04 August 2004

Front Line is seriously concerned at the ongoing harassment of members of the Centre for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH), a non-governmental organisation which campaigns for truth and justice on behalf of victims of genocide in Guatemala.

In April 2004 it brought the case of the massacre on 18 July 1982 of 268 inhabitants of the community of Plan de Sanchez by the Guatemalan armed forces before the Inter American Court on Human Rights, which subsequently condemned the Guatemalan Government for the massacre. On 22 July 2004, following a reported raid on the offices of the organisation and death threats against its director Edda Gaviola, Front Line called on the authorities of Guatemala to ensure the protection of members of CALDH and witnesses of the Plan de Sanchez massacre.

However, according to reports received by Front Line, on 30 July 2004 the CALDH headquarters in Guatemala city reportedly received a number of anonymous phone calls claiming that a bomb had been planted in the office. A man had reportedly been seen that morning loitering outside the office and talking to the driver of a car with tinted windows which has passed the office on a number of occasions.

Police have been providing 24 hour protection to the CALDH offices following the raid in mid July, however, according to reports this has been intermittent and ineffectual. The Director of CALDH, Edda Gaviola has also reportedly seen cars with tinted windows repeatedly driving past her home and neighbours have reported seeing strangers loitering near her house.

On 1 August, the CALDH offices in the town of Rabinal in the north of Guatemala received a handwritten note containing death threats against its spokesperson Miguel Angel Albizures as well as a witness of the Plan de Sanchez massacre. The note reportedly warned them that if they “carry on talking to the human rights people about the massacre, the days of the 80s may return.” During the 1980s Guatemala was under military rule and the army and paramilitary carried out several hundred massacres, largely against the indigenous population. The note also warned them that if they did not “leave this land” they would “die very soon.”