Update on Murder of Barbara Ann Ford in Guatemala Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source: WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS, MAY 13, 2001 GUATEMALA: US NUN MURDERED US nun Barbara Ann Ford, a member of the Sisters of Charity of New York who had been living and working in Guatemala for two decades, was murdered by two young men in Zone 9 of Guatemala City on May 5. A licensed nurse, she had worked since 1989 as a health administrator for the Diocese of Quiche in northern Guatemala. Ford was well-known in Quiche for her social efforts, including mental health work with victims of the armed conflict and help with irrigation and drinking water projects. Staff of the Catholic organization Caritas in Guatemala said that in recent months, Ford had been actively campaigning against the lynchings of suspected criminals which have become frequent in rural areas, and had strongly criticized the national government's lack of attention to basic needs in the villages of Quiche. According to the Miami Herald, Ford spent the past year working on a project funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Dutch government, which involved exhuming the bodies of victims massacred during the civil war and collecting forensic evidence that might bring their killers to trial. She had previously worked as an investigator for Catholic bishop and human rights advocate Juan Jose Gerardi Conedera, who was murdered on Apr. 26, 1998. The Mutual Support Group (GAM) issued a press release on May 7, stating the group's belief that Ford's killing was a politically- motivated extrajudicial execution. Guatemalan authorities initially said they believed the motive was car theft, but government investigators later admitted the crime may have been political. "The circumstances of the victim and the type of crime lead us to believe that this could be a politically motivated killing," said Fernando Penados, an analyst for the Secretariat of Strategic Analysis, the government intelligence agency. "She may have been seen as getting too friendly with enemies of the state." News stories about Ford's murder reported that six US nationals have been killed in Guatemala in the past 18 months, and that no arrests have been made in any of the cases. [Associated Press 5/7/01; Guatemala Hoy 5/7/01; Prensa Libre 5/7/01; GAM Press Release 5/7/01; Miami Herald 5/9/01] Police arrested three men on May 7 on suspicion of murdering Ford. All three were released on May 9 without being charged, after police determined that no evidence linked them to the killing. [MH 5/9/01, 5/10/01] On May 4, a day before Ford was killed, two assailants abducted Aura Elena Farfan, leader of the Association of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA), and FAMDEGUA driver Luis Aldana, and held them captive at gunpoint for about 45 minutes before stealing the organization's vehicle. The assailants made comments which suggested they may have had a political motive for the abduction. [GH 5/7/01; GAM press release 5/7/01; La Semana en Guatemala 4/30-5/6/01] ======================================================================= Weekly News Update on the Americas * Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 * 212-674-9499 fax: 212-674-9139 http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html * wnu@igc.apc.org ======================================================================= ================================================================= 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-05.15.01-15:38:03-6667