|
GUATEMALAN DEATH SQUAD DOSSIERInternal Military Log Reveals Fate of 183 "Disappeared"National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 15Posted – May 20, 1999For more information contact: Washington, D.C., May 20, 1999 – The Guatemalan military kept detailed records of its death squad operations, according to a document released by four human rights and public interest groups today. The army log reveals the fate of scores of Guatemalan citizens who were "disappeared" by security forces during the mid-1980s. Replete with photos of 183 victims and coded references to their executions, the 54-page document was smuggled out of the Guatemalan army’s intelligence files and provided to human rights advocates in February, just two days before a UN-sponsored truth commission released its report on the country’s bloody 35-year civil war. Representatives of the National Security Archive, the Washington
Office on Latin America, the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, and Human Rights Watch disclosed the document at a noon-time press
conference on Thursday, May 20, at the National Press Club, calling it "the
only known record of its kind." The logbook covers death squad activity
by Guatemalan intelligence units during an 18-month period between August
1983 and March 1985. A
two-page excerpt appears in the June 1999 issue of Harper's Magazine.
"This chilling document is the death squad equivalent
of an annual productivity report, an account from inside the secret files
of Guatemala’s killing machine," said Kate Doyle, an analyst of U.S. policy
in Latin America and director of The Guatemala Project at the National
Security Archive, located at George Washington University. "It is absolutely
unique -- a rare glimpse of organized political murder from the perspective
of the perpetrators who committed it."
Throughout the war, the Guatemalan military used abduction,
torture and assassination in their counterinsurgency campaign against the
Guatemalan left. By the time the government and the guerrillas signed the
peace accord in 1996, some 160,000 people had been killed and 40,000 "disappeared"
-- 93 percent at the hands of the Guatemalan security forces, according
to "Guatemala: Memory of Silence," the report of the Historical Clarification
Commission.
The four groups called upon the Guatemalan government
to investigate the crimes detailed in the document, and identify and prosecute
those responsible. They also called on President Alvaro Arzú to
take immediate steps to secure the archives of the military and intelligence
services to protect against the destruction of other critical evidence
that may exist on human rights crimes.
Click
here to view the "Death Squad Dossier" (Color, PDF, 10 MB)
Click
here to view the "Death Squad Dossier" (B/W, PDF, 4.2 MB)
Click
here to view a one-page exceprt of the "Death Squad Dossier" (Color,
PDF, 156 KB)
Click
here to view the excerpt from Harper's Magazine (Color, PDF, 3.2
MB) October 29, 1983
The CIA notes a sudden increase in political killings and abductions
following the August 1983 coup against Efraín Rios Montt by Gen.
Oscar Mejía Víctores. Among the recent victims are Guatemalan
contract workers employed by the U.S. Agency for International Development
(AID), "disappeared" -- according to a CIA source -- by agents of the Guatemalan
government.
November 15, 1983
U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Frederic Chapin is convinced that three
Guatemalan AID workers were killed by the presidential intelligence unit
"Archivos" in reprisal for recent U.S. pressure over human rights in Guatemala.
November 21, 1983
The Bureau of Intelligence and Research blames Chief of State Mejía
Victores for rising violence in Guatemala, and notes that his lack of interest
in human rights sends military and paramilitary forces the message that
they can take whatever measures they deem necessary to crush "perceived
subversive threats."
February 2, 1984
Ambassador Chapin responds to two recent abductions in Guatemala City
with a starkly worded cable about the responsibility of Guatemalan security
forces in the disappearances and the implications for U.S. policy in the
country. "I pointed out the other day in San Salvador the conflict between
the desire to incorporate Guatemala into an overall U.S. strategic concept
for Central America and the horrible human rights realities in Guatemala.
We must come to some resolution in policy terms. Either we can overlook
the record and emphasize the strategic concept or we can pursue a higher
moral path. We simply cannot flip flop back and forth between the two possible
positions."
One of the abductions that prompts Chapin to write this cable -- that
of Sergio Samayoa Morales -- is a case detailed in the Guatemalan death
squad document recently released by the National Security Archive and other
groups.
February 3, 1984
One day after Ambassador Chapin sends his cable to Washington alerting
the State Department to Guatemalan government involvement in recent abductions,
Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Elliott Abrams and two other
Department officials sign off on a secret report to Congress citing improved
human rights in Guatemala and calling for a resumption in U.S. security
assistance. "The Mejía Government has taken a number of positive
steps to restore a constitutional, electoral process and to address the
practice of extra-legal detention. . . Failure to provide some politically
meaningful sign of support for the efforts being undertaken to return the
country to democratic rule, and to reduce the human rights violations,
will only increase the chance of further political instability. In addition,
the U.S. has other strong interests in Guatemala and the region which necessitate
a solid, bilateral relationship, including a positive relationship with
the Guatemalan military."
February 23, 1984
While perpetuating the Reagan administration myth that the Guatemalan
government is "not directly responsible for most political violence," this
Bureau of Intelligence and Research analysis nevertheless blames the Mejía
government for doing "virtually nothing to punish either the right-wing
parties or its own personnel for engaging in such activities."
October 30, 1984
As violence in Guatemala continues, this cable reports on a number of
recent incidents, including the murders of two prominent professors in
the Economics Department of the National University of San Carlos (USAC).
One of them -- Carlos de León Guidel -- is included in the Guatemalan
army’s logbook. According to that document, de León was captured
in 1983 while leaving his office, but "recovered his liberty" (which could
mean either that he escaped or was released) six weeks later. A handwritten
notation at the bottom of the entry says, simply, "26-10-84 = 300." In
the embassy cable, de León is described as having been "killed the
evening of October 26 by unknown assailants who intercepted and shot the
professor as he was driving home from the university." The cable goes on
to describe the recent assassinations as "professional in execution. Circumstantial
evidence suggests that at least the de León murder may have been
the work of government security forces."
March 28, 1986
In this unusual document, a State Department official gives a comprehensive,
thoughtful and blunt analysis of the phenomenon of forced disappearance
in Guatemala. Echoing some of the findings that the Historical Clarification
Commission would make more than a decade later, the document asserts that
"while criminal activity accounts for a small percentage of the cases,
and from time to time individuals ‘disappear’ to go elsewhere, the security
forces and paramilitary groups are responsible for most kidnappings. Insurgent
groups do not now normally use kidnapping as a political tactic. . ." The
report describes the military’s systematic use of abduction and murder
as a counterinsurgency tactic under Mejía Víctores, and details
the modus operandi behind the kidnappings. Finally, the document argues
that the U.S. embassy and the State Department "have failed in the past
to adequately grasp the magnitude of the problem" of forced disappearance.
|
home | about | documents | news | publications | FOIA | research | internships | search | donate | mailing list
|