Regional court blames Guatemala for the disappearance of 4 human rights activists in 1989

GUATEMALA CITY — The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that the Guatemalan government was responsible for human rights violations in the disappearance of four Indigenous human rights activists in 1989.

The men were “victims of forced disappearance by members of the Guatemalan army,” the court’s decision said, adding that the state did not investigate, judge or sanction those responsible.

The Costa Rica-based court said in its ruling that the Guatemalan government must take the steps necessary to establish what happened to the victims and punish those responsible.

Agapito Pérez Lucas, Nicolás Mateo, Macario Pú Chivalán and Luis Ruiz Luis had been threatened by government agents for their human rights work, the court said.

They disappeared in April 1989, during the first civilian presidency of Vinicio Cerezo after decades of military leadership, and amid Guatemala’s 36-year civil war that ended in 1996.

A United Nations truth commission established that more than 200,000 people from both sides died in the conflict and some 45,000 disappeared.

According to their relatives, the men were members of the Runujel Junam Council of Ethnic Communities in the Quiche department of western Guatemala. Under threats and harassment the men had moved to the Suchitepequez department to work on a coffee farm.

Relatives said soldiers abducted the men from the barracks where they slept in pairs a week apart.

Their bodies have not been found. The court ordered the government to try to locate them and other missing, and to compensate their families.

Guatemala's government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amilcar Méndez, who was president of the council when the men were abducted, said he spoke to president Cerezo at the time and his successor, but no one from the government helped look for them.

“The most important thing is that this is a clear message to the military elite that has disrupted justice by making all kinds of maneuvers so that in Guatemala impunity reigns,” Méndez said. “It is a message for the justice system that has been complacent with human rights violators from the 36 years of armed conflict.”

Guatemalan judges should also recognize that while they did not provide justice, internationally it is still possible, he said. Méndez called on President Bernardo Arévalo to comply with the rights of Guatemala’s Indigenous peoples.

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