Salt Lake Tribune | 1986-12-21 | Page 12

12A Thf Salt LakeJTribuot' Sundaj December 2L 1986 Hcturn of Indians From Hiding Called A Sign of Democracy in Guatemala Juanm Bv iih my on I that might not automatically put to death anyone suspected of collaborating with leftist guerrillas So they warily made contact with a Homan Catholic priest and after many ras Mirances they came into this north rentral provincial capital undm church protection hour months later they are still here healthier now but jammed to getlier in a crumbling abandoned clinic donated to the church Then story illustrates the hupes and fears that surround Vinicio Cerezo who timing f’nt riiei miHN Guatemala llwjiiimn when In bedraggled group down from tli1 in Mumbling "mmhI on Mime of thorn cartying oO n tmi weak to uulk They Here Indian peasants and thev hud been at to t un hiding (rum tin Guatema at nm lor nearly five years No k exhausted and nearlv start a g (lit v illjgers said they had hoard mat a non government was in pun or m Guatemala a ( tvtlian government JuK nt 15 t Guatemalan Indians Optimistic About Life in Model Villages stack of rifles lay on it nearbv table where in the makeshift office (hickens pecked at a lew spilled beans Washington Post Set v iu M'KV'O ACAMAL Guatemala The armed guard at the gate speaks no Spanish only the Indian language Kekchi He t one of the residents of this model village all of w horn w ere sent here to be r eed ucated out ot tbeir links to leftist 10 000 building and children carried wood and jugs ot water up and down the paths to the communal taps Several residents who said they aim from the Chisec area gave almost identical answers when asked through Tzibac why they were at Acamal 'We were tricked hv a group of subversives who promised us land and lots of things hut thev didn t do it" said Victoria uetil Pana as she tended a log fire on the dirt floor of her house tic more than concentration tamps but residents questioned thiougli an armed soldier intci (inter said they feel safer undei Army supervision than they would feel braving the conflict outside They run everything hen themselves” said Army Sgt Salvador Tibac wearing a and a baseball cap as be supervised the weekly distribution of beans corn and rice 5 pounds of each to a family ' Tzibac in charee for the day was the lone non resident present drive north at the site a of Guatemala fit v m here inostlv so that they ilon leel abandoned ' he said 'iG-liou- r it is strange to have he ins we did not grow We want to go back to live on the land where there is peace ' she I Cerezo pledged to end three decades of military abuses and 20 years of guerrilla warfare The Reagan ad- ministration counts Guatemala among its models for democratic transitions as the way to thwart guerrilla movements But the power balance between the Army and the pres ident remains unclear and neither the peasants nor their church protectors believe the Indians would yet be safe on their own "Yes those campesinos are afraid of us" admitted Gen Hector Alejandro Gramajo Morales chief of the armed forces general staff "We are trying to show them that it is a he w hat the subversives have told them but if they won t let us prove it what ' said ! 16 1 We were tricked" echoed her neighbor Asuncion Cucuk while an infant dozed in a hammock and a toddler played on the plank bed the onlv visible furniture here but in ptesident hard-fough- C It is good first civilian sears forces beset by the country's economic problems street demonstrations and criticism from the international community over Guatemala's appalling human rights record organized elections last year Political violence has claimed at least 35000 lives in this nation of nearly 8 million since the guerrilla movement began 25 years ago and in 1977 I'S military aid to Guatemala was suspended because of the human rights violations Cerezo a Christian Democrat who has survived three murder attempts t was the victor in the election and many i onservattves here urged the Army to prevent him from taking power But the commanders honored their ('0010111111101 to civilian rule months Ccrezo has spent his first in office trying to reshape the Army's approach to guerrilla warfare the world's view of Guatemala and the Guatemalan people's view of what a government should he The Indians story illustrates the past Cerezo is trying to change Gramajo "said it "is a story of 1981 not of 1986 'll was 4 am when the soldiers came toSemuv It was Sept 20 1981 recalled Juan Tumcho one of the few among the 87 Indians who speak Spanish as well as the Kekchi lan two-roo- Guatemalans all sumvors of villages abandoned during three decades of fighting are in a dozen model villages na t ioiiw ide according to government figures Human rights orgamza turns have denounced them as lit About la s can we do0" The armed Some of the men were breaking rocks for a rough road up the steep tin muddy hill to the roofed board houses built for each family Electric wires ran to each guerrillas took office in January as Guatema- Wdb guage 'They burned the houses and We think 37 died they shot at us The lucky ones among us got away " According to the account pieced together by Bishop Gerardo Flores head of the Alta Verapaz diocese that includes Cohan the villagers had moved 15 years ago from an arid zone neat Chisec 30 miles north of here to better land at the nearby village of Semuy But they were ignorant of land title niceties and when a group of evangelical Protestant Guatema Ians claimed the Semuy land early in 1981 the Indians refused to move "They were then denounced as subversives a technique too often used here" the bishop said "And when that happens the Army acts" Tumcho and Ins wife and children were separated as they fled into the night and did not see each other for six weeks he said Slowly the 200 or so refugees from Semuy found each other in the jungle hills forming small groups Every day at 5 0 clock we had to decide where to sleep " Tumcho said tored by Britain s elite Special Air Services army commandoes worked closely with Britain's secretive MIS and had a separate line of command outside the normal police hiearchy The cover on the secret unit was blown in a killing spree in the fall of 1982 reportedly triggered by an IR A landmine that killed three policemen in South Armagh The Observer newspaper recent lv reported that police paid a 20060 pound ($28000) bounty to an IRA informer for names of people behind By Ed Lion Cmted Press International LONDON - Britain calls it the Stalker Affair - a tangled tale of intrigue involving the Irish Republican Army the shadowy MI5 intelligence agency alleged police death squads and an upstanding police offi-- ( iu I Its twists and turns have laptivat ed the Irish people been largely ignored by the British and shed "light onto a secret war between British euunterintelligence arid the IR that tateh makes the headlines the blast latest twist British police o! liual John Stalker who had been pulled off an investigation into the case suddenly resigned 1 be "Stalker Affair as it has been dubbed had its roots with the operation tn the early 1980s of a secret Hoy al t'lster Constabulary police unit The unit was formed to crackdown ''U the IRA in the Northern Ireland hor er countryside of South Armagh aunty and it killed five unarmed Irish nationalist guerrillas and a Ho man Catholic youth rtie IRA and its more militant off slmot — the Irish National Liberation are fighting to end British Army rule in the mostly Protestant prnv ince so it can be united with the Catholic Irish Republic to the south st By most accounts the ret squad was broken down into si man field units using unmarked ar cars and operating m rmagh near the border with the rea ' hotspot' for the IRA Tlu public um w is trained hv instructors tu In its three separate ambushes over a period five unarmed IRA and JNLA members including some named by the informant were shot to death by police In addition a In month-lon- ' youth with no ' 1 mur-plate- 33 Off Child s paumilitary connections was also killed tn a hayshed under MI5 surveillance and believed by them to he an IRA explosives cache Catholic politicians and the IRA branded the killings the work of a "police death squad and the product of Britain s 'shoot to kill' policy against Irish nationalist guerrillas They pressed for an investigation Stalker the deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester on the British mainland was called in to tnvesti gate the affair in 1984 He discovered that MIS had actually bugged the hayshed where the youth was killed and for 18 months unsuccessfully sought to obtain a copy of the tape of the killing Last spring he was suddenly accused of improper association with crimi Supercut " nals and suspended from the force and from the probe The charges of Stalkers improper conduct were later disproven He was restored to the force three months later although another senior British police officer had in the meantime taken over the RDC killings probe In the meantime the new invest) gatton discovered that the MI5 tape had mysteriously disappeared Stalker became a hero among Irish Catholics because they felt he was pulled from the investigation because he refused to bow to cover-upressures suprise move on Friday Stalkpolice veteran — anhe was resigning from the Manchester force for "personal and " family reasons His daughter said he acted because he has been unhappv with his job for some time In a er - a nounced Earlier in the week details of a secret report on the new probe's recommendations to be made to prosecutors were leaked to newspapers The Guardian newspaper said tin probe findings will recommended that up to eight officers of varying ranks should be charged with offenses likely to include consptracv to pervert the course of justice The Irish T imes had a similar report Tw 0 police officials have already been suspended over the case A source close to the probe said the new investigation had not covered up findings originally made by Stalker However a preliminary 1985 report Ml Jewehr Sold nt They want to be farmers mu again and in a warmer place than mountainous Cohan President Let ezo has offered to provide govern land in neighboring merit owned Quiche provitue hut that is still sub joct to military confiuntatiuns a IVip PEARLS What's Better than H hokwie ffewctcAb :'? 272-866- 9 mmsm PEARLS 60 OFF! Compare our everyday prices to others “Sale” prices For quality and selection we beat them Hands Down The Dublin-baseIrish Press newspaper commented that fears that no serious prosecutions would be called for following Stalker's removal "hap" pily appear to have been unfounded It also said the development was "most welcome" to the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland d PEARLS! 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