UN expert talks rights, Guatemala

by Rebecca Dumas, 1L
Law Weekly
April 1, 2009

This past Wednesday, March 25, Dr. Mónica Pinto, Professor of International Law and International Human Rights Law at the University of Buenos Aires, spoke to members of the Law Center community about the democratic challenge of achieving human rights protections in Guatemala. She grounded her remarks in her three years of on-the-ground experience as a United Nations Expert for an Examination of the Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala, a job she held from 1993 to 1996.

Pinto first provided her audience with a brief outline of Guatemalan socio-political history of the last half-century: in 1954, Guatemala’s democratically elected president was overthrown by a coupe, leaving Guatemala “poor, violent and militarized,” a characterization which persists today. 1985 brought renewed hope to Guatemala with the installment of the first democratically elected and civilian president since 1966, Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo, but widespread armed conflict persisted until 1996.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights began considering the human rights situation in Guatemala in 1979, yet it only became involved in the country’s political situation in 1983. Once Arévalo was in office, the U.N. Commission removed Guatemala from its watch list. However, this removal occurred just before Arévalo began to imitate Peruvian dictator, Fujimora, in his coup, implementing extrajudicial killings and causing widespread terror throughout Guatemala.

According to Pinto, once the U.N. Commission removes a country from its list, it is nearly impossible to re-list that country at a later time. As a result, the U.N. Commission was unable to send a Special Rapporteur to examine the situation of human rights in Guatemala. However, the U.N. Secretary-General appointed Pinto as an Independent Expert for the task, and in 1993, the U.N. joined several First World countries and Guatemala’s political left in seeking a constitutional solution to the country’s crisis.

Pinto visited Guatemala four times. She describes Guatemalan society as consisting of almost twelve million people, including Latinos, Creoles, and three distinct Mayan populations. Although at least 50 percent of the population is of Mayan ancestry, the indigenous population has always been treated with minority status.

According to Pinto, the most influential factor of Guatemalan society has been the country’s military presence. In the past, the military orchestrated armed conflicts between different Mayan groups, and advanced the notion that the only effective form of government was the military. Consequently, whenever something momentous happened, the people asked for the army to be there, perpetuating the idea that the military was the most professional, knowledgeable, and skilled public organ of the country, controlling most of Guatemala’s wealth through its ownership of technology, financial institutions, and even the country’s soccer teams and stadiums.

Another salient feature of Guatemalan society, according to Pinto, is that it is very violent, resulting from a history ridden with social cleansing, large-scale massacres, forced disappearances, and military court hangings. Finally, according to Pinto, Guatemala is a poor society, lacking more than mere economic resources. Pinto explained that the Guatemalan people no longer recognize themselves as citizens of a State. Without access to public resources such as hospitals, schools, and courts, many Guatemalans do not see the State's presence in their lives.

Guatemala's current president, Álvaro Colom Caballeros, is attempting a transition toward justice. Over the objections of the military, he opened up access to military files, and Pinto believes he is attempting to govern in conjunction with the people of Guatemala. Pinto recognized the prevalence of organized crime as one of the greatest challenges that Caballeros currently faces. Today, there are at least five major organized crime networks in Guatemala.

When asked to describe her ability to access different institutions within Guatemala during her mandate as Independent Expert, Pinto responded that she did not formally have access to everywhere but that she was able to gain entry into most of the places she wanted to. For instance, Pinto was at first denied entry into a prison.

When she asked for an explanation, the officer said that she could not enter because she was a woman. Spontaneously, Pinto replied, "I am not a woman. I am the United Nations." The man then opened the door. More than powerfully convincing, Pinto was unreserved in her disapproval: when she noticed a gynecologist's examination table, she immediately asked what it was for. The officer replied that it was for sick people. "No it's not," Pinto snapped back. "That is for torture."

On another occasion, the Guatemalan Defense Minister complained that Pinto was not paying attention to his muchachos, or enlisted men. Pinto replied that she was very concerned about his muchachos and would pay a visit to the barracks. She subsequently discovered and described the practice of forcing muchachos into the army: trucks would show up in a village and round up all of the young men some as young as 13 years old.

Before concluding, Pinto addressed concerns regarding how Guatemalans felt about the "Internationals" coming into the country during the period of transitional justice. Pinto described how in 1994, the Guatemalan government, on its own, prepared a calendar by which it set out to address and sign agreements relating to different problems of armed conflict each month.

Although the government quickly fell behind schedule, it eventually signed many of these agreements and finally entered into the Agreement on a Firm and Lasting Peace in December of 1996. Indeed, the Secretary-General of the United Nations had served as a peace mediator throughout the process. However, the overall feeling was that the "Internationals" had not imposed the agreements on Guatemala, and Guatemalans were sufficiently involved in the decision-making process to take ownership of it.

This discussion was sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of the Rule of Law in the Americas (CAROLA), the Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA), and The Human Rights Institute.