Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
February 20 / 22, 2004
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
February 14/15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
February 13, 2004
Alan Maass
Kevin
Cooper's Fight to Live
Karyn Strickler
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
Annie Higgins
On
a Street in America
Adam Federman
Democratic Snipers Target Nader
Mike Whitney
George W. Faces the Nation
Brian Cloughley
Our Imperial Leader Has Spoken
Website of the Day
Lying Action Figure Doll
February 12, 2004
Ray McGovern
George
Tenet's Spin Cycle
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Nuclear Hypocrisy
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
Weekend
Edition
February 20 / 22, 2004
An Open Letter to
Vicente Fox
Lessons
on Justice from Guatemala
By KATE DOYLE
President Fox,
Something remarkable has happened in
Guatemala. You owe it to your country to take notice.
On January 20, the Guatemalan Supreme
Court upheld the conviction of a senior military officer, Col.
Juan Valencia Osorio, for plotting and ordering the political
assassination of Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang in
1990. The colonel has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
I imagine you are as surprised as I am
that Guatemala -- infamous the world over for a bloody civil
war that lasted more than three decades and resulted in the death
or disappearance of some 200,000 civilians at the hands of government
security forces--has managed to hold a fair trial in a civilian
court of a high-ranking military officer and bring him to justice!
You, President Fox, have pledged to advance
criminal cases related to human rights violations committed by
the Mexican government against its own citizens during the height
of authoritarianism and repression in Mexico during the 1950s
- 80s. You have spoken publicly many times about the extraordinary
challenges facing your administration in a country where impunity
has for so long favored government officials and members of the
police, intelligence, and military forces.
Yet today, more than three years into
your administration, we seem no closer to indicting and prosecuting
members of the Mexican armed forces in civilian courts than we
did before the political transition.
To be sure, you have appointed a special
prosecutor to investigate crimes committed during what Mexicans
now call their "dirty war." Against all odds, Dr. Ignacio
Carrillo Prieto has begun to assemble legal cases against high-ranking
civilian officials, such as Miguel Nazar Haro and Luis de la
Barrera, for the abduction and disappearance of the Mexican left.
To date, however, Dr. Carrillo has been
silent on the subject of prosecutions against active or retired
military officers. And the only case currently pending against
senior military personnel is being tried in a military court,
against the recommendations of every national and international
human rights organization that has weighed in on the issue.
Why is that, Mr. President? Why the reluctance
to subject members of your armed forces to the same judicial
standards that the rest of Mexico is expected to uphold?
Guatemala has long been associated with
impunity for the military in spite of evidence of crimes against
humanity. Yet that country recently convicted a powerful army
officer in a civilian court of law. How did Guatemala succeed
where Mexico has so far failed?
Military Officers,
Civilian Justice
Myrna Mack Chang was a scholar and an
anthropologist who documented the fate of indigenous communities
on the run from the army's brutal counterinsurgency operations.
Her work infuriated government and military officials. On September
11, 1990, army intelligence specialist Noel de Jesus Beteta stabbed
her twenty-seven times as she left her office in downtown Guatemala
City. She was left to die on the sidewalk.
Myrna's sister Helen--until then a conservative
businesswoman, with little interest in the kind of political
and social inequities that preoccupied her sister--adopted the
murder case as her personal campaign when she realized the government
was stalling the investigation. Helen's success in winning a
conviction against Beteta in 1993 and her subsequent fight to
bring his superiors to justice quickly made her a national human
rights hero.
When Myrna was killed, Beteta was working
for a clandestine military intelligence unit that belonged to
the Presidential General Staff (EMP). Reasoning that the Guatemalan
armed forces--like most military institutions--relied on obedience
within a rigid hierarchy, Helen Mack and her lawyers identified
Beteta's commanding officers and accused them of planning and
orchestrating the murder. There were three of them; Juan Valencia
Osorio was one.
The officers argued that their case fell
under the jurisdiction of the military prosecutor, and they almost
won. Until recently, Guatemalan practice--as in Mexico today--was
to try members of the armed forces within the military justice
system, regardless of the alleged crime. In 1996, however, during
the final stages of the peace process that would end the civil
war, the Guatemalan Congress passed a law sharply reducing the
power of military tribunals so that they could try only disciplinary
offenses and other violations of the military code. The change
brought to a halt Guatemala's record of near total impunity for
human rights crimes within the military justice system. (1)
Mexico has so far been unwilling to change
its own reliance on the military justice system to investigate
violations committed by soldiers and their superiors. It is a
system shrouded in secrecy and damaged by allegations of negligence,
delay, and outright cover-up. Human rights reporting has shown
repeatedly that the overwhelming majority of complaints brought
by citizens against military abusers are not properly investigated.
Evidence is lost or destroyed, witnesses are threatened, statements
are fabricated, and the entire process is shielded from civilian
scrutiny. The few human rights cases that have resulted in the
imprisonment of military personnel were resolved only after years
of national and international pressure.
If the system of military justice only
reinforces impunity, what can Mexico do to change it? The Constitution
is unambiguous on the issue: Article 13 permits military jurisdiction
exclusively for "offenses against military discipline."
But as your government and the recent United Nations-sponsored
Human Rights Diagnostic observed, the Code of Military Justice
defines military jurisdiction so broadly as to render the constitutional
provision meaningless, covering all "offenses under common
or federal law… when committed by military personnel
on active duty or in connection with active duty" (Article
57). (2)
Mexico lags behind much of the rest of
the hemisphere, Mr. President. Guatemala has joined Argentina,
Chile, Peru, even Colombia, among other countries in Latin America,
that have successfully changed their laws to limit military jurisdiction
to cases involving violations against military discipline. All
of those countries have also successfully tried military personnel
in civilian courts. If you are truly committed to transparency,
why continue to permit a secretive system of injustice to prevail
in times of political transition?
The Power of the Documents
President Fox, you took a courageous
and unprecedented stance in favor of accountability when you
ordered the opening of hundreds of thousands of government files
on the "dirty war" to public scrutiny. Investigators
from the Special Prosecutor's Office have spent months combing
these files for evidence of government complicity in human rights
crimes.
But although the Mexican armed forces
turned over some internal documents to the national archive in
response to your directive, the military has not been forthcoming
in response to direct requests for information from Carrillo
Prieto's office.
In a detailed report on the obstacles
faced by the Special Prosecutor published in July 2003, Human
Rights Watch detailed instances when the military failed to provide
investigators with basic information that would assist their
work. For example, when the Special Prosecutor's Office requested
information about military personnel assigned to a military checkpoint
in a town in Guerrero, the army prosecutor (Procurador General
de la Justicia Militar--PGJM) responded in a letter dated March
2003 that "no information was found relating to the incidents
that you mention." When asked for the names of officers
who served in the Atoyac military base in 1974, the PGJM responded
that the Special Prosecutor's Office would have to provide the
officers' names itself, explaining that "given the constant
promotions and demotions of personnel in the Battalion and the
time that has passed since 1974, it is not feasible to provide
the documentation in the archives as has been requested."
Even when the Special Prosecutor's Office
has supplied the names of officers, the PGJM has claimed that
it could not find files on those individuals. In one case, the
Special Prosecutor's Office provided not only the name and rank
of an officer, but also the military base he served on and the
dates he was there--yet, still, the PGJM claimed it could find
no information on the officer. (3)
That kind of outright stonewalling by
the armed forces took place in the Mack case as well. Prosecutors
sought military records documenting a range of issues they needed
to build their legal argument--including records on the organization
and operations of Guatemalan army intelligence; logbooks tracking
the exit and entry of military vehicles and personnel on the
day of the murder; intelligence information gathered on the victim;
and biographic material from the military careers of the three
officers on trial. Most of the information requested was denied.
According to letters from the Defense Ministry to Mack's lawyers,
the records had been destroyed, were protected for "national
security" reasons, or never existed at all.
What makes the Mack case unusual is that
although Guatemalan military records were not provided to prosecutors,
relevant United States documents were. Released to researchers
under the Freedom of Information Act from the secret archives
of the CIA, the Pentagon, and the State Department and made available
to the lawyers, they identified the Mack assassination as a government-planned
hit and described the army intelligence units behind it.
In one cable sent by the U.S. Embassy
shortly after Myrna's murder, then-Ambassador to Guatemala Thomas
Stroock portrayed a government policy of "selective violence"
and provided chilling detail on how the killings were covered
up.
"The sort of hit discussed here
is carried out or directed by individuals who are members of
the security forces, often military intelligence," wrote
Stroock. While the attacks were decided and organized at a "senior
level," they were carried out by "security personnel
who often do not know the reason for the killing/kidnapping they
are to undertake or from exactly where their orders came. 'Death
squad' personnel might often not appear on the official rosters
of the security services and do not report for duty to official
installations; they wait at home for orders, usually via the
phone, or at times are picked up without prior notice to perform
a job. They operate in cells so it is difficult to trace the
orders up the hierarchy."
These documents existed because of the
intimate relationship between the United States and Guatemala
from the start of the civil war in 1962 until it ended with the
signing of peace accords in 1996. Despite U.S. knowledge of the
army's role in nearly 200,000 civilian deaths, military and economic
aid and covert intelligence support flowed almost uninterrupted
for thirty years. All three of the officers accused of planning
Mack's assassination received training in U.S. military schools.
Thousands of documents also exist in
U.S. files concerning the Mexican dirty war. They include CIA
reporting on leftists and suspected subversives, defense intelligence
on the operations of the Mexican Army, reports from the FBI from
its liaison with the Direccion Federal de Seguridad (DFS), and
U.S. Embassy analysis on the Mexican government's political decisions.
Access to these documents would provide new details about the
cast of characters and their motives behind the staging of the
dirty war.
In fact, in May 2003, Dr. Ignacio Carrillo
Prieto drafted a letter addressed to President George W. Bush
seeking his help in identifying and opening U.S. records that
might assist the Special Prosecutor's Office in its investigations
into human rights abuses. Obeying protocol, Carrillo Prieto forwarded
the letter to the Attorney General, retired Gen. Rafael Macedo
de la Concha, for his signature. The letter has been sitting
on the general's desk for almost one year. Why, Mr. President?
Intimidation and Murder
Twelve years after Myrna Mack's murder,
in September 2002, the trial of the men accused of planning the
killing took place in a crowded courtroom in the capital, just
blocks from the street where Myrna died. Hundreds of spectators
filled the folding chairs. Military families sat elbow to elbow
with the country's leading human rights activists--including
Helen Mack.
Simply to be in the courtroom was to
make history. From the day Myrna was killed, Helen and her allies
were relentlessly pressured by surveillance, harassment, death
threats, physical attacks, and murder. In 1991 the government's
chief homicide investigator was assassinated in Guatemala City.
Key witnesses were silenced or forced to seek refuge outside
the country. Judge Henry Monroy, who in 1999 ordered the trial
to proceed against the three officers, resigned from the judiciary
and fled Guatemala because of threats on his life. Even as the
trial was under way, Mack's lead lawyer sent his wife and three
children out of the country after a series of frightening incidents,
including a drive-by shooting at their house.
The case survived, no thanks to the Guatemalan
government--indeed five successive presidents permitted or actively
participated in the cover-up that immediately went into motion
after the crime. It survived because of the determination of
Helen Mack and the support of her family, as well as a series
of extraordinarily brave public prosecutors, judges, eyewitnesses,
and human rights advocates.
Mexican citizens connected to human rights
cases implicating security forces also suffer from intimidation
and violence. Relatives of the victims have been detained and
tortured; witnesses--such as Horacio Zacarias Barrientos of Guerrero--have
been killed. Entire communities living in remote rural villages
have been threatened by a sudden increase in police or military
presence. Here you have the historic opportunity, President Fox,
to set a new precedent by taking a firm public stand against
threats or violence that jeopardize the rule of law.
After a final appeal by Valencia Osorio's
lawyers, the Supreme Court issued its definitive ruling upholding
his conviction last month. The decision closed a chapter in Guatemala's
political transition that remained open for nearly 14 years,
and brought some relief and satisfaction to the Mack family.
As Helen Mack will tell you, Mr. President,
insisting on justice for military criminals is a tough business.
It is not a job for the faint-hearted.
Yours respectfully,
Kate Doyle
Kate Doyle
is director of the Mexico Project of National Security Archives
and a regular contributor to the Americas
Program of the Interhemispheric
Resource Center.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 14 / 15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|