Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala Guatemala Never Again

Assassination of Bishop Gerardi

Before his decease in 1998, Roman Catholic Archbishop and human rights defender Juan José Gerardi Conedera was one of the strongest voices speaking out against the atrocities committed during the internal armed conflict. Following the January 1980 burning of the Castilian Diplomatic mission which resulted in the death of some 39 people, Gerardi, then Bishop of El Quiché, issued a statement condemning these acts of violence as well as the innumerable man rights abuses occurring on a daily basis at that time. As a outcome of his outspoken opposition, Gerardi received a number of death threats and was forced to live in exile while President Romeo Lucas García remained  in power.

Gerardi was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Republic of guatemala in 1984 and in 1989 he oversaw the creation of the Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala (ODHAG). His near important work, however, was the Recovery of Historical Retentiveness project (REMHI). Gerardi committed himself fully to this projection with the intention of exposing the truth of what happened during the armed disharmonize so that the people of Republic of guatemala would never again endure such a tragedy. The projection, which began even before the official finish of the conflict, included hundreds of interviews conducted by Gerardi and his colleagues in which Guatemalans from all over the state described their experiences and identified the perpetrators.

On Apr 24, 1998, Gerardi presented the findings of the REMHI project in a report entitled "Nunca Más" (Never Once more). The report was peculiarly damning to the Guatemalan war machine and it paved the way for future historical recovery work surrounding the disharmonize such as the UN-sponsored Historical Description Commission (CEH) which was created as function of the 1996 peace procedure. REMHI's report found that the war machine was responsible for 85% of the human rights violations committed during the 36-year flow of ceremonious war and that the guerrilla groups were responsible for nine%. Afterward findings by the CEH really attributed an fifty-fifty higher number of violations to the Guatemalan army (93%, and only 3% committed by the guerrillas). The report was especially controversial because it was the showtime to provide the names of the implicated individuals. More than i,000 individuals and military members were named in the report.

On Apr 26, 1998, 2 days afterwards the release of the report, Bishop Gerardi was bludgeoned to expiry in his dwelling in Guatemala City. This fell murder of such a prominent Guatemalan figure was not handled professionally by either the police or the government, who failed to immediately link the murder to his political activities. Despite Guatemala'south unfortunate tendency for impunity in cases of violence against human rights defenders, three old armed services officers were eventually convicted of murdering Gerardi on June 8, 2001. The iii officers were Col. Byron Disrael Lima Estrada, his son, Capt. Byron Lima Oliva and José Obdulio Villanueva. The historic trial was the beginning time loftier-ranking armed services officials had been tried since the 1996 ruling that removed exclusive war machine tribunal jurisdiction for officers accused of noncombatant crimes.

The three men were originally sentenced to 30 years in prison house but Villanueva has since died and, in 2005, the Limas had their sentences reduced to merely 20 years. The fact that these men were constitute guilty of the murder was a step forward for justice in Republic of guatemala; nevertheless, this victory is hampered by the reduction in their sentences as well as the fact that the "intellectual author" of the crime was never plant nor has there been an attempt on the part of the Guatemalan government to expose the total conspiracy of the murder. Francisco Goldman'south 2007 book, The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?, alleges that the current President of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina, was involved in Gerardi's murder. The elder Lima was released from prison house in 2012 for good behavior and, until recently, his son enjoyed the liberty to go and come every bit he pleased and continued to orchestrate a number of illegal activities from prison.

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Source: https://www.ghrc-usa.org/our-work/important-cases/assassination-of-bishop-gerardi/

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