Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
There is still a long way to go in the consolidation of a genuine functioning democracy in
Guatemala. The judiciary and legislative branches are badly in need of reform and have
lost virtually all credibility with their constituents. The current situation is still very much
like that described in 2000 by the Guatemalan Institute of Political, Economic, and Social
Studies, a nongovernmental organization:
In our society, agents or former agents of the state have woven a secret, behind-
the-scenes network dedicated to obstructing justice. They have created a virtual
alternative government that functions clandestinely with its own standardized
and consistent modus operandi. In such a context, crimes are not clarified, and
those responsible are not identified. Society finally forgets the cases and becomes
resigned.
If the actual material authors left evidence at the scene of their crimes, they
then decide who to implicate as scapegoats. If there are actually any inquiries
and if these eventually lead to any arrests, these are always of low-ranking mem-
bers of the army, or at best, an official not in active service.
When they can't pin the crime on some scapegoat, the scene of the crime
is contaminated and legal proceedings are obstructed and proceed at a snail's
pace. If, nonetheless, investigations still continue, these powerful forces hidden
behind the scenes destroy the evidence. And of course it cannot be forgotten that
pressure, threats, attacks, and corruption are all part of the efforts to undermine
and demoralize the judiciary, who, knowing they are not able to count on a se-
curity apparatus that will guarantee that the law is enforced, feel obliged to cede
in the face of this parallel power.
ThepowerlessnessoftheGuatemalanjudiciaryhasforcedsomepeopletoseekremedies
for their grievances in international courts under universal jurisdiction established by the
United Nations concerning crimes against humanity. One example is the suit filed before
the Spanish National Court in 1999 by the Rigoberta Menchú Foundation against eight
former Guatemalan officials, including General Efraín Ríos Montt, for murder, genocide,
torture,terrorism,andillegalarrest.Thecaseseekstotrythoseresponsibleforwartimeab-
uses and centers around the 1980 attack on the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City that
claimed the lives of 37 peasant activists, among them Menchú's father, and embassy staff.
TheSpanishcourthasheardothercasesinvolvinggenocideandestablishedaprecedentfor
universal jurisdiction in the 1998 arrest of Chile's General Augusto Pinochet in the United
Kingdom. He remained in custody for 14 months until British authorities ruled Pinochet
was unfit for trial and let him return to Chile.
