Helen Mack Brings Guatemalan Mil.Int. to Court Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - "GHRC" A Test Case for Guatemalan Justice Reform: Helen Mack brings military intelligence officers to court The Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang devoted her academic career to uncovering the Guatemalan military's counterinsurgency tactics of the late 1980s. Despite the danger to herself, Myrna reported on the military's responsibility for massive displacement and destruction of entire civilian communities throughout the country. At a time when the Guatemalan military was trying to conceal the existence of the civilian Communities of Population in Resistance, Myrna was one of the first academics to document their nature and existence. She provided some of the first crucial evidence to challenge the military's public allegations that these communities were actually guerrilla encampments. Like Monseqor Gerardi would be eight years later, Myrna was murdered on September 11, 1990, in retaliation for her damning research on the Guatemalan military's counterinsurgency strategy. Myrna's sister, Helen Mack Chang, has tirelessly sought justice for her sister's murder. Over the years Helen has faced innumerable obstacles to the investigation and prosecution of Myrna's case (including the murder of the police homicide detective who first noted military responsibility for Myrna's death). Nevertheless, in 1993, Helen succeeded in the courts for the first time. A low-level sergeant major named Noel de Jeszs Beteta Alvarez was convicted and sentenced to 25 years for Myrna's murder. At the time of Myrna's death, Beteta was in the employ of a military intelligence unit long operating within the Presidency, known as the Estado Mayor Presidencial (EMP). Since Beteta acted under orders, Helen Mack has, from 1993 to the present, continued her unyielding efforts to take to court the then-heads of the EMP as the apparent "intellectual authors" of the crime. As a result of her efforts, three high-level military intelligence officers General Edgar Augusto Godoy Gaitan, Colonel Juan Valencia Osorio, and Colonel Juan Guillermo Oliva Carrera have been indicted as the suspected plotters of Myrna's murder. They are scheduled to go on trial in Guatemala on October 10, 2001. The importance of the Myrna Mack case should not be underestimated. This is the first case in Guatemala's history to go to trial that challenges not just those responsible for physically carrying out the crime but also those top military leaders who, as intellectual authors, planned a politically motivated murder. As the genocide cases against Lucas Garcma and Rmos Montt advance, all eyes are on the Mack case to see how successful it will be in the courts. This case is at the forefront of challenging the military establishment's long-standing impunity, and its success or lack thereof will likely have an effect on the success of the genocide cases. Therefore, international support is crucial. While the success of the Gerardi case and all it stood for was of critical importance to the well-being of Guatemalan society, the Mack case is no less important, as it implicates not just lower level officials responsible for Myrna's murder but the entire military establishment. Whereas the officials responsible for carrying out Monseqor Gerardi's murder represented a few individuals from the ultra-right, top members of the military establishment in the early 1990s ordered Myrna's murder. The Mack family's struggle for justice has taken place under extremely difficult circumstances. Numerous witnesses and a policeman have been forced to seek exile abroad, and those who have stayed in Guatemala have been subject to repeated harassment, threats, and intimidation. Dozens of judges and courts have passed the case around like a hot potato, and appeal after appeal has been filed by the military defendants and their lawyers, first to try to get the case held in military courts and then to simply delay it ever getting to trial. So blatant and numerous have been the obstacles to justice in the Mack case that on August 1, 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica agreed to hear a case against the Government of Guatemala for its failure to ensure timely application of justice for the Mack family. The atmosphere of fear and intimidation increased markedly in early 2001 when other ex-members of the EMP were tried and convicted of the 1998 murder of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi, whose office had just released an historic Church report on human rights violations in Guatemala. The Mack case is moving forward in equally precarious circumstances. Under the current government of Alfonso Portillo there has been a sharp increase in threats and attacks on human rights workers, including a rash of office break-ins, the suspicious murder of a U.S. nun, and a written threat received at the Mack Foundation office. Given the ongoing atmosphere of fear and intimidation, international support is again needed as the trial scheduled to begin October 10 culminates an eleven-year struggle for justice. At the request of the Mack Foundation, NISGUA, GHRC/USA, and other Guatemala-focused organizations are working together to establish a paid ad campaign. These public ads, which we hope will appear in the four main Guatemalan newspapers in the weeks to come, will be signed by non- governmental organizations both here in the U.S. and ABROAD. These ads will draw attention to the international community's concern that the Portillo administration ensure a fair and judicious trial. Such public international support is absolutely critical. From past experience with the Gerardi case, we know how effective these campaigns can be. Mack Foundation staff feel that a public ad campaign is one of the key ways in which we here in the U.S. can support Myrna's case. However, WE NEED HELP RAISING MONEY TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS EFFORT. At this time, we ask for your support for the following: Please send financial contributions to NISGUA, noting in the memo section of the check that your donation is intended for the Emergency Fund for the Mack case. These donations are tax-deductible. All such donated money will be used solely to support the Mack Foundation's case. We expect the majority of these donations will be utilized for the paid ad campaign the Mack Foundation has requested. Checks may be sent to NISGUA, 1830 Connecticut Ave., Washington, D.C. 20009. For more information, please feel free to contact the NISGUA office at 202-518-7638. More information about the case and how you can help through letter writing and other activities will be sent out at a later date. Alice Zachmann ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-09.27.01-01:48:50-26831