Hugo Rolando Duarte Cordón and municipal union leaders, killed in 1998 and 1999 in Zacapa [1]

On June 30, 1998, Hugo Rolando Duarte Cordón, an official with the Zacapa Municipal Employees’ Union (SINTRAMUZAC), was shot and killed in front of a number of witnesses. [2] At the time, the union was involved in a dispute with the Zacapa mayor, Carlos Vargas y Vargas. Duarte had issued a report alleging corruption in the mayor’s office and violations of the labor rights of municipality workers, and was subsequently threatened by the mayor and his bodyguards. In the years preceding the murder, SINTRAMUZAC members lodged complaints against the mayor and his affiliates for intimidation and attacks, and MINUGUA reported it had evidence of extrajudicial executions and human rights violations by public employees linked to the Mayor. After taking testimony from a number of witnesses – and issuing summonses to two others who didn’t testify – the prosecutor indicated in September 1998 that he would not order the detention of the two suspects in Duarte’s murder, who according to MINUGUA were local government officials, because there was not sufficient evidence. A court of first instance agreed with that finding.

After the death of Duarte, two other members of the Zacapa union were murdered: Union Secretary Robinson Manolo Morales Canales in January 1999 and Angel Pineda, a FNDG mayoral candidate, in March 1999. Morales and Pineda had accused Vargas of corruption involving construction projects, and had filed complaints against him for attempted assassination and other violations. Hours before his death, Morales participated by telephone in a radio debate with Vargas and again alleged corruption in his office. After Morales’ death, the Mayor was suspended on charges of mismanaging funds. In 2000, two individuals with ties to the mayor were charged as material authors of the crimes and one of them – Carlos Anibal Paz Gordon – was sentenced to 20 years in prison. His alleged accomplice remains at large.

According to MINUGUA, Zacapa prosecutors seriously mishandled the case and the investigation into the suspected intellectual author of the crime – Mayor Vargas – was dropped. Union members and witnesses have reported receiving death threats. In a January 1999 press release, MINUGUA also criticized the public prosecutor’s office for not acting to protect Morales after he filed complaints about Vargas, something that “without a doubt has contributed to the level of violence and impunity that has manifested in Zacapa.”[3]There have been no convictions for the murders of the other SINTRAMUZAC members.

[1] Main sources: AFL-CIO, Petition to the USTR Regarding Guatemala Trade Benefits August 2000; Comite de Libertad Sindical, Informe, Caso número 1970 (2000); Country Reports 1999 to 2001; GHRC/USA, Guatemala Human Rights UPDATE, No. 1 (1999), No. 3 (1999), and No. 5 & 6 (1999); and MINUGUA Reports A/53/853 (March 1999) and A/54/688 (December 1999).
[2]Sources are inconsistent regarding whether José Alfredo Chacón Ramírez, also a SINTRAMUZAC member, was killed along with Duarte or at another time in 1998. The Comite de Libertad Sindical and others report that Chacón was attacked with Duarte, but two years after the murders the District Prosecutor’s Office in Zacapa did not have a record of Chacón’s murder, and had not conducted any investigation into it.
[3] MINUGUA, Ante el asesinato del sindicalista Robinson Manolo Morales, January 13, 1999.