VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHGT #1023/01 3450050
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 110050Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY GUATEMALA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0581
INFO WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUMIESS/SOUTHCOM IESS MIAMI FL

UNCLAS GUATEMALA 001023 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KDEM KJUS GT
SUBJECT: Retired Colonel Sentenced to 53 Years in Ground-Breaking War 
Crimes Trial 
 
REF: REF A): GUATEMALA 1005; REF B): GUATEMALA 890 
 
¶1.  (U) Summary:  On December 3, for the first time in Guatemala's 
history, a former high-ranking army officer was convicted for 
directly participating in war crimes that occurred during the 
country's 36 year-long armed internal conflict.  Retired Colonel 
Marco Antonio Sanchez Samayoa, along with three military 
commissioners (civilian army informants), were each sentenced to 53 
years in prison for their respective roles in the 1981 forced 
disappearance of eight indigenous villagers from El Jute, an 
impoverished town in the south-eastern department of Chiquimula. 
Ambassador McFarland attended the trial on two occasions - the 
first on Thanksgiving Day and later when sentence was passed - to 
emphasize the importance the case holds for Guatemala in addressing 
impunity and reconciliation.  His presence at the trial also 
generated significant newspaper and television coverage.  The 
guilty verdict was a major victory for the country's human rights 
community - in addition to establishing a precedent by convicting a 
retired high-ranking officer, the presiding tribunal also ordered a 
wider investigation of the roles former Defense Minister Angel 
Anibal Guevara and other high-ranking officers and soldiers may 
have played in the disappearance.  End Summary. 
 
 
 
¶2.  (U)  At the time the eight villagers disappeared in October of 
1981, Sanchez commanded the Zacapa army base.  The three 
co-defendants in the case - Jose Domingo Ruiz, Gabriel Alvarez 
Ramos and Salomon Maldonado Rios - served as military commissioners 
in the area under Sanchez's command.   While many of them were 
prior soldiers, military commissioners were actually civilians who 
served as informants to the army.   At the trial that ended on 
December 3, the tribunal found that three commissioners were 
responsible for forcibly taking eight family members from the 
village of El Jute to the army base.   It also found that Sanchez 
knew about their illegal detention.  The tribunal subsequently 
sentenced all four to forty years in prison for forced 
disappearance - which the Constitutional Court ruled earlier this 
year is a crime against humanity - and an additional thirteen years 
for illegal detention.  The court also ordered the initiation of an 
investigation against ex-Defense Minister Angel Anibal Guevar, 
ex-Chief of Staff Benedicto Luca Garcia, and other former officers 
and soldiers who were assigned to the Zacapa base in 1981. 
 
 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  On the same day the sentence was passed, Ambassador 
McFarland returned to Chiquimula for the second time since his 
visit a week earlier on Thanksgiving (REF A) to reiterate the USG's 
commitment to justice and human rights and the importance the case 
holds for addressing impunity and reconciliation.  One retired 
military officer attending the trial expressed his deep annoyance 
with the Ambassador for attending the trial.  This same retired 
officer was among several army veterans, members of AVEMILGUA, the 
association of military veterans of Guatemala, who took pictures of 
witnesses and family members also attending the trial, presumably 
in an attempt to intimidate them.  Before making the three-hour 
trip back to Guatemala City, the Ambassador visited the village of 
El Jute, where he met with a number of family members of the 
victims, including two women who had been raped in the operation 
that led to the disappearances of the eight villagers.  The 
Attorney General's Office, a number of human rights groups, and 
community members thanked the Ambassador for supporting their 
efforts, and for assisting their safety (witnesses say they have 
been threatened) by raising the case's profile.  The Ambassador's 
presence at the trial and in El Jute received extensive newspaper 
and television coverage. 
 
 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  Comment:  Sanchez's conviction comes three months after 
a similar trial in the department of Chimaltenango.  In that case, 
former military commissioner Felipe Cusanero was sentenced to 150 
years for his role in the forced disappearances of six members of 
the Kaqchiquel Mayan indigenous group between 1982 and 1984 (Ref 
B).  The precedent established by Cusanero's conviction likely made 
it easier for the tribunal in Chiquimula to find Colonel Sanchez 
and the three military commissioners there guilty for the same 
crime.   Sanchez's conviction, in turn, represents the first time a 
former high-ranking military officer has been convicted for direct 
participation in a war crime (as opposed to being the intellectual 
author of a war crime).  In 2002, a tribunal sentenced Colonel Juan 
Valencia Osorio to 30 years in prison for ordering the 1990 
 
 
assassination of anthropologist Myrna Mack.  Osorio disappeared 
while under house arrest and remains at large.  No other 
high-ranking officers have been convicted of directly participating 
in war crimes committed over the course of Guatemala's 36-year long 
armed internal conflict.  As many as 45,000 Guatemalans were 
forcibly disappeared during a conflict that ultimately took some 
200,000 lives. 
 
 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  Guatemala's human rights community, not surprisingly, 
has hailed the ground-breaking conviction.  Mario Polanco, 
executive director of the NGO Mutual Support Group, Guatemala's 
oldest existing human-rights group, told the press that the 
tribunal's ruling is as an "historic decision because it is the 
first time a colonel was sentenced for a crime against humanity, 
and it is the beginning of the struggle against impunity."  In a 
meeting with post's human rights officer the day before the 
sentence was announced, Mario Minera, the director of the Center 
for Legal Action on Human Rights, said that for the first time the 
human rights community has found an Attorney General's Office with 
which it can work.   While the tribunal's ruling against Sanchez 
and the three military commissioners will no doubt be appealed, 
their convictions in the meantime will likely accelerate the pace 
of other cases of forced disappearance that have been filed in the 
Guatemalan judicial system in the years since the conflict ended in 
1996 or that will be filed in the future.  End Comment. 
MCFARLAND