feelings of helplessness, frustration and shame seeing how it can be difficult to affect the military impunity in Guatemala. "The military power, money, and friends," said one committee member, referring to the suspicion of bias, which evoked the GAM in its statement of 7 December (3). This statement indicated that "the defense counsel of Colonel Sanchez Samayoa has shared office for more than 30 years with Judge Francisco Flores." Also Myrna Mack Foundation, in its statement of December 10, mentions that "the entire case management Jute has been malicious litigation and numerous anomalies that have served (...) impunity in different ways "(1).
Importantly, the severity of the decision of the Court with respect to the dignity of victims. As representatives of GAM point, originally, on charges of forced disappearance are looking for individuals to recognize that disappeared in El Jute in 1981 farmers were innocent victims of violent repression by the state. Not being accepted the original indictment was supposed victims had ties to the guerrillas and that his disappearance was justified by the times of counter-insurgency war. Now, amnesty to those responsible under the National Reconciliation Act, the Court reaffirmed this view. For the families of the disappeared, this amnesty helps to deny the dignity of victims, and to delegitimize their struggle (4).
With reference to committee members, some members expressed their weariness and disappointment for so many years fighting the case in El Jute, in a context of insecurity and threats, exposing the conflicts and risks in their own village. But many are ready yet to do with the support of GAM what legal strategies can be carried out, not to abandon the fight for the ruling. "We lost the trial, but we continue to do more things, maybe not for ourselves "(5). *************
ACOGUATE Writer Photo by ACOGUATE
Fuentes (1) Press the Myrna Mack Foundation, December 10, 2008
(1) Press the CEJIL, December 12, 2008: http://cejil.org/comunicados.cfm?id=870
(2) Decision of the Appeals Chamber of the Supreme Court, Appeal No. 07-2007, November 12, 2008.
(3) Field paid in the Office of Human Rights: a serious setback for human rights. Prensa Libre, December 11, 2008
(3) Press Foundation Mutual Support Group, 7 December 2008.
(4) Meeting with GAM, 18 December 208.
(5) Visit in El Jute, 14-16 December 2008
Other sources:
National Reconciliation Act of December 27, 1996, Decree No. 145-1996
Prensa Libre:
Edition electronic, print edition
http://prensalibre.com/pl/2008/abril/09/230922.html December 8, 2008, page 10.
Hour:
printed edition of April 10, 2008, p. 12.
printed edition of December 12, 2008, page 13. Edicición
print December 13, 2008, Page 3
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