wfn.org | Shooting Underscores Continuing Violent Climate in Guatemala

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

22-January-1998 
98019 
 
    Apparently Random Shooting Underscores 
    Continuing Violent Climate in Guatemala 
 
    by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-Though there's no certainty, Presbyterians in Guatemala 
believe that a gunshot fired into the home of the widow of a murdered 
pastor was accidental, not deliberate. 
 
    What people are certain of is that violence like this is terribly 
typical in a Guatemala full of guns left over from a long, bloody civil 
war. 
 
    The shot grazed the arm of 8-year-old Mildred Saquic, the daughter of 
Maria Francesca Saquic Ventura and the late Manuel Saquic, a Presbyterian 
pastor whose 1995 torture and death is thought to have been a reprisal for 
his human rights work and for his having witnessed a civil patrol's 
abduction of another murdered Presbyterian, Pascal Serech, who was a member 
of the Kaqchiquel Presbytery's Human Rights Committee. 
 
    The most recent incident occurred Nov. 26, 1997, when shooting began 
outside the Saquic household. 
 
    Saquic's widow has been repeatedly harassed - as have been members of 
her extended family - for pressing for the arrest and prosecution of her 
husband's accused killer, Victor Roman Cotz l, a former military 
commissioner who has been missing since a warrant was issued for his arrest 
for the Saquic murder.  The widow has also given testimony to Amnesty 
International delegates who visited Guatemala in 1997. 
 
    Amnesty International is an independent organization working for the 
release of prisoners of conscience, fair and prompt trials for political 
prisoners and an end to torture and execution. 
 
    "Though there's no certainty, we believe this was random fire," said 
Kaqchiquel Presbytery moderator Margarita Similox, who was threatened by a 
death squad two years ago for pressing both the Saquic and Serech cases in 
criminal court.  "Random fire is common in our country now.  After the 
peace treaty, there's been a big increase in delinquency." 
 
    But for those whose lives have been threatened for years, it is hard to 
tell when a gunshot is random and when it is not. 
 
    Tracy Ulltveit-Moe, Amnesty International's London-based Guatemala 
researcher, told the Presbyterian News Service that human rights advocates 
are especially wary about the safety of vocal defenders of human rights in 
Guatemala.  As mass graves dug during the past 20 years are exhumed for 
evidence, the state's  historical clarification commission - while not 
authorized to publish names of violators - is continuing to investigate 
human rights abuses that occurred during Guatemala's long war. 
 
    "One can presume that people who might have been responsible [for 
murders like Saquic's] are still around.  And it is in their interest to 
try to suppress in any way they can information linking them to killings, 
disappearances and other kinds of violations," she said, adding that new 
evidence is bound to cause nervousness in some circles. 
 
    Amnesty International issued an urgent action appeal Dec. 2 (shortly 
after Saquic reported the shooting to the Archbishop's Office for Human 
Rights in Guatemala City), calling for protest letters to Guatemalan 
government officials about the Nov. 26 gunfire.  That office is also 
collecting testimony about human rights abuses during the war years and 
intends to publish a report soon that names both government and guerrilla 
human rights violators. 
 
    Ulltveit-Moe acknowledges that it could have been random gunfire that 
tore into the Saquic household in late November, but she is acutely aware 
that others who have testified about human rights violations have been 
"intimidated and harassed" for years.  "She could be targeted because she 
made information available about the case and wanted action on it," 
Ulltveit-Moe told the Presbyterian News Service. 
 
    Saquic repeatedly has been targeted for  harassment since her husband's 
death.  Men - sometimes in military uniform, sometimes not - have left 
ominous messages while asking about her whereabouts at the market where she 
sells cloth and at her father's home.  She and her children live in hiding, 
away from former neighbors and extended family. 
 
    The Archbishop's Office said this is the first time shots have been 
reported, but Ken Kim, a mission worker with the Presbyterian Church of 
Canada who questioned Saquic, said Saquic - though uncertain at first - 
thinks now that the shooting was not a direct attack on the family but 
random fire.  The bullet came through the ceiling. 
 
     He said political killings have lessened dramatically in Guatemala, 
but violent crime is epidemic.  "There are too many guns in this country," 
he said.  "Killings continue.  The level of violence hasn't diminished. 
But there's not the same type of repression going on ... directly linked to 
the armed force or to right-wing elements trying to clamp down. 
 
    "Some of the same people may be involved.  But it is for profit now." 
 
    Kidnappings to extort money are rampant, as are bank robberies and 
assaults.  "As the economic situation has gotten worse, that's directly 
manifested in economic-related crimes," said Dennis Smith, a Presbyterian 
Church (U.S.A.) mission worker in Guatemala for nearly 20 years.  "We 
continue to have a profoundly violent society in Guatemala.  For 30 to 40 
years, a significant number of people have grown accustomed to using guns 
to impose their will on other people. ... 
 
    "We live in a middle-middle-class neighborhood," Smith said. "A week 
does not go by that we don't hear gunfire during the night." 
 
    But despite the lessening of political violence, the Washington Office 
on Latin America (WOLA) and the Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) in 
Washington, D.C., are careful to say that it still occurs.  One of the 
historical clarification commissioners has been threatened, as have been 
some of those intending to testify in human rights cases. 
 
    The August trial of Armando Tucubal, who was convicted in September of 
killing Serech with a 7.62-caliber army supply Mauser, was suspended at one 
point when Tucubal, who was free on bond at the time, and another man 
"tried to intimidate, perhaps assassinate one of the key witnesses."  The 
trial was delayed to determine whether to add new charges to the murder 
charge. 
    Tucubal was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Roman was also implicated 
in the trial testimony. According to Amnesty International and local 
sources, Serech's wife, Paula Car, was also charged, but the charges were 
dropped when her children recanted testimony that implicated their mother 
in their father's death. 
 
    Harold Nelson of GHRC said intimidation and harassment don't always 
mean death.  "You can turn a person's life into a living nightmare ... and 
you accomplish the same end.  The same with torture.  You let 'em live, but 
you destroy 'em." 
 
    Smith said the violence, paranoia and other resultant psychological 
problems in Guatemala presents a pastoral challenge for the church there. 
"With the undercurrent of violence ... it becomes easier and easier to 
reduce your world to your group, just shut out all others.  It gets harder 
to really express courtesy, solidarity and common humanity with other 
people. ... 
 
    "It is a problem," said Smith. "There's a culture of violence, a 
culture of impunity.  We're basically talking about a generalized state of 
psychosis." 

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