Mirtala Hernandez (Guatemala City1965) has just returned from Brussels where impunity has been made known in the European Parliament regarding the case of his sister, Luz Leticia, who disappeared in 1982 in the context of the armed conflict and institutional violence in Guatemala (1960-1996). 42 years later, the remains of the young dissident, belonging to the Ixil Mayan town.
The mayan town were considered enemies of the State during the 36 years that the armed conflict lasted in Guatemalain the context of the global cold war between the capitalist bloc and the soviet bloc. The successive military and dictatorial governments in the Central American country from 1960 until the signing of the peace agreements in 1996 were responsible for 200,000 murders of the civilian population and indigenous communities, with the Ixil people being one of the most punished; 45,000 disappearances and multiple cases of sexual violence against womenaccording to the Historical Clarification Commission (CEH).
“In Guatemala we have always lived in a feudal State. The vast population has worked from dawn to dusk on lands that were not theirs. The revolutionary movements in favor of the oppressed demanded improvements for the peasants and the military devastated those peasants those they considered subversive people,” says Mirtala in a telephone conversation with Public from Madrid, upon his return from the Belgian capital and before returning to his country.
Luz Leticia Hernández, 25 years old, disappeared in Guatemala City on November 21, 1982, under the dictatorship of Efrain Rios Monttwho came to power for a coup d’état perpetrated in March of that same year. In August 1983 another coup d’état deposed him. Montt Rivers He was the most bloodthirsty dictator of Guatemala; In the few months he was in power more than 10,000 people were murdered.
Judicial obstacles
One of the victims was Luz Leticia, whose disappearance by a death squad [grupo armado militar, policial o paramilitar responsable de la desaparición forzada de un grupo de personas en el contexto de una dictadura militar] remains unpunished, and although the trial against those responsible began last year, judicial skirmishes have paralyzed the process several times.
“My family began to demand a judicial investigation from the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the early 2000s and successively our complaint was rejected. They even told us that they rejected it due to spelling errors. They have changed our judges up to seven times,” he denounces. Mirtala, who is accompanied in this campaign by the NGO International Peace Brigades (GDP).
In the trial for the disappearance of Luz Leticia, the former police commander is being tried Juan Francisco Cifuentes. At this time, the trial is paralyzed because Cifuentes’ defense has appealed because it considers that the judge is not impartial.
Efrain Rios Montt He died in 2018. In 2013 he was tried and sentenced for the genocide of the Mayan Ixil people to 50 years in prison, but a few days later the sentence was annulled on the grounds of a technicality.
For the new trial, in 2017, the former dictator had already been diagnosed with dementia and the procedure was a farce. After his death, shortly after, all the complaints against him stopped.
Kidnap the dictator’s nephew
Luz Leticia Hernández, accountant at the Army Bank, belonged to a guerrilla called Our Movement. In 1982, the leader of the group was arrested and the organization decided to kidnap the nephew of the dictator Ríos Montt to exchange him.
“After 40 days, the security forces found the house where the kidnapped nephew is. My sister and three other people are there,” says Mirtala. Luz Leticia was the only one missing, the rest were tried. Not knowing anything about her during these 42 years, not knowing how she was murdered, what they did with her remains means “added suffering for the family. None of those responsible have wanted to reveal where they buried her,” cries Mirtala.
This activist explains that “everything we have learned about my sister’s case has been thanks to our own investigative work. For example, my sister Marta has investigated the police files. The orders and names of the commanders are documented there. of the Army”.
Access to Justice is “only for the rich,” denounces this Guatemalan woman, who has met with groups of historical memory of Spaniards and prisoners of Franco’s regime to share experiences of impunity.
“My family had to pay a lawyer to start the procedure because the State does not facilitate Justice,” he says, and highlights that there are also “indigenous law firms” in Guatemala, which work altruistically in favor of the Mayan communities.
The danger of impunity is what Mirtala has conveyed in the European Parliament and in the consulates where this European tour has taken her with the PBI NGO. “We want the EU to know what is happening in Guatemala with the judicial proceedings against those responsible for the repression. Impunity continues.”
In addition to resolving his sister’s case, the family is fighting to create a museum that tells the story of repression in Guatemala. “We want the museum to be built in a military base in the capital, but the right is intransigent about this.”
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