Guatemalan hit squads come to the U.S.A.

Guatemalan hit squads come to the U.S.A.

It had been 4:30 A.M. about Friday, January 5, 1996. the Washington post carrier has been creating his rounds down Irving Street inside Brookland, a new suburb regarding Washington, D.C. Phil Mayo, a new bus driver, had gotten up a couple of minutes earlier, and he recalls hearing the newspaper hit his pavement--the reassuring learn to any typical day.

Mayo walked to his window. Outside, sunlight had nevertheless not necessarily risen, and also the temperature ended up being falling. The Particular street was empty. He glanced across the street in the yellow Victorian house of his neighbors, the Pertierras, noticing his or her freshly leased Acura in the driveway. The short while later, Mayo was only opening his front door to leave pertaining to function each time a tremendous explosion ripped through your neighborhood. Across the actual street, fifteen-foot-high flames had been engulfing the actual Pertierras' car.

Jose Pertierra didn't listen to the explosion. He often slept soundly. Nevertheless he has been awakened by his Guatemalan wife, America, shaking him along with shouting, terrified, "Jose! Jose, a bomb!" The Actual forty-four-year-old Cuban-American lawyer leapt from bed as well as ran downstairs, thinking his home has been about fire. "Then I found large flames coming from your yard," he says. "It ended up being incredible. the flames were really high and incredibly hot. My car ended up being somewhere within the center of them."

At in which moment, 2 images flashed through Pertierra's mind. The first ended up being of Orlando Letelier, the actual former left-leaning Chilean foreign minister whom died within 1976 when his auto has been blown up with Sheridan Circle, throughout downtown Washington. Agents working for Chile's ultrarightist military had planted the particular bomb. the 2nd had been with the Guatemalan army.

Pertierra had justification for you to suspect your Guatemalan military. He represents Jennifer Harbury, the Harvard-educated lawyer whose Guatemalan guerrilla husband, Efrain Bamaca, was killed from the army, allegedly below orders from the paid out CIA informant. Since 1992, Harbury may be waging any relentless, high-profile campaign, which includes a pair of hunger strikes, to learn the facts regarding your ex husband's capture, torture, as well as murder.

"The only controversial case I get is actually Harbury's," says Pertierra, an immigration lawyer. "And everybody connected along with Jennifer offers felt threatened."

Pertierra called 911. Inside a few minutes, fire engines arrived and doused your flames. The Actual vehicle was obviously a total write-off. heavy drinking water damage made it impossible, authorities said, to end up being able to determine what sort involving incendiary device was used. but FBI investigators concluded that the fire bomb contained an "accelerant" to always be able to augment the actual explosion. the bomb "appeared never to have been the job associated with kids or even vandals," mentioned FBI spokeswoman Susan Lloyd. "They're pros," concluded yet another agent.

The Guatemalan army reacted swiftly towards the fire-bombing. "We think that the bombing ended up being carried out from the lawyer himself and also Jennifer Harbury, his client. That was a selfattack, intended to have publicity," asserted military spokesman Colonel Julio Caal.

Four days after the bombing, Pertierra was in his downtown Washington office when the fax device suddenly came alive. Your message has been marked CONFIDENTIAL. It contained names of "two feasible suspects": Colonel Jose Luis Fernandez Ligorria as well as Federico Baechli.

The fax had been signed by means of a high-ranking Guatemalan official who has been critical of human-rights abuses. Whenever motivated to elaborate in his fax, he said: "Who in addition within D.C. dislikes Harbury so intensely? Ligorria as well as Baechli are extremely close. they function together. These People discuss things. That They share exactly the actual same line of thinking.

Baechli is a mechanic and understands concerning cars. I can't discover other people carrying out it."

Ligorria and also Baechli are generally a bizarre couple. Fred Baechli, a new naturalized U.S. citizen that left Guatemala thirty a extended time ago, owns an auto-repair shop as well as used-car showroom on East-West Highway throughout Silver Spring, Maryland. He not too long ago worked as a Washington lobbyist for your Guatemalan army as well as government. His auto showroom serves as the headquarters pertaining to Your Fraternity, any Guatemalan social club whose members are staunch supporters of the military. "I give them the particular shop to get his or her meetings," Baechli informed us. "I help them in every and every way."

Fernandez Ligorria, former chief associated with Guatemala's notorious intelligence branch, G-2, has been accused throughout Guatemala within early 1995 regarding involvement within cocaine trafficking along together with a car-theft ring. He furthermore may be linked to death-squad activities. Ligorria features denied all the charges, and also criminal proceedings against him in Guatemala had been rapidly dismissed. Ligorria now attends your Inter-American defense University with Fort McNair, within Washington, D.C. He refused numerous requests to become interviewed for this article.

Baechli denies becoming concerned within the bombing of Pertierra's car. "I would adore to discover out whom did it," Baechli says, laughing. "We Guatemalans tend to be not really that dumb." He adds which he thinks the actual bombing has been done in a "sloppy" manner. like the actual Guatemalan military, Baechli points too activists opposed to the Guatemalan government might have completed it with regard to "publicity."

Baechli will not hide his distaste for Harbury along with Pertierra. "She's harmful the nation associated with Guatemala. Individuals don't care for Harbury, nor her lawyer. Therefore I do certainly not know who do it, but when at just about any time I find out I'll give that you simply call."

Neither Baechli nor Ligorria may be charged inside link using the bombing. Your FBI may be investigating it, and Baechli confirms that the FBI has spoken to him about it. Nevertheless absolutely no suspects have been named no arrests made. Your Ligorria/Baechli trail, however, reveals evidence of the campaign involving low-intensity warfare being waged through Guatemala's military here throughout Washington, D.C. This specific marketing campaign is actually targeted at silencing the actual military's critics, also as winning the actual hearts along with minds involving U.S. government officials along with Guatemalans living within the Washington area.

The Pertierra automobile bombing just isn't an isolated incident. The Actual Guatemalan military continues to become able to be sending G-2 hit-squads to the united States in order to intimidate as well as get rid of its opponents, based on former Guatemalan intelligence and also military officers, human-rights activists, and a former Drug Enforcement Agency agent. "Absolutely, with out any doubt, that they function in the U.S.," says Celerino Castillo, that labored as a DEA agent based in the U.S. embassy within Guatemala coming from 1985 in order to 1990.

Castillo says he first became conscious of these G-2 operations when in concerning 1987 a CIA agent within the embassy "asked if I knew anybody within the Palace coming from whom they can find five blank Guatemalan passports. He told me these were sending some G-2 guys to become able to California to always be able to go hit somebody through G-2 who was seeking political asylum or even had been testifying," Castillo says. He says certainly one of his informants got the blank passports. a hit team, equipped with false identities, was dispatched. Castillo says he later heard somebody ended up "bumped off."

Castillo says in which CIA officials throughout Guatemala "signed off on" and also "financed" this operation. "I strongly believe which for a long period they will happen for you to be involved with coming more than towards the States and killing folks after which going back for you to Guatemala," says Castillo.

Danilo Rodriguez, any former guerrilla who is currently an attorney and political analyst in Guatemala, in addition says the G-2 "has completed this sort of operation" in the Usa as well as Mexico. "G-2 can not have got access to agents permanently located in other countries. Rather they have informants which perform groundwork. Then they will send in operational teams for you to quickly bring out specific missions along with return to Guatemala," Rodriguez says.

In interviews, two former G-2 members and two former soldiers additionally said they understand G2 can be operating operations inside the United States. "Of course they will are. While they want to remove someone, they are generally doing it. These People have international operations," says a new former G-2 officer now living in Washington, D.C. in addition, these sources and human-rights activists say G-2 agents along with informants have got often been seen getting photographs of protesters at demonstrations in Washington, D.C. In early April 1995, two FBI agents referred for you to as Jennifer Harbury in your ex home in Texas and, although it had been near midnight, insisted they will urgently necessary to discover her.

Harbury says the actual agents informed her that that they had learned that "a team associated with [Guatemalan military] officials" had paid a person "to assassinate the `gringa' of the hunger strikes."

The Particular FBI sent guards to Harbury's house, nevertheless no arrests were actually made.

In late 1994, Harbury's name appeared with the the majority of notable of a death listing of eight individuals the Guatemalan Anti-Communist Unit distributed for the press inside Guatemala.

Pertierra says he not too long ago received a dependable tip that will he, too, has been targeted with a death squad.

In early 1995, Peter Kerndt received a death threat with his office, eventually following speaking in a public event inside Los Angeles together with Harbury. The Actual caller warned, "Peter, I am planning to kill you." Kerndt's sister, Ann Kerndt, along with Bill Woods, the Mary-knoll priest, and also four some other Americans were killed in a suspicious plane crash throughout Guatemala throughout 1976. Your Kerndt family members and also human-rights groups believe the actual Guatemalan military shot down the plane.

Since February 1995, your Guatemalan Human Legal Rights Commission in Washington has received anonymous telephone and also e-mail threats. 1 called Harbury "a communist whore" along with another accused commission members involving becoming "idiot, lying, communist bastards."

An e-mail message received February 11, 1996, declared, within Spanish, "Thank God for your Guatemalan army ... the smallest quantity of corrupt institution within Guatemala." That denounced the commission regarding its "retrograde ideas."

Commission staff member Sister Dianna Ortiz, the survivor of rape and also torture by Guatemalan safety forces (see Web Page 27), offers received numerous telephone threats since returning from Guatemala in 1989. several threatening calls were produced to the girl Washington residence more than yesteryear year. two days before your woman began the woman's vigil facing the actual White House, the lady discovered the package deal addressed to be able to your ex lying in her yard. That has been full of shit. Just Like Harbury, Ortiz ended up demanding that the Clinton Administration launch just about all details it's on her case along with investigate the particular evidence that the American ended up being concerned in their abduction.

Last July, the actual Commission's office, situated inside a residence throughout Brookland, has been broken in to beneath peculiar circumstances. The Particular iron safety door had been ripped from its hinges, apparently right after being hooked up to a new truck. The Actual thieves took merely a couple of telephones plus an answering machine containing an update in Harbury's case; that they didn't bother to take the particular cameras, computers, or even cash additionally within straightforward reach.

During this identical period, the particular Guatemalan prosecutor within Harbury's case, Julio Arango, stumbled on Washington to consider a new deposition from the key witness, any former Guatemalan guerrilla prisoner regarding war, that had seen Bamaca throughout his captivity and also had managed to escape. In his downtown hotel, your prosecutor received an anonymous telephone contact that will sounded being a bomb ticking. Again in Guatemala, he along with loved ones received several comparable threatening calls. His auto may be adopted about numerous occasions, and the man was shot at whilst doing work in his office in the Public Ministry. The Particular bullet lodged inside his desk. A Amount Of weeks later, he resigned from the Harbury case.

At 1:30 A.M. about January 6, 1996, the night after Pertierra's automobile was firebombed, a shot ended up being fired in to Harbury's Washington residence, lodging just 4 feet via the girl housemate's bed. Harbury is at Guatemala in the time, attempting to type in an army base in an effort to locate the woman's husband's body. Absolutely No one has been injured on this shooting, along with each the actual FBI and also residents of the home remain uncertain whether it had been just the neighborhood gang shoot-out as well as a note sent by the Guatemalan military.

Gilson Urizar, any former Guatemalan policeman now throughout exile throughout Washington, told your FBI that will on four separate occasions he continues in order to be followed, and also once an American which spoke perfect Spanish took his photo. "I'm absolutely certain no less than among the particular men ended up being G-2. He had the actual typical military-style haircut along with carried the woven bag employed by G-2 to hide their own machine guns."

Commission members say various other Guatemalan exiles have received threats, but have been too afraid to be able to statement these incidents towards the authorities or maybe the press.

In February, Congresswoman Connie Morella of Maryland wrote Attorney General Janet Reno stating her concern regarding these incidents. "They strongly suggest that these attacks could happen to be able to be instigated from outside the United States Associated With America through Guatemalan citizens, as well as thereby constitute acts of international terrorism." Morella urged the particular Administration in order to "make obvious in order to Guatemalan officials the Usa is not necessarily going to tolerate threats or even attacks, become they will official, unofficial, or even extra-official, against its citizens."

In your ex letter, Congresswoman Morella expressed an additional concern: "There tend to be a

range of prominent Guatemalan security and intelligence officials associated with questionable status presently inside the United States Involving America serving in diplomatic posts or interAmerican organizations." Morella additional in which "it cannot be ruled out which they could have played several role over these incidents."

Guatemala is the scene of the Western Hemisphere's longest-running and bloodiest civil war. This turned in for you to a killing area next the CIA-engineered coup in 1954 that will toppled President Jacobo Arbenz, any democratically elected social reformer.

In your ensuing 4 decades, because the army battled guerrillas, Guatemalan civilians--some 55 percent involving whom are regarding Mayan Indian descent--have paid the actual price. An estimated 200,000 civilians happen to be killed or perhaps disappeared, mostly in the hands of the army or military-linked death squads. more compared to one million Guatemalans happen to end up being able to be made to flee their particular homes, half a million regarding whom possess grow to end up being able to be refugees throughout southern Mexico.

During the last decade, your U.S. government has worked tough to try to restore a new facade involving democracy through elections and an often-shaky Guatemalan civilian government. Peace talks between your Guatemalan government and in addition the leftwing guerrilla movement, URNG, right after being stalled regarding five years, have got lately proven signs of forward movement.

However energy is constantly on the reside using the army, human-rights abuses remain rampant, no official features ever been prosecuted with regard to past crimes.

A February 1996 Amnesty International statement documents "a disturbing pattern involving human-rights violations within Guatemala. Extrajudicial executions, `disappearances,' torture, death threats, harassment, and also intimidation persist. the violations happen to always be able to be directed in many sectors involving society" and "those responsible ... always benefit from nearly total impunity," Amnesty reports.

With increasing frequency, Guatemalans have been seeking safety and also economic security inside the United States, too as Mexico. Guatemala's exiles are usually victims regarding each war and poverty. The Particular Us estimates 80 percent regarding Guatemalans live in intense poverty and two out of five children die before reaching the actual chronilogical age of five. Several flee since they will have been threatened as well as tortured, or had family members killed as well as disappeared.

There tend to be an estimated 100,000 Guatemalans inside the Washington, D.C., area. Additional cities--Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, along with New York--have more, nevertheless Washington is the hub regarding Guatemalan political activities in the United States.

"Here within Washington tend to be exactly the actual same divisions we now have inside Guatemala, the identical problems, as well as the exact same dangers," says Gilson Urizar, a former soldier and policeman that says his "official duties" included kidnappings and robberies throughout Guatemala. Urizar says he received death threats following he described these criminal actions in the Guatemalan press.

With help from the Guatemalan Human Legal Rights Commission, Urizar fled towards the United States, nevertheless he says he carries on to become adopted and also harassed within Washington.

Your Commission, which usually monitors and also publicizes the actual human-rights situation in Guatemala, has been deeply involved with supporting Harbury. Its members are already harassed, as have members involving Coalition "Missing," which shares office space throughout Brookland

with the Commission. Your Coalition represents U.S. citizens as well as their families who were victims involving military along with police violence within Guatemala.

Scattered about Capitol Hill and also DuPont Circle certainly are generally a dozen or consequently various other small solidarity groups associated with Congressional lobbying, publicizing humanrights violations, and waging legal actions. These organizations are run through Guatemalan exiles as well as Americans, many involving whom also received death threats whilst doing function in Guatemala and also were forced to flee.

The Guatemala Committee with the Washington Area, regarding instance, has staged protests before the particular Guatemalan embassy and the White house as well as organized last year's successful boycotts regarding Starbucks along with Your Gap, also as other U.S. companies arrested for maintaining substandard conditions inside their Guatemalan plants. Numerous protesters, which includes David Bryden along with John Friedrich, say his or her actions happen to always be able to be observed as well as photographed by simply Guatemalans inside dark suits as well as sunglasses whom that they suspect function for G-2.

Besides these advocacy groups, you will find social-service organizations devoted to helping Guatemalans obtain work, wellness care, English lessons, housing, and also legal status. one in the largest is actually CASA associated with Maryland, that operates out of the Takoma Park church along along with a regional house, helping immigrants find employment.

"Now it will be the duration of the actual Guatemalans. The Actual time of the Salvadorans can be over," says Carlos Gutierrez, director of CASA's employment services. He explains that will since your 1990 Salvadoran peace accord, many Salvadorans possess gone home. Guatemalans now account for nearly most of your area's Latin-American immigrant community.

"Our civil war continues to propel visitors to leave," says Gutierrez, a new former union organizer whom fled Guatemala in 1992 after narrowly escaping an try upon his life. Nearly All in the Guatemalans he assists "don't want to chat by what they've lived through," he says, each because they want to forget and because they will always fear reprisals from Guatemalans linked towards the military.

Pitted from the human-rights and also social-service organizations is really a network associated with Guatemalan immigrants aligned with most the army. over the final year, they will happen for you to be loosely grouped within Your Fraternity. 1 of the oldest and largest Guatemalan organizations inside the Washington area, The Particular Fraternity meets each Wednesday night inside Fred Baechli's auto showroom.

Officials associated with Your Fraternity declare it's purely an apolitical, social club, but the underlying mission involving the Fraternity's leadership would always be to build assistance for that Guatemalan military. A New 12 months back the Fraternity, with every single other with just about all the military area involving the Guatemalan embassy as well as the Protection Ministry in Guatemala, began a marketing campaign to always be able to counter the avalanche of negative publicity becoming generated by Jennifer Harbury.

On March 23, 1995, Democratic Congressman Robert Torricelli involving Nj stepped prior to a bank of microphones and dropped a bombshell. the Congressman, who is about the house Intelligence Committee, revealed that he had details in which Harbury's husband, guerrilla commander Bamaca, ended up murdered around the orders associated with Colonel Julio Alpirez, a new Guatemalan officer on the CIA's payroll. Alpirez has additionally been implicated inside the 1990 murder

involving Michael Devine, an American innkeeper inside Guatemala. Alpirez denies involvement inside each crimes.

As Torricelli spoke, Harbury stood nearby, holding an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo of the girl dead husband. The Lady had just ended any twelve-day hunger strike before the particular White House, demanding that the Clinton Administration tell what it knew concerning the woman's husband's disappearance. Torricelli's revelations were the really first official confirmation Harbury had which the girl husband was, with regard to certain, dead. Your Woman wept quietly.

"At least now I know they are no longer making her suffer," she told the particular press. "But I will not rest until these people produce the body of my husband." Your Woman hasn't. More Than the final 12 months Harbury has devoted herself to always be able to trying to locate as well as exhume the girl husband's remains. The Particular Guatemalan military has sought to check the woman's every move.

The Torricelli press conference was an additional black eye for both the particular Guatemalan military as well as the CIA. Inside the actual palace throughout Guatemala City, Fred Baechli, that was in town for any graduation ceremony in which among his military buddies was made a general, huddled with defense Minister Mario Renee Enriquez. Baechli, a large, gray-haired man regarding Swiss-German descent whose family owns plantations along with properties inside Guatemala, boasts of his extended along with near associations with all the country's best military as well as political elite. Baechli says he travels frequently in order to Guatemala on business, along with diplomatic resources say he maintains shut links with the military area associated with the embassy inside Washington.

"People tend to be sick along with tired of Harbury within Guatemala," Baechli mentioned in a latest interview at his Potomac home. Sitting throughout his spacious family room full of massive Chinese porcelain vases, mounted ivory tusks, carved wooden figurines, along together with other objets d'art, Baechli lost his temper as he spoke associated with Harbury. "She's been performing very big damage within Guatemala. I believe the lady exceeds the actual legal rights an individual needs to end up being able to have within another country. and people that I socialize with within Guatemala, they are fed up with her."

Baechli contends which "a great offer of organizations wish to destroy Guatemala's credibility and image, especially the relation using the U.S. Guatemala can be being treated really unfairly," adding that he desired to lend the hand to exhibit that will "the civilians also as the military happen for you to be changing drastically inside the last few years."

Down within Guatemala throughout March 1995, Baechli, collectively using Guatemala's top military leaders, mapped out any two-pronged plan in order to counter the negative publicity. Prong 1 has been hiring lobbyists to end up being able to polish the actual Guatemalan military's image on Capitol Hill. Another was uniting the actual Guatemalan neighborhood as well as quelling dissent throughout Washington.

On April 7, 1995, Guatemala's protection minister, Mario Renee Enriquez, signed a $540,000 contract using one of Baechli's buddies, D.C. lobbyist Robert Thompson's over the actual next several months, Thompson's team--which included Baechli himself, who was registered as a foreign agent and received $10,000 a new month--wined as well as dined important Congressional as well as Clinton Administration contracts. The Actual lobbyists additionally produced a new twenty-four-page "white paper" attempting for you to burnish the actual army's human-rights record.

Baechli says Colonel Fernandez Ligorria "stopped by" when he and in addition the leading military leaders were signing the actual lobbying contract. Yet Another part of the lobbying team remembers Ligorria's active involvement. "When we achieved the particular minister regarding defense as well as the president within Guatemala, Ligorria has been there. We planned the white paper. He was obviously a very active participant." This kind of supply adds in which Ligorria "came for you to a number of your once a week meetings up here" in Washington, D.C., which includes 1 upon Capitol Hill.

The Guatemalan embassy, along with members associated with The Particular Fraternity and other organizations, additionally chose to launch the each week radio program, "Voice involving Guatemala," which in turn finally went around the air last November. The Particular embassy's military section materials information reports regarding Guatemala, which in turn range via the "social works" completed from the army, as well as the Guatemalan military in addition reportedly pays for the radio program.

For many years it may be typical practice for powerful Latin-American politicians along with military brass whom fall through favor or are usually accused associated with human-rights abuses or other crimes to become able to receive overseas posts to end up being able to obtain them from his or her country and also keep all of them quiet. It's called "the golden exile." Diplomatic along with humanrights resources say the State Department provides routinely cooperated simply by issuing visas to ensure that embarrassing people may be tucked away inside embassies, the actual Organization involving American States, Inter-American Development Bank, the world Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, too because the United Nations.

Last July, Colonel Jose Fernandez Ligorria won his golden exile. He received a new scholarship to be able to attend an elite program in the Inter-American defense College, based with Fort McNair throughout Washington, D.C. The Particular college is a portion of the actual OAS, nevertheless the military area associated with the Guatemalan embassy arranged Ligorria's posting. Your allexpenses-paid course includes trips for you to Latin America as well as across the United States, as well as lectures in hemispheric security, economic and military cooperation, philosophy along with doctrine, and also human rights.

At the actual time, Ligorria had been virtually mysterious in Washington, however over the particular previous year, he had received mountains regarding negative press within Guatemala.

In late March 1995, when Torricelli fingered Colonel Alpirez as each the actual CIA agent and in addition the architect regarding Bamaca's as well as Devine's murders, Alpirez's good friend and also colleague Ligorria had been previously in deep trouble.

Attorney Danilo Rodriguez and also human-rights activist Jorge Recinos accused him involving directing any drug-trafficking ring, dealing within stolen cars, and heading the death squad, almost all in your course of his tenure as chief associated with G-2.

During your late 1960s, Ligorria, Alpirez, and embassy military attache Roberto Letona Hora had studied with each and every other in the Polytechnic School, Guatemala's elite military academy. A Pair Of decades later, within 1989, Ligorria and also Alpirez received scholarship grants to take an advanced general staff along with command course at the University in the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.

In the actual early 1980s, each officers took part within the military's infamous "scorched-earth" campaign against Indian villages where tens involving a significant number of peasants were killed.

a defense Department document, recently launched to the Washington-based National security Archive, praises Alpirez as "excellent as involving this assignment" involving "eliminating insurgents as well as insurgent sympathizers." According to Rodriguez, that was a guerrilla fighting contrary for you to the military, Ligorria participated in massacres involving civilian communities in the northeast Ixcan region.

In 1992, Ligorria has been named second in cost of the National Police, a situation he allegedly accustomed to organize a car-theft ring.

In early 1995, Recinos and Rodriguez visited court within Guatemala to become able to accuse Ligorria of drug trafficking as well as automobile smuggling.

The costs played huge inside the Guatemalan press, along with Ligorria denied everything. He referred in order to as on the U.S. embassy, "a neutral body, to research me." Along With he warned those have been spreading "falsehoods" that will he'd "exert my rights" against his accusers.

The fees were rapidly thrown out of court following the intervention in the military's lawyer, Julio Citron. (Citron has been the same lawyer who for a couple of months ended up blocking Harbury's attempt to acquire usage of the military base exactly where the lady believes the woman's husband is actually buried.)

So, rather than planning to jail, Ligorria discovered himself upon an airplane to Washington.

Ligorria's human-rights record was not, apparently, involving major concern towards the State Department. "The embassy ended up being conscious of the allegations against him, therefore a thorough background check had been done and he is discovered to be qualified for any visa," says Mary Granfield, the particular Guatemala desk officer in Washington.

Rodriguez and also Recinos had been shocked which Ligorria received the U.S. visa. Starting throughout 1993, they satisfied ten times with embassy officials, which includes Ambassador Marilyn MacAfee, to provide details and also documents regarding Ligorria's human-rights violations and also criminal activities, they will say. "It seems that will Ligorria provides energy as well as excellent relations with the embassy along with had collaborated using them within the past," says Rodriguez.

A State Department official familiar using the subject confirmed the embassy within Guatemala had "met or spoken on numerous occasions" using Rodriguez along with Recinos. However he ended up

being quoted saying that although "Colonel Fernandez Ligorria's name may be linked publicly in order to alleged criminal activity as well as human-rights abuses," he was nonetheless being "found qualified pertaining to issuance of your visa."

Coalition "Missing" offers demanded the U.S. government cancel the visas involving Ligorria along with several additional high-ranking military officers in Washington that have been accused of human-rights violations. Ligorria, regarding his part, is actually nearing the end regarding his course and is scheduled to go back in order to Guatemala within July. Human-rights activists within Guatemala are uncertain they want him back.

Meanwhile, Pertierra and his wife, America, can no longer sleep soundly at night. "We awaken a lot," Pertierra says. "Any noise that we hear causes us to be able to be go to the window. And Also each morning at 4:30, in the duration of the actual bomb, we wake so we can't sleep again."

The FBI even now has a team operating on the case. And Also Pertierra says he knows he's "lucky."

"In Guatemala you could find a big range of individuals who don't have anyone to protect these from their particular government."

COPYRIGHT 1996 The Particular Progressive, Inc. No part want in order to understand , can be reproduced without the express published permission from the copyright holder.

Copyright 1996, Gale Group. Most rights reserved. Gale group is a Thomson Corporation Company.