Family member of key witness in Guatemala
human rights legal case is murdered

A cousin of Otoniel de la Roca Mendoza, a key witness in a Guatemala murder case involving the husband of U.S. activist Jennifer Harbury, has been murdered. The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is shocked and outraged about the killing, which appears to have been an attempt to intimidate Mr. de la Roca and his family.

Otoniel de la Roca Mendoza is a key witness in the 1992 abduction and killing of guerrilla commander Efraín Bámaca Velasquez. Bámaca's wife, U.S. citizen Jennifer Harbury, has been instrumental in bringing charges against the Guatemalan government in the Inter-American Court, and Mr. de la Roca's testimony that he saw Mr. Bámaca being abducted and tortured at a Guatemalan military base is a key element in her case.

Ms. Harbury recently joined the staff of UUSC as director of its new STOP (Stop Torture Permanently) Campaign.

Truck driver Jesús Mendoza was shot dead on July 22, as he returned from making a delivery. His body was found slumped over the wheel of his truck, at the side of the road: he had been shot in the head three times, according to police. His money and valuables had not been taken, suggesting the motive for the killing was not robbery. His family members say they had been followed in the week before the shooting. He was the father of Byron Mendoza, who was killed in 2002.

He and Otoniel de la Roca were cousins of Galindo Alvarado Mendoza, killed in September 2003. When Galindo Alvarado Mendoza was shot, his niece, who had been with him, recognized one of the two gunmen as a former paramilitary gunman whom the family knew by name.

To prevent him giving testimony, Mr. de la Roca's family has suffered threats and intimidation in both Guatemala and the United States, where Mr. de la Roca sought refuge in 1997. Before he left Guatemala, Mr. de la Roca received anonymous telephone calls warning him that his relatives remaining in the country would bear the consequences of his actions. Three of them have since been killed.

Action

-- Call or e-mail the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington, D.C. Telephone, 202.745.4952; e-mail, ambassador@guatemala-embassy.org.

-- Contact your U.S. senators and representatives and let them know about the situation. You may use UUSC's online Legislative Action Center at to send immediate letters by e-mail or fax to your elected U.S. members of Congress.

Message

-- I am outraged to hear of the fourth murder of Otoniel De la Roca's family members in Guatemala since 2000.

-- It is clear that the killings are being carried out by Guatemalan G-2 leaders from the “Comando,” some of whom are in positions of power still today.

-- This situation is an intolerable violation of the Peace Accords, as well as all human rights laws. It is also an extraordinary interference with witnesses and court proceedings.

-- We must not tolerate such actions by allies of our nation, and demand that all perpetrators be brought to criminal trials at once, and that all such relatives be given the full protections of the Guatemalan government.

-- I am contacting my senators and representatives and asking that all military aid of any kind be cut off at once, as well as the sales of weapons and parts; and that all military officials involved in drug smuggling be extradited to the U.S. for trial.

Background

According to Ms. Harbury, Mr. de la Roca and her husband were prisoners of war together in Guatemala during the early 1990s. Both were secretly detained and tortured. Before he escaped from Guatemala in 1997, Mr. de la Roca gave detailed and crucial human rights information to both MINUGUA (United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala) and the U.N. Truth Commission. When he arrived in Washington, he was greeted with a wave of telephone threats from his former captors, threatening to exterminate his family if he spoke. He nevertheless testified to the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission in its POW case against Guatemala, and then later to the Inter-American Court in the case of Ms. Harbury's husband.

There has been an alarming increase in human rights violations in Guatemala in the past few years. UUSC is concerned that the wave of attacks on human rights defenders and other involved in key human rights cases may be part of a systematic campaign to silence those who have spoken out against impunity for human rights abuses, present and past. The government has agreed to set up a special commission known as CICIACS  (Commission for the Investigation of Illegal Groups and Clandestine Security Organizations in Guatemala) to spearhead the dismantling of the illegal armed groups operating in Guatemala, with its powers agreed jointly by the government and the United Nations. Ex-military personnel, some of whom have been implicated in past human rights abuses, are widely suspected of belonging to criminal networks and parallel powers in Guatemala, which would be investigated by the CICIACS.