Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04GUATEMALA2805
2004-11-04 23:06:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Guatemala
Cable title:  

GUATEMALAN SQUATTERS REINVADE SITE OF PREVIOUS

Tags:  ELAB ECON GT KCRM PGOV PHUM PINS ASEC 
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GUATEMALA 002805 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ELAB ECON GT KCRM PGOV PHUM PINS ASEC
SUBJECT: GUATEMALAN SQUATTERS REINVADE SITE OF PREVIOUS
VIOLENCE

REF: GUATEMALA 2248

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GUATEMALA 002805

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ELAB ECON GT KCRM PGOV PHUM PINS ASEC
SUBJECT: GUATEMALAN SQUATTERS REINVADE SITE OF PREVIOUS
VIOLENCE

REF: GUATEMALA 2248


1. Summary: Guatemalan squatters reinvaded Nueva Linda farm,
the site where eleven people were killed during a violent
eviction in August. The squatters, who this time were
unarmed, maintain their previous demand for government action
to investigate the 2003 disappearance of their colleague and
have added several new demands regarding compensation for the
violence and property destruction of the previous eviction.
Subsequent reports on that eviction have been contradictory
and various government and non-governmental actors have taken
public stances on the issue, leading to heightened tensions.
Negotiations continue, although a second eviction is
possible. End summary.

A new occupation
--------------

2. On October 28, Guatemalan squatters reinvaded the Nueva
Linda farm in western Guatemala's Retalhuleu Province, site
of the August 31 conflict between squatters and security
forces that killed eleven people, including four police
officers, during a court-ordered eviction (reftel). When
approximately 300 squatters reoccupied the site on October
28, they took 19 private security guards hostage for three
hours, until a mediator from the Human Rights Ombudsman's
Office (PDH) negotiated the hostages' release. The Vice
Minister of Government (Interior) reportedly stated that the
National Civil Police (PNC) were ready to undertake a second
eviction, but that he hoped negotiations allow for a peaceful
resolution.


3. The PDH mediator also reported that the squatters were
unarmed, unlike the previous occupation in which the
squatters opened fire on the police with assault weapons.
Government authorities have not yet received a court order to
begin a second eviction, and the Minister of Government
reportedly assured human rights activists that they would not
undertake an eviction without judicial order. President
Berger, the PDH, Catholic Church officials, and various NGOs
and individual political figures have called for dialogue and
a peaceful resolution. The squatters also stated their
intentions to protest peacefully, but noted that if evicted,

they would return to occupy the farm until their demands are
met.


4. Squatters continue to demand government action to
investigate the disappearance of the Nueva Linda farm manager
in 2003 and have demanded compensation for their alleged
losses during the August eviction. The squatters demanded
prosecution and punishment for the members of the security
forces responsible for the deaths of the seven squatters,
plus financial recompense for the losses of five vehicles,
the corn harvest, and various personal goods destroyed in the
conflict.


5. The squatters also insist that Retalhuleu Governor Carlos
Quintana be excluded from any mediation or dialog due to
their belief that he was partially responsible for the
earlier violence. Indeed, Quintana's attempt to meet with
the squatters on October 29 was rejected. They requested
that a negotiating commission be established, to include
Members of Congress Nineth Montenegro and Raul Robles, the
Human Rights Ombudsman's Office, the National Coordinator of
Campesino Organizations, San Marcos Department Bishop (and
land reform activist) Alvaro Ramazzini, the Public Ministry,
and the journalists present at the August 31 eviction.


6. The basis for the squatters additional demands was a
report by the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office on October 12
that criticized the security forces for excessive use of
force and suggested that three of the seven squatters' deaths
were the result of extrajudicial killings by the security
forces. Through the Ministry of the Interior and the
National Civilian Police, the Government rejected the
Ombudsman's report, suggesting that it had been influenced by
politics. The Congressional Commission on Human Rights also
agreed that no evidence had been presented to back the PDH
claims of extrajudicial killings. The Commission noted that
the forensic investigation was shoddy at best, and the
circumstances of the August 31 deaths will likely never be
clarified.

Congressmen and Ombudsman address demands
--------------

7. The squatters say that their primary motive for both
occupations was the 2003 disappearance of farm manager Hector
Reyes and the lack of any substantial investigation by police
and prosecutors. The Human Rights Ombudsman's Office
reported that police and prosecutors failed to investigate
Reyes' disappearance and noted discrepancies and
methodological failures within the official reports.
Allegations persist, however, that Reyes in fact now lives in
the United States. A local newspaper reported recently that
Reyes' wife expressed in a telephone interview from the
United States that she has come to an arrangement with the
farm owners and is no longer pursuing a case.


8. The Ombudsman's Office and the Congressional Commission on
Human Rights, headed by Member of Congress Nineth Montenegro,
have requested that the Attorney General reactivate the case
of Reyes' disappearance both to review existing evidence and
to initiate further investigation, such as the exhumation of
several unknown bodies that were buried shortly after Reyes
disappeared. The Commission on Human Rights also requested
that President Berger dismiss the Retalhuleu Governor for his
role in the violence.

Journalists and the first eviction
--------------

9. Additional developments have also occurred regarding the
press coverage of the August 31 eviction, during which police
allegedly assaulted and threatened journalists and
confiscated their cameras and other equipment.


10. Based on the events of the August 31 eviction, seven
journalists filed a case against the police through the Human
Rights Ombudsman's Office and the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights. Since then, family members of two of the
journalists have been murdered, which some human rights
activists suggest was intended to intimidate the journalists.
Although government figures believe that the two murders
were examples of common crime (the second of the murders
occurred during the second of two bus robberies by the same
armed gang on October 31),the prosecutor's office of the
Public Ministry and the National Police are keeping the cases
open.


11. Additionally, the equipment confiscated from the
journalists still has not been returned. The Special
Prosecutor for Crimes against Journalist and Trade Unionists
transmitted a request to the National Police for the
equipment, but the Attorney General ordered them to transfer
the case to the Special Prosecutor for Organized Crime's
office in Quetzaltenango (the regional office covering the
area in which the eviction took place).

Comment
--------------

12. The reoccupation of Nueva Linda is a test for the
Government's ability to enforce the rule of law, one that the
Government has so far failed. Prosecution of squatters for
the shooting deaths of the four policemen killed in the
August 31 eviction has stalled, as has disciplinary action
against the riot police who apparently used excessive force
against the journalists.


13. With some 130 current farm invasions, the Government
faces an obvious dilemma in that the informal freeze on
evictions avoids violence but also may serve to encourage
further takeovers. In addition, it appears that in some
cases takeover organizers have turned these siezures into a
business by charging fees for squatters to participate.
(According to some media reports, the initial Nueva Linda
takeover was led by a notorious alien smuggler.) Along with
the ex-PAC blockades (septel),these takeovers are one more
public security headache for a government that is
ill-equipped to cope with such challenges.
HAMILTON