Not All Forgiven By Guatemala Amnesty Broad Proposal Sparks Protest From Human Rights Groups
As Guatemala ends a 36-year civil war in which at least 100,000 people were killed, its Congress is poised to approve a sweeping amnesty law that would exempt both soldiers and guerrillas from prosecution for killings, kidnappings and acts of torture committed during that conflict.
The amnesty, one of the broadest adopted by a country emerging from civil trauma, has prompted anguished protests from human rights groups and relatives of the war’s victims.
Unlike the process to establish accountability in South Africa, for example, the Guatemalan proposal does not require either government or guerrilla combatants to acknowledge any wrongdoing in order to avoid prosecution.
As in South Africa and El Salvador, Guatemala’s amnesty would establish a truth commission, but one that would not be allowed to name those who committed atrocities and one that is unlikely to be able to bring criminal charges.
In a sudden convergence of interests among longtime foes, both the Guatemalan Armed Forces and the left-wing Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity strongly support the proposal, which was introduced Monday.
With a final peace accord to end the war scheduled to be signed on Dec. 29, legislators have moved to limit debate and reject substantive amendments and closed their sessions to the public in hopes of rushing to a vote as early as today.
Guatemalan politicians defend the amnesty as the only way to put aside hatred and move toward democracy in a country exhausted and devastated by a long and brutal civil war.
“You can’t demand the head of everyone” who has committed human rights abuses, said Mario Flores Ortiz, the majority leader in Guatemala’s single-chambered national assembly. Flores noted that his own father had been killed by guerrillas.
But human rights leaders and relatives of victims complain that the terms of the amnesty will spawn more bitterness, not reconciliation.
“All of us who had nothing to do with this armed conflict but have loved ones who fell victim to it are totally opposed to this extremely broad amnesty,” said Karen Fischer, a Guatemalan lawyer who is a leader of the Alliance Against Impunity, a coalition of human rights, religious and indigenous groups that is leading opposition to the measure.
xxxx 100,000 KILLED Human rights groups in Guatemala and abroad estimate that at least 100,000 people died in the civil war, which reached a peak of violence in early 1980. An additional 4,000 people are listed as “disappeared,” more than a million were forced into exile or were displaced, and tens of thousands more were arrested or tortured by government forces.