March 7, 2000
March 7, 2000
Contact HRF Communications (212) 845 5245 media@humanrightsfirst.orgGuatemalan Government Admits Responsibility for
1990 Murder of Myrna Mack, Other Cases from Past Decade
New York, March 7, 2000—In an unprecedented admission, Guatemala has acknowledged its responsibility in a host of human rights cases from the last decade. The government offered this historic acknowledgement at a joint press conference yesterday with members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C.
The Inter-American Commission presides over more than 100 pending cases of human rights violations in Guatemala. The government's remarks echoed concessions made on Friday at a Commission hearing into the murder of Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack, perhaps the most prominent of the cases addressed. The Government admitted that the State bears material and intellectual responsibility for the 1990 murder as well as the failure to obtain justice in the case. The move by the newly installed Portillo government reversed a long-standing government posture of ignoring or denying formal responsibility for atrocities committed during Guatemala’s civil war.
Myrna Mack was killed by a military death squad that stalked her for weeks prior to the murder. Her sister, Helen Mack, won international support for her effort to prosecute the killers. In 1993 a Guatemalan court convicted a low ranking member of a military unit for carrying out the killing. However, efforts to try the killers’ superiors -- including a retired general and two colonels -- have run into repeated roadblocks over the last seven years. With the help of Human Rights First, Mack has taken her case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which in 1996 found sufficient basis to admit the case to the merits phase of its proceedings.
The government’s admissions came as Human Rights First and Helen Mack requested for the first time that the Commission begin the process of elevating the case to the binding jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, because of Guatemala's failure to try the superior officers charged with orchestrating the murder.
The Committee’s Director of Protection, Robert O. Varenik responded, "We welcome the government’s admissions and assume its good faith. However, the recognition of wrong is not the end of the matter. Helen Mack has the right to see her sister’s murderers face trial."
Added Varenik, "The government’s next job is to put a stop to the intimidation of judges, witnesses and prosecutors, release relevant military documents, end the delaying tactics, and ensure that witnesses can safely come forward to testify without fear for themselves and their families."
Over the last ten years, more than two dozen witnesses, police investigators, and judicial officials have fled Guatemala for fear that their connection to the prosecution had put their lives in jeopardy. The detective who cracked the case by getting a positive identification of the killer was murdered shortly after testifying at a pre-trial hearing.
"There may be more people associated with the prosecution now in exile than within Guatemala. If the government wants to ensure a proper trial, they will have to open an ‘underground railroad’ in reverse, getting people back into Guatemala safely," said Varenik.
The Mack case is likely to be considered next by the Commission in the fall. If the government has made progress towards a trial the Commission is likely to hold off pushing the case to the Court. "The Guatemalan government has always had the power to decide whether this case is resolved in Guatemala or Costa Rica [the seat of the Inter-American Court]," said Varenik. "This year marks the tenth anniversary of the murder. It's time to decide it once and for all."