----- Original Message ----- From: John Clancy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 4:17 PM Subject: [Cuba SI] Guatemala victims. More US terrorism/murder uncovered from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subject: Guatemala victims. More US terrorism/murder uncovered from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subject: Small Sample of US Serial terrorism -Guatemala Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: "Karen Lee Wald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "Karen Lee Wald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Maceo Carillo Martinet" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: The REAL TERRORISTS Fw: Guatemala War Victims Overlooked Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 Every time someone asks me about so-called "human rights violations in Cuba" I want to pull out a stack of news items, like this one, reporting on the horrors committed by governments the US never stopped supporting, never even criticized...... Guatemala War Victims Overlooked By WILL WEISSERT .c The Associated Press PACOJ, Guatemala (AP) - Macial Martin watched the anthropologist in the shallow grave count the number of teeth still in the skull of his youngest daughter. ``She is finally seeing the light of day again,'' he said. ``Now the same will be true of what happened here.'' Maria Apolonia Martin was 9 when she was killed in Guatemala's "civil war". She was one of 54 people slain here on Feb. 12, 1982, in a massacre that history forgot. Though reports compiled by a United Nations- sponsored truth commission, the Roman Catholic Church and human rights groups have documented most state-directed massacres, none mentioned what happened in Pacoj (pronounced pah-KOK). That is changing. Scientists from the capital's Forensic Anthropologic Foundation of Guatemala recently unearthed the bodies of 24 victims from two shallow graves hastily dug by survivors who had escaped to the safety of the woods. The foundation plans excavations of two more mass graves where relatives hope to find the 30 massacre victims who remain unaccounted for. The victims died on a steamy Friday morning, after soldiers from a nearby outpost sauntered into the 70-family mountain village of coffee plants and breathtaking views, 20 miles from Guatemala City, the capital. ``They said, 'Don't be afraid, ma'am, we are here to protect you,''' recalled Maria Dominga Vool, Martin's wife. ``They asked for lunch, and I wasn't afraid. It was after they finished eating that I could see their eyes change, and I could see death in their faces.'' After lunching on the black beans and tortillas she offered them, the soldiers shot Vool twice in the chest and left her for dead on her bedroom's dirt floor. As she fell, Vool saw the soldiers shoot Maria Apolonia and her 14- year-old daughter, Maria Silvestra. They then shot her 11-year-old son, Joaquin Martin. ``We weren't guerrillas,'' said Vool, 64, who kept the two bullets that exited through her back, as well as 18 other bullet fragments she collected from her home and yard after the shootings. ``But even if we were, how could our children have been guilty of anything?'' An exhaustive 1999 report compiled by the U.N.-sponsored truth commission blamed Guatemala's army for 93 percent of the 200,000 deaths and disappearances during the 36-year civil war, which ended with 1996 peace accords between the government and leftist guerrillas. The report documented 626 state-directed massacres, most of which were carried out in isolated Indian areas like Pacoj. ``If they wrote about (almost) 700. We were 701,'' Martin said. In September, Martin filed a criminal complaint with state prosecutors charging the army and two high-ranking generals with murder. ``Legally we have a responsibility to our dead family members and to the world to come forward,'' he said. Martin, who was working in a nearby cornfield with most of the village's males when the soldiers arrived, lost 18 family members in the carnage. Martin's brother, a carpenter who had been repairing a leak in the fiberglass roof of his bamboo-walled home when the soldiers arrived, had his tongue cut out and his left arm chopped off before soldiers shot him in the head. A cousin who tried to run away was caught and strangled by a solider. Martin recounts the slaughter of most of his family with little fear, but going public with what happened in Pacoj could be dangerous. Dozens of survivors who have testified to authorities about what happened during the war have been the target of threats. Two months ago, men armed with machine guns burst into the downtown office of a leading Guatemala City human rights group, threatened its leaders and took files on criminal investigations into two state-directed massacres. Those working on the Pacoj excavation, which was guarded by two police officers with machine guns, said they felt far from safe. ``Sometimes strange people arrive at the site to take photos of everyone working. Sometimes cars follow our trucks to a site. Sometimes groups of men have watched us work on sites from a distance,'' said Jose Suasnavar, who served as the excavation's field coordinator. But Martin said he was tired of being afraid. ``It's dangerous,'' he said. ``But it's more important than fears about death.'' On the Net: Florida State University site on Guatemala's Forensic Anthropological Society: http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/(tilde)sss4407/ Truth commission report: http://hrdata.aas.org/ceh/ AP-NY-12-03-00 1301EST ---------------------------- Courtesy of: The Law Office of Jose Pertierra 1010 Vermont Avenue, NW #620 Washington, DC 20005 202 783 6666 [EMAIL PROTECTED] " JC -------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! http://click.egroups.com/1/9699/0/_/30563/_/975964780/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Cuba SI - Imperialism NO! Information and discussion about Cuba. Socialism or death! Patria o muerte! Venceremos! http://www.egroups.com/group/cubasi Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Change Delivery Options: http://www.egroups.com/mygroups
