RIGOBERTA MENCHU CALLS FOR LATIN AMERICA WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL By Bill Weinberg/ Summer 2001

Hemispheric Digest, Native Americas Journal

On an April visit to Spain, Guatemalan indigenous leader and 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú called for "an ad hoc tribunal to judge crimes against humanity committed in Latin America as we see in ex-Yugoslavia or in Rwanda." She specifically called for charges against those responsible for crimes committed by the dictatorships of Argentina, Chile and Guatemala, calling these "three paradigmatic cases."

"In Guatemala, where there have been 200,000 deaths or disappearances, the most important thing now is that evidence of genocide not be lost," said Menchú, who was in Spain to receive an honorary degree from the University of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. She said there could be no justice for war crimes under Guatemala's judicial system, and called upon survivors of the genocide to "prepare our legal complaints in anticipation of the day that we have a legitimate tribunal."

Meanwhile, in Guatemala, human rights attorney Mynor Melgar faced death threats and a violent attack on his family just two days after publicly announcing that the Archbishop's Human Rights Office was preparing to charge former dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt with genocide. At midday on December 22, 2000, two unidentified armed men called at Melgar's home. Answering the front door, he was ordered to the bathroom at gunpoint. The two men tied up Melgar, his wife and his two sons and said, "This is only a warning, but the next time . . ." They then took some valuables and made off with Melgar's car.

General Rios Montt was president of Guatemala in 1982 and 1983, during the worst phase of the genocidal counterinsurgency against the country's Maya Indian majority. Coming to power in a coup d'etat, he masterminded a strategy of forced relocation of Indian populations into army-controlled "model villages," and hundreds of resistant hamlets were massacred. He is currently the leader of Congress.

Interior Minister Byron Barrientos insists that the attack on Melgar is just a case of common crime. But human rights defenders have faced increasing threats and harassment in recent months. Amnesty International charges that "authorities have done nothing to investigate or prevent" such abuses. "Instead, they have issued a number of statements accusing human rights defenders and other activists of seeking to destabilize the country. They have also suggested that human rights organizations risk being attacked by unknown forces, in effect declaring open season on activists."