ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:96070119.LAR
DATE:07/01/96
TITLE:01-07-96  COALITION DISSATISFIED WITH U.S. REVIEW OF GUATEMALAN MURDERS

TEXT:
(President's board releases new information on cases)  (870)
By Eric Green
USIA Staff Writer


WASHINGTON -- A coalition of human rights advocates says last week's
release of a White House Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) report
concerning violations of human rights against U.S. citizens or their
families in Guatemala fails to go far enough to prevent further
political assassinations, abduction, or torture in the Central
American country.

At a July 1 news conference here, Jennifer Harbury, speaking for
members of Coalition Missing, said that while pleased with "certain
frank and honest findings" concerning U.S. governmental practices in
Guatemala, "we feel the report falls short indeed in its findings in
individual cases," such as the 1992 "disappearance" and killing of her
husband, Guatemalan guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velazquez.

Other well-known cases for which the coalition demanded "immediate and
full disclosure" include the 1990 murder in Guatemala of American
innkeeper Michael Devine, and the 1989 torture of U.S. citizen Sister
Dianna Ortiz. The cases are said to involve Guatemalan military
officers allegedly on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA).

Harbury, who said she has filed a civil suit against the U.S.
government worth "in the millions of dollars," said certain
conclusions in the IOB report are at best "coy and evasive." In other
cases, Harbury said "long-promised information has been withheld yet
again."

Harbury said that "more than anything else," she and Coalition Missing
wanted the Clinton administration and Congress to declassify all U.S.
government files on human rights cases since 1954, when the Guatemalan
military staged a coup d'etat with the alleged involvement of the CIA.

Despite the IOB report and the possibility that the country's more
than 30-year civil war may formally end with the signing of a peace
accord by Sept. 15, Harbury said the human rights situation in the
country is worse than ever. A reported 150,000 Guatemalans were said
to have been killed or to have disappeared in the civil war.

Harbury called on Congress to enact laws to prohibit the payment of
U.S. tax dollars for information "known to be extracted through the
use of torture, secret imprisonment and murder."

Sister Ortiz, who followed Harbury to the microphone, said she wanted
to thank President Clinton for ordering the federal review into "my
case and the cases of other U.S. citizens killed or abused in
Guatemala."

The IOB, she said, "worked hard and has come up with a series of
positive recommendations, which I hope will prevent our tax dollars
from being used to pay torturers and assassins for information."

However, she criticized by name several U.S. and Guatemalan government
officials for ridiculing her claims that she was gang-raped and
tortured by members of the Guatemalan security forces, who she said
were the CIA's "partners" in a war fought against Guatemalan rebels
"with U.S. funding but without the knowledge or consent of the
American people."

The IOB report, released June 28, was said by the White House to
represent "an unprecedented level of executive review of U.S.
intelligence."

The IOB, the White House said in a statement released that day, has
"concluded that CIA and other intelligence agency officials pursued
legitimate policy objectives that in many instances advanced the
national interests of both the United States and Guatemala. It found
there was no credible evidence implicating CIA officers, assets, or
liaison contacts in the death, abduction, or torture of U.S. citizens
in Guatemala."

The White House added that the case of Sister Ortiz remains under
investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The White House said that the IOB nevertheless "believes several CIA
assets were credibly alleged to have ordered, planned, or participated
in serious human violations" in Guatemala.

As a result, the IOB said, "it recommends that ambassadors be informed
about intelligence activities with serious policy implications, that
executive and legislative branch officials be held accountable for the
proper handling of classified information, and that the State
Department take more initiative in seeking intelligence agency
authorization to share information with the American victims of human
rights abuses or their surviving family members."

The IOB also said that while the report "notes that in the past the
CIA failed to provide policymakers and Congress with adequate
information to permit proper oversight, it finds that steps have been
taken to correct this problem."

In its own June 28 statement, the State Department said it was
releasing new information previously withheld from the more than 6,000
documents the department declassified May 6 relating to the murders of
17 U.S. citizens in Guatemala since 1984. Also being released, the
department said, was new information concerning intelligence documents
from the CIA and the Department of Defense.

The declassification of these documents, the department said, was
undertaken to fulfill the president's "commitment to provide as much
information" about the Guatemalan cases "as appropriate." Information,
it added, was deleted from some of the documents "to eliminate
material pertaining to other subjects or to protect the privacy of
individuals, intelligence sources and methods, and other national
security interests."
NNNN