Beautiful Horizons

America's Mengele

It's truly hard to comprehend how horrible this is:

From 1946 to 1948, American public health doctors deliberately infected nearly 700 Guatemalans — prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers — with venereal diseases> in what was meant as an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin.

American tax dollars, through the National Institutes of Health, even paid for syphilis-infected prostitutes to sleep with prisoners, since Guatemalan prisons allowed such visits. When the prostitutes did not succeed in infecting the men, some prisoners had the bacteria poured onto scrapes made on their penises, faces or arms, and in some cases it was injected by spinal puncture.

Here's why this post was given its title:

In a twist to the revelation, the public health doctor who led the experiment, John C. Cutler, would later have an important role in the Tuskegee study in which black American men with syphilis were deliberately left untreated for decades. Late in his own life, Dr. Cutler continued to defend the Tuskegee work.

Am I being a bit over the top? Perhaps, but consent should be obtained from any individual undergoing a medical experiment and such consent should be informed. If Dr. Cutler was afraid that he would not be able to obtain consent, perhaps he should have conducted the expirements on himself or his colleagues - with their informed consent.

Weller Calls It Quits

Jerry Weller, Republican Congressman from Illinois and son-in-law of an accused criminal against humanity, Efrain Rios Montt has decided to pack it in. He says he wants to spend more time with his family [ed. note: Can't any retiring politician come up with a less cliched excuse].

D'ya think any of it has to do with this?

His troubles began when a Chicago Tribune investigation showed Weller did not report several Nicaraguan land deals in congressional ethics statements, and that Weller reported higher purchase prices on other transactions in the U.S. than were reported in Nicaragua.

The Tribune then reported that Weller's wife, Guatemalan congresswoman Zury Rios de Weller, had set up a nonprofit corporation in Illinois whose board also included Jerry Weller's mother, brother and business associate.

That led to questions about whether Weller should report his wife's finances to Congress. He has claimed an exemption from the rule, saying he knows nothing about her economic situation and doesn't contribute to or benefit from it.

"My husband never would do something illegal," Zury Rios de Weller told the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre this week.

No of course he wouldn't and I'm sure that her father was a benevolent soul who just had to napalm the Mayans. She makes me sick, but I'm glad he's quitting. He has other problems as well.

Weller is among 13 congressmen who were recently served subpoenas to testify for the defense in a case against a contractor accused of bribing jailed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a Republican from California. None of the members served, including Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, plans to comply.

I'm sure that if things get too hot for him here, he can get his suegro to arrange for a place for him to live on Lake Atitlan.

I Never Bought It

I never believed that Jerry Weller, Republican Congressman of Illinois was involved in an affair with a page. With this murderous, genocidal dictator as his father-in-law, he'd have to be crazy!

Guatemalan Secret Police Archive

I want to call your attention to this article in Monday's New York Times about the secret police archives recently discovered in Guatemala. The National Security Archives has an even more comprehensive look at this record of state terror against the state's own citizens here.

Imagine the brazenness of this operation! Files marked "disappeared, assassinations, homicides." The reason for the brazenness is obvious:

Heriberto Cifuentes, a Guatemalan historian who was among the first outsiders to lay eyes on the files, said the fact that the government did not destroy them reflected a simple fact of Guatemalan life.

"Impunity reigns in Guatemala," he said. "So whether there are documents or not, people responsible for crimes do not expect to pay for them. They have always enjoyed blanket immunity."

Impunity remains one of Latin America's greatest curses.

Justice at Last?

When it comes to saying that about Guatemala, I do so with my breath held, but this is certainly good news:

Spain's courts may try cases of genocide and crimes against humanity committed outside the country, whatever the nationality of the victims, the Constitutional Court ruled.

'The principle of universal jurisdiction takes precedence over the existence or not of national interests,' the court said, quashing a 2003 decision by the Supreme Court relating to human rights abuses in Guatemala.

The Supreme Court had rejected a submission by 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, saying that Spain's judiciary could only deal with crimes committed against Spanish citizens.

The Constitutional Court said it supported Menchu's case that 'Spain should investigate crimes of genocide, torture, murder and illegal imprisonment committed in Guatemala between 1978 and 1986.' [my emphasis]

It was clear shortly after the formal end of Guatemala's Dirty War that it would be impossible for the civilian government of Guatemala to prosecute crimes against the abuses committed by a string of military dictatorships. This situation reached its reductio ad absurdum moment when Efraín Rios Montt, arguably the most brutal of Guatemala's former dictators and father-in-law to a US Congressman, managed to pack a court to vote favorably on his right to run for president, despite a law restricting those who had participated in coups from running for president.

Legal circumstances now hardly seem any better:

A proposed law putting military personnel beyond the reach of civilian courts has drawn strong opposition from Guatemalan human rights activists haunted by the excesses of military rule.

Backed by the Guatemalan Republican Front and other rightist parties, as well as the country’s powerful lobby of active and retired army generals, the bill would modify Guatemala’s 19th-century code of military conduct and transfer prosecutions for crimes committed by soldiers and officers to military courts.

Human rights activists and judicial experts here contend that the law could halt a number of prosecutions against military officials on corruption charges.

‘‘This law creates a climate of impunity,” said Iduvina Hernández of Security in Democracy, a military watchdog group. ‘‘It’s a law written in a spirit of cowardice that favors the corrupt.”
Hernández and other activists here believe the law would halt the prosecutions of officers charged in a $100-million embezzlement case and corruption and human rights charges against former President Efrain Rios Montt, who ruled during an especially bloody chapter of Guatemalan history.

Social circumstances hardly seem favorable for such a prosecution, either:

Groups of armed, masked men patrol poor neighborhoods. Threatening messages are left on mutilated bodies. Young men disappear, their bodies found later in a ditch.

These acts weren't unusual during Guatemala's 36-year civil war. But people thought the bloodshed would taper off when the war ended in 1996.

Nine years later, though, human rights observers are finding alarming similarities between that violence and what's now happening to gang members and alleged delinquents.

Some say on- and off-duty police officers are involved, while others point fingers at private security guards and vigilante groups. But the killings have raised concerns about a "social cleansing" effort - one that is backed by citizens fed up with crime and insecurity and often willing to take the law into their own hands. Homicides in Guatemala rose 40 percent from 2001 to 2004, according to the government's human rights ombudsman's office.

"The population is tired of the government's lack of solutions to the violence," says Veronica Godoy, who heads the Public Security Monitoring and Support Group.

That hardly seems like the sort of environment where a nation would try those for crimes against humanity; especially such acts as committed against the weakest and poorest members of Guatemala's population: the Maya. Under the circumstances who could possibly complain that those who have suffered so greatly should seek justice where it stands a chance to be heard.

Extradition Requested for Lucas Garcia

A Spanish court has issued an international arrest warrant for Romeo Lucas Garcia, one of the brutal former military dictators of Guatemala.  Lucas Garcia was, if I recall correctly, the dictator succeeded by the perhaps even more brutal Efraín Rios Montt:

This is the second arrest warrant for a former Guatemalan official that Spanish courts have filed in the past months. Spain is also seeking the arrest of Donaldo Alvarez, who was Mr. Lucas Garcias Interior Minister.

Both are sought in relation to a fire at the Spanish embassy in 1980 in which 37 people died, including three Spanish citizens. The fatal blaze began when police clashed with peasant protestors who had occupied the embassy to denounce military massacres in their communities.

No one was ever investigated for the incident in Guatemala. Maya activist and Nobel peace prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu filed a criminal complaint in Spain in 1999. Her father was one of the peasants who died in the fire.

Spain's Supreme Court has allowed the case to go forward because some of the victims were Spanish citizens, and presumably, because the embassy is Spanish territory. It's worth noting that the occupation of the embassy was peaceful and the Spanish officials had asked the Guatemalan authorities not to intervene. Spain later broke off diplomatic relations with Guatemala for a while over this incident.

The article also states that Lucas Garcia has Alzheimer's Disease. If that is indeed the case, he may not be able to stand trial. Of course, the court has every right to verify Lucas Garcia's medical condition. There is at least one precedent for not taking claims of dementia at the word of the claimant's doctor.

Guatemala's Peace Accord Eight Years Later

On December 29, 1996 (my 40th birthday, coincidentally) peace accords were signed ending Central America's longest running and probably most brutal civil conflict: the Guatemala Civil War.

Yet there has been little progress in those eight years in implementing the peace accords. Much of Guatemalan society remains  as it was prior to the accords. Crime remains high. The US Department of State has a travel advisory that is good until May 1, 2005 advising US citizens of the following among other issues:

Buses of all categories, tour vans and private vehicles have been stopped, with drivers and passengers robbed, sometimes with violent results. Armed robbers have intercepted vehicles on main roads in broad daylight. Crimes against foreigners have included murder, rape, and armed robbery, increasingly in conjunction with highway banditry. Recent cases of highway banditry have included the rape of women and female minors.

The police force suffers from corruption, inexperience and lack of funds, and the judicial system is weak, overworked, and inefficient. Criminals, armed with an impressive array of weapons, know there is little chance they will be caught and punished. In some cases, assailants have been wearing full or partial police uniforms and have used vehicles that resemble police vehicles, indicating some elements of the police might be involved. In several recent cases, the assault occurred within minutes of the tourists' vehicle being stopped by the police. Gangs are also a growing concern, both in Guatemala City and in rural Guatemala. Gang members are often well-armed and they sometimes use unprovoked violence. Gang members are believed to be responsible for a substantial increase of frequently violent robberies on inter- and intra-city buses that resemble U.S. school buses; U.S. Mission personnel are not permitted to travel on these buses. Mission personnel continue to observe heightened security precautions in Guatemala City and on the roads outside the capital city.

The government, to its credit acknowledges the problems:

'Considering that the most serious problems affecting Guatemalan society have gotten worse, . . . we could weigh the idea of beginning 2005 with a big effort aimed at reviving the stagnant peace accords,'' Peace Secretary Victor Montejo told citizens in a national address.

Guatemalan activists and international observers alike agree that Guatemala has not done enough to fulfill the promises of the accords the government signed with rebel guerrillas on Dec. 29, 1996.

Let's hope that they make some progress. Social justice in Central America's largest country has been considered a luxury for far too long.

Articles Worth Your Attention

There are three articles worth a read. The first is a profile in the New York Times of Ricardo Palmera whose capture I mentioned here back in January. Palmera left a life as a prosperous banker among Colombia's elite to join the FARC. There's a potentially great book/film in his story. I just hope if and when someone writes the book or makes the film they don't romanticize it.

Andrés Oppenheimer writes about the Maya in Guatemala and how their traditional clothing and lifestyle is becoming more westernized. I feel the same sense of ambivelance about whether this is progress that Oppenheimer expresses.

Still another article in the Times about Michelle Bachelet and Soledad Alvear, one of whom may very well become the first women president of Chile. This is also another sign of progress for post-Pinochet Chile.

Best Wishes to the Happy Couple

Today US Congressman Jerry Weller married Zury Rios Sosa, the daughter of accused criminal against humanity and former Guatemalan President, Efraín Rios Montt in Antigua, Guatemala. The brides father was allowed to attend the wedding after receiving permission from the judge who placed him under house arrest in Guatemala City.

The bride claims that despite her holding a seat in the Guatemalan Senate and the couple's plans to live in Illinois she intends to fulfill her role in the Senate by flying there for key votes (Rick Santorum nods his assent). Apparently in addition to being a criminal against humanity, the father of the bride is also a lay minister in his evangelical church:

Francisco Paloma, Rios Montt's personal notary public and lawyer, officiated, but the former dictator also led part of the religious proceedings.

The sound of his sermon carried outside the mansion, where he could be heard saying "the husband is the brains of his woman ... who should be loved like the church loves Christ."

Rios Montt, who embraced evangelical Christianity after leaving the army, also said "the science of marriage is to become one, just like the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

No word on whether the Congressman and his father-in-law discussed the finer points of extrajudicial execution, torture or authoritarian rule.

Appealing to the Optimist in Me

I can't tell you how reading something like this fills me with hope:

Guatemala is known by most of the world for the soaring pyramids of the ancient Maya and the colorful weavings of their contemporary descendants. Folkloric images of the Maya Indians have been used to help attract tourism to a nation that was until eight years ago ravaged by a three-decade civil war. But within Guatemala, the Maya are often treated with no such respect.

Many Mayan leaders say they are disappointed with the scarce improvements in opportunities for the Maya, who make up roughly half of Guatemala's population and who most keenly suffered the war's wrath.

But now a traveling exhibition titled "Why Are We the Way We Are?," which opened in Guatemala's capital last week and will continue until June of next year, is trying to prompt a long-overdue national dialogue between the country's dominant nonindigenous population and the Maya. Created by the Guatemala-based Center for Mesoamerican Research with the collaboration of some top American museologists, the show has rallied support from business groups, media and government itself, elevating it to nothing less than a national event. At the exhibition's inauguration, Vice President Eduardo Stein of Guatemala hailed it as a "watershed in history."

Guatemala certainly owes the Maya this. For far too long, the government has promoted tourism in the country and focusing much of it on the Maya heritage, while simultaneously giving a metaphorical back of the hand to the Maya. And man do I agree with this:

"The easiest thing to create is a polemic or an exhibit of anger, but that will only work for the committed," said Elaine Heumann Gurian, former deputy director of the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, who was a consultant on the show. "This exhibit points no fingers,'' she said. "It says we are all in this together and have to solve it together."

Think this would have taken place if Rios Montt had been elected last year?