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Show Page D2 - THE DAILY HERALD, Provo, Utah, Thursday, October 13, 1994 U.S. woman fasts for missing husband By CHRISTENA Granite Yankee watches over South Carolina town COLCLOUGH Associated Press Writer - GUATEMALA CITY American lawyer Jennifer Harbury has begun a hunger strike in front of the National Palace, demanding the army release her leftist guerrilla husband from captivity. The army claims the man died in combat. "My life and the life of my husband, Everardo Bamaca Vasquez, are in the hands of the Guatemalan Knight-Ridd- Washington, D.C., woman said as she befast Tuesday. gan a water-onl- y Harbury accuses the army of holding and torturing her husband. r, Comman-dant- e r I . 4. ,4! , ' I ' f 1 """" ' rwr.. vsr '" "" x zizf j Neither community knows for sure. The mystery began unfolding last week. York, Maine, profiled recently in a story by the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, has been paying homage for 88 years to a Civil War memorial that features a Confederate solwith a striking resemdier blance to Col. Sanders. March 12, 1992, after a battle between the army and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union guerrillas. He is one of an estimated 40,000 people, many of them civilians, who have disappeared during Gua34-ye- ar civil war. As many as 150,000 have died and 45,000 fled the country. But his position as the only Indian commander in the rebel movement made him especially visible. "If the army had any knowledge of Bamaca, we would have handed him over," said Defense Minister General Mario Enriquez. "He is dead. The defense minister said Bama- - By PETER SLEVIN Newspapers - LES CAYES, Haiti The cell measured 10 feet by 15 feet. Dull light filtered through rusted steel bars. Within the dankness, there huddled gaunt misery. prisoners filled the space, breathing their own smells and waiting for the caprice that Haiti's military government called justice. U.S. soldiers, the Green Berets, could not believe what they Thirty-si- x beheld. "Malnutrition. Skin disease. Open sores. Some guys were lying on the floor and couldn't get up," said Lt. Col. Mike Jones. "The skin was coming off some of them. One can in the corner they used as a latrine." U.S. forces in Haiti are uncovering prison conditions that appall the most hardened American soldiers. They are ordering Haitian jailers to clean things up or set the ; prisoners free. In Les Cayes, a southern coastal town where oppression has been particularly severe, the local authorities failed to comply. So the Americans used some strong language, Jones said, and the jail was emptied. ' "At some point you throw up your hands and say, 'I don't know did, but they didn't this,'" said Lt. Col. Kasey garner, a U.S. Army lawyer who monitors evidence of human rights abuses. "It's truly hard to believe ;tfcat people treat other people like vtfhat they ;tnat and that people are able to live through it." American soldiers dealt with the squalid military jails in Les Cayes and Aquin last week. Warner said U.S. commanders are examining reports from five to 10 more jails "very strongly." In addition, U.S. forces have discovered a series of informal detention centers, where opponents of the military regime or personal The townfolk think their Yankee statue may have mistakenly been sent south. A York resident began contacting Southern towns that may have received a statue of dubious heritage around the turn of the AP Photo American lawyer Jennifer Harbury began a hunger strike Tuesday in front of National Palace in ca "died in that bout of combat." But Harbury says there is evi- - dence her husband survived the The army report of the only man killed in that battle Guatemala demanding the army release her leftist guerrilla husband from captivity. matched Bamaca. But an August 1993, exhumation showed that the man buried as Bamaca was some- one else. And a rebel who gave his name only as Carlos testified before U.N. human rights officials that he had seen Bamaca alive, but tured, while he was behind held at enemies of its armed loyalists are reported to have been kept. Soldiers on patrol in recent days have relayed discoveries of shaln low graves and more than a mass graves, said Warmer. He described the smaller graves as half-doze- graves" and said "quick-du- g Army teams will investigate. "We're finding some fresh graves even today, fresh from the last several days," Warner said. "We've gotten the reports. Now it's a question of going out and finding out what happened. By looking at bones, they can make a determination." The arrival of U.S. forces has offered a window into the brutality of Haitian military, which also served as the country's police. With the assistance of its civilian auxiliaries, or attaches, the security forces created rule by terror. Haitian citizens, long frightened, into submissive silence, are coming forward to tell the Americans what happened. They identify their persecutors and advise the soldiers where to look for the weapons of abuse. "All throughout the city we get tips," said Jones, who reported that his troops have discovered silencers and perhaps 15 deadly fragmentation grenades in the homes of Haitian soldiers. When a U.S. patrol here detained a notorious soldier who called himself "the Haitian Saddam Hussein," one of his victims traveled two hours to Les Cayes to tell how the soldier beat him, sliced one of his ears and carved his initials into his flesh. Henry Belzi is an elected council member, a supporter of President Aristide. One day in August 1992, he went to investigate the burning of more than a dozen houses in his district, reportedly by the military. The security forces stopped him. "When they arrested me, they said, 'That guy's a terrorist.' Two attaches hit me in the face. When Jean-Bertra- century. 1L "Only in a small town could, a story like this take place something everybody know9 but nobody talks about. great yarn. Hundreds of It's a' i mass-produc- Civil War memorials were erected around the country in the half-centu- ry following the ; war. The York, Maine, statue was cast by Frederick Barnicoat of Quincy, Mass. The town dedicated it May 2, 1906. t i r.i';1. boombox military jail, the same one the Green Berets discovered earlier Reg. 229.99 Compact model featuring super bass horn, AMFM stereo digital tuner with clocktimer, programmable CD player, cassette deck this month. "They beat me, but they didn't treat me as badly as the other prisoners," said Guillete, interviewed at city hall. He spent 10 days behind bars in conditions he considered deplorable. "Terrible. It was so bad I can't find the words to describe it," he said. "You would find 11 or 12 men in a single room. They didn't with CD synchro recording and remote control; RCQS1 1. Portable Electronics have beds. They slept on the $149 Sanitary conditions were appalling. "You were allowed to go out to the latrine once a day," he said. "If you couldn 't do what you needed to do, you would have to do it inside the cell. They'd put a bucket there. That was it." Guillete said most of the prisoners had been arrested for political JVC portable CD player with car adaptor shock-resistaReg. 179.99 Features memory function, backlit display, illuminated keys, car cassette adaptor, car power nt adaptor and Hyper Bass sound system; XLP60. reasons. They were often held without charges, without a hearing, without recourse. Among his fellow inmates, he said, were an engineer, a professor and a Catholic priest. n ones were alThe lowed to receive food from their families and were permitted two latrine visits a day. They shared their provisions with the other inmates. Conditions had not changed by the time U.S. forces arrived. $199 well-know- JVC II,,.,, CD player, dual cassette decks, AMFM stereo digital tuner, detachable speakers with multi-bas- s 1 CD changer boombox Reg. 329.99 Features CD changer with one extra play, detachable speakers with multi-bas- s six-di- sc ...so why not spend your time making money with The Daily Herald Telemarketing Team! Earn an average of fizr $8.oohr Are you self motivated? 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There will be no payment due or finance charges assessed on this merchandise until March, 1995. After that, regular Option Account Terms apply. (Minimum payments of 10 of the balance will be due each month and monthly finance charge of 1 .5 of the Average Daily Balance will be assessed. This corresponds to an Annual Percentage Rate of 18,) All purchases are subject to credit approval and all accounts must be in good standing. ZJ ! ! I ciety said Tuesday. is this if know the t "I don't one they're looking for or not.But it seems pretty odd that they have a Confederate in Maine, -and we just happen to have aS Yankee in South Carolina. ' ' The situation is just as cU- -; rious to folks 1,500 miles due; north. POMMEW they finished, they took me to the barracks. They said, 'We can't let this guy run around.'" Mayor Frantz Guillete is another Aristide supporter who suffered at the hands of the military after Aristide was ousted in a September 1991 coup. The morning of May 30, 1992, he was walking down the street when he ran into trouble. "They stripped me. They tied my wrists with cord. They pulled me through the street without any clothes," he said of the military. "There were crowds on both sides of the streets, watching." The soldiers hauled him to the ! ; Enter Kingstree, about 135 miles southeast of Charlotte. "When I read the story, the a military installation. Squalor in Haitian jails shocks even the toughest U.S. forces Knight-Ridd- - emy lines. While a Rebel statue stands watch over the cold New England coast, a granite Yankee keeps close eye over this small Southern town, about an hour north of where the war's first shots were fired. Switched at birth? Everardo, disappeared temala's Newspapers AnKINGSTREE, S.C. other Civil War soldier AWOL for nearly a century has been found deep behind en- army," the Efrain Bamaca, alias first thing I thought of was our Yankee statue," Frances Ward of the Kingstree Historical So- - By DAN HUNTLEY ClSsl I Shop all stokes Monoay through Saturday 1 o a.m.-- 9 p.m. (cxcipt Salt Lake Dcwntown, Oc.Dn and ZCMI Saturday 1 0 A.M.-- 7 p.m.). Gosid Sunday t |