wfn.org | Guatemala's Government Accused of Cover-Up

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27-July-1998 
98236 
 
    Guatemala's Government Accused of Cover-Up 
    over Bishop's Murder 
 
    by Paul Jeffrey 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
GUATEMALA CITY-Accusing the authorities of engaging in a "cover-up," 
Guatemala's Roman Catholic leaders have broken off communication with 
government officials investigating the murder of 
Bishop Juan Gerardi on April 26. 
 
    "There's a cover-up going on," declared Ronalth Ochaeta, director of 
the Human Rights Office of the Catholic Archdiocese of Guatemala. "If we're 
going to have peace, we can't have impunity. Those are two conflicting 
values." 
 
    Ochaeta made the statement on July 14 in Madrid, where he and Gerardo 
Flores, bishop of Cob n in central Guatemala, met Bishop Juan Jos Asenjo, 
general secretary of the Spanish Bishops' Conference. Ochaeta and Bishop 
Flores are briefing government and church officials across Europe  about 
the lack of progress in the investigation of the brutal murder of Bishop 
Gerardi. 
 
    Juan Gerardi, auxiliary bishop of Guatemala City and founder of the 
archdiocesan human rights office, was murdered two days after releasing a 
1,400-page report on Guatemala's 36-year civil war. The report, "Guatemala: 
Never Again!" blamed the country's military for almost 90 percent of the 
war's 150,000 deaths and 50,000 "disappearances." 
 
    Bishop Gerardi had frequently denounced the military for human rights 
violations and involvement in drug trafficking, car theft and kidnapping. 
 
    More than six weeks ago, Ochaeta gave government officials the names of 
two military officials who church investigators believe are behind the 
murder. Ochaeta said he had also passed on the license plate number of a 
car seen parked near the bishop's residence at the time of the killing. The 
plate number was assigned to the military, Ochaeta said. 
 
    He added that the high-level government committee investigating the 
crime had failed to make use of  the information. As a result, Ochaeta 
said, the church would no longer cooperate with 
government investigators. 
 
    Ochaeta's comments provoked an outcry from authorities here. An army 
spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Edith Vargas, denied any military 
involvement in the murder and said the military might take Ochaeta to court 
for defamation. 
 
    Guatemala's foreign minister, Eduardo Stein, who is a member of the 
investigative committee, initially claimed that Ochaeta had never handed 
over the information. But Gustavo Porras, a member of the committee and 
also personal secretary to Guatemala's president, Alvaro Arz#, has admitted 
that Ochaeta turned over the two names and the license plate number. He 
refused to comment on what the government had done with the information. 
Stein later said the committee had turned over the plate number to police 
investigators. The charges about the two military officials "could never be 
verified with precision," he said. 
 
 
    According to Edgar Gutierrez, coordinator of the human rights report 
that Bishop Gerardi presented shortly before his death, one of the two 
suspects is a retired military official. The other is an officer of the 
Presidential High Command, the unit which protects President Arzu and his 
family. 
 
    Gutierrez refused to name the two military officials, arguing that they 
were only suspects and that it was the duty of the government to 
investigate their alleged involvement in the crime. He said government 
officials had told him privately that they had initiated an investigation 
into the accusations against the two men and could find no evidence against 
the retired officer. However, the government officials had complained they 
were not allowed to investigate the member of the Presidential High 
Command. 
 
    "It's a joke," said Helen Mack, a human rights activist who worked 
closely with Bishop Gerardi. 
 
    "Do they really have their hands tied and prefer not to move on this 
case?" Bishop Flores asked in Madrid. 
 
    European governments are providing a large portion of the almost $2 
billion in assistance necessary to implement 1996 peace accords here, and 
Bishop Flores and Ochaeta went to Europe to ask church leaders and 
government officials to put pressure on the Guatemalan government to 
resolve the Gerardi case. 
 
    However, the leader of Guatemala's Catholics, Archbishop Pr"spero 
Penados del Barrio, predicted the killers would never be apprehended. "The 
assassination took place just a few steps from the National Palace and no 
one knows anything. I don't think we'll ever know anything." 
 
    Archbishop Penados also accused the Presidential High Command of 
opening his mail in recent weeks. "Although they deny it, they still have 
control of the country," the archbishop said. 
 
    Police have been holding a suspect, Carlos Enrique Vielman, since April 
30, but church officials believe that prosecutors do not have evidence 
showing that Vielman was linked to the murder. They claim the government is 
holding him to make it appear that the investigation is making progress. 
 
    Vielman's lawyer, Mario Mench#, claimed in June that Bishop Gerardi was 
killed by Mario Orantes, a priest who lived in the same building as the 
bishop. Mench# suggested that Orantes was Gerardi's homosexual lover. 
 
    According to Gutierrez, that explanation for the crime originated with 
the army. "Mench# is only saying aloud what military intelligence began 
whispering in the first days after the murder," Gutierrez said. 
 
    Mench# supports his claim by pointing out that eight hours after the 
murder,  Orantes ordered the site of the killing to be hosed down. That 
action restricted the investigators in their search for clues. 
 
    But church officials said that police officials supervising the initial 
investigation ordered Orantes to clean up the scene of the murder. 
 
    Church officials have also pointed out several anomalies in the initial 
investigation. They said that police technicians lifted 26 separate 
fingerprints from the crime scene and then later claimed none had been 
usable. 
 
    "We won't ever achieve reconciliation in this country if truth is not 
respected," Ochaeta said.  

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