Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA

CUC MEMBER RECEIVES DEATH THREAT

June 23, 2005

José Ernesto Menchú Tojib, a member of the Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC) and a member of the Movement of Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict in Uspantán, Quiché, received a death threat on 19 June and has been in hiding since. According to an assessment by Amnesty International, he is in grave danger. On June 19, at 11:45 A.M., four armed men came into his workshop, where he makes leather clothing, in the village of Chamac, Uspantán, Quiché. Only his pregnant wife and ten-year-old daughter were in the workshop at the time. The men repeatedly asked Menchú’s wife were he was, but she said she did not know. The men took 500 quetzales (approximately $65) and Ernesto Menchú’s mobile phone. On leaving, they told Ernesto’s wife, “En cualquier rato lo encontramos y hasta que lo matemos”— “We will find him eventually and we will kill him.”

When Ernesto Menchú returned to his workshop he saw a man in front of the workshop who was a military commissioner during the armed conflict and who was now working as a security guard at the nearby San Sigüan farm. This man walked past the workshop twice, staring at Menchú in an intimidating manner. As a member of CUC, Menchú has been campaigning on behalf of a group of 112 families of farm workers on the San Sigüan farm. The families have been living and working on the farm since 1950 and are at risk of being driven off land assigned for their houses and for growing their own crops because the owners of the farm have sold the land to outsiders.

As a member of the Movement of Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict in Uspantán, Menchú has been promoting exhumations of mass graves in El Quiché, which reportedly contain the remains of people executed during Guatemala’s internal armed conflict. Former military commissioners and former members of civil patrols—both groups that worked for the military during the internal conflict—have been speaking out against exhumations in El Quiché.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) report, published in February 1999 under the auspices of the United Nations, recorded that the department of El Quiché was the worst hit during the internal armed conflict: 344 of the 669 massacres of campesinos and indigenous people took place there. According to this report at least 90% of the violations during the conflict were carried out by the army, the military commissioners and the civil patrols and were systematically directed at Guatemala's indigenous peoples. Organizations involved in the exhumations of clandestine cemeteries have been subjected to numerous acts of intimidation in what appears to be an effort to stop their work.

The 1996 Peace Accords included provisions for landless campesinos to claim the land they work on as their own. However, campesinos who have attempted to claim their land in this way have been threatened and attacked by landowners, and members of CUC have been regular targets for attack because of their work. The authorities appear to have made no genuine effort to investigate the intimidation and attacks.

RECOMMENDED ACTION :

Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in Spanish or English:

Express grave concern at the June 19 death threat against Ernesto Menchú Tojib;

Call for an immediate and thorough investigation, with the results made public and those responsible brought to justice;

Urge the authorities to take immediate measures to ensure the security of Ernesto Menchú Tojib and his family, in accordance with his own wishes;

Urge the authorities to take immediate measures to ensure that all those involved in the exhumation of mass graves are able to carry out their legitimate work without fear of harassment;

Urge the government to implement the land-related aspects of the 1996 Peace Accords as a necessary step towards eliminating the tensions that have led to so many abuses against rural workers and their leaders in recent years in Guatemala;

Remind the government that it is committed under the 1996 Accord on Socio-economic and Agrarian Issues to “develop an integrated strategy in rural areas that will facilitate the access of peasant farmers to the land and other productive resources, offer judicial redress and promote the resolution of conflicts.”

APPEALS TO :

Attorney General

Fiscal General de la República y jefe del Ministerio Público, Juan Luis Florido,

8a. Avenida 10-67,

Zona 1, Antiguo Edificio del Banco de los Trabajadores,

Ciudad de Guatemala, GUATEMALA

Fax: + 502 2251 2218

Salutation: Estimado Fiscal General/Dear Sir

Minister of the Interior

Ministro de Gobernación, Carlos Vielman,

6a.Avenida 4-64, zona 4, nivel 3.

Ciudad de Guatemala. GUATEMALA

Fax: +502 2362 0237

Email: ministro@mingob.gob.gt

Salutation: Señor Ministro/ Dear Minister

Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Nutrition

Ministro de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación, Ingeniero Industrial Álvaro Aguilar Prado,

Edificio Monja Blanca, 7ª Avenida 12-90 Zona 13,

Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala

Fax: +502 2332 8302

Email: magadest@intelnet.net.gt

Salutation: Señor Ministro/Dear Minister

COPIES TO:

Comité de Unidad Campesina, 31 Avenida A 14-46 Zona 7, Ciudad de Plata II

Ciudad de Guatemala, GUATEMALA

Fax: +502 2434 9754

+502 2434 9500

E-mail: cuc@guate.net.gt

COPIES TO:

Embassy of Guatemala

2220 R St. NW

Washington DC 20008

Fax: 1 202 745 1908

email: ambassador@guatemala-embassy.org

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY .

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