US embassy cable - 04GUATEMALA2805

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GUATEMALA 002805 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB, ECON, GT, KCRM, PGOV, PHUM, PINS, ASEC 
SUBJECT: GUATEMALAN SQUATTERS REINVADE SITE OF PREVIOUS 
VIOLENCE 
 
REF: GUATEMALA 2248 
 
1. Summary:  Guatemalan squatters reinvaded Nueva Linda farm, 
the site where eleven people were killed during a violent 
eviction in August.  The squatters, who this time were 
unarmed, maintain their previous demand for government action 
to investigate the 2003 disappearance of their colleague and 
have added several new demands regarding compensation for the 
violence and property destruction of the previous eviction. 
Subsequent reports on that eviction have been contradictory 
and various government and non-governmental actors have taken 
public stances on the issue, leading to heightened tensions. 
Negotiations continue, although a second eviction is 
possible.  End summary. 
 
A new occupation 
---------------- 
2. On October 28, Guatemalan squatters reinvaded the Nueva 
Linda farm in western Guatemala's Retalhuleu Province, site 
of the August 31 conflict between squatters and security 
forces that killed eleven people, including four police 
officers, during a court-ordered eviction (reftel).  When 
approximately 300 squatters reoccupied the site on October 
28, they took 19 private security guards hostage for three 
hours, until a mediator from the Human Rights Ombudsman's 
Office (PDH) negotiated the hostages' release.  The Vice 
Minister of Government (Interior) reportedly stated that the 
National Civil Police (PNC) were ready to undertake a second 
eviction, but that he hoped negotiations allow for a peaceful 
resolution. 
 
3. The PDH mediator also reported that the squatters were 
unarmed, unlike the previous occupation in which the 
squatters opened fire on the police with assault weapons. 
Government authorities have not yet received a court order to 
begin a second eviction, and the Minister of Government 
reportedly assured human rights activists that they would not 
undertake an eviction without judicial order.  President 
Berger, the PDH, Catholic Church officials, and various NGOs 
and individual political figures have called for dialogue and 
a peaceful resolution.  The squatters also stated their 
intentions to protest peacefully, but noted that if evicted, 
they would return to occupy the farm until their demands are 
met. 
 
4. Squatters continue to demand government action to 
investigate the disappearance of the Nueva Linda farm manager 
in 2003 and have demanded compensation for their alleged 
losses during the August eviction.  The squatters demanded 
prosecution and punishment for the members of the security 
forces responsible for the deaths of the seven squatters, 
plus financial recompense for the losses of five vehicles, 
the corn harvest, and various personal goods destroyed in the 
conflict. 
 
5. The squatters also insist that Retalhuleu Governor Carlos 
Quintana be excluded from any mediation or dialog due to 
their belief that he was partially responsible for the 
earlier violence.  Indeed, Quintana's attempt to meet with 
the squatters on October 29 was rejected.  They requested 
that a negotiating commission be established, to include 
Members of Congress Nineth Montenegro and Raul Robles, the 
Human Rights Ombudsman's Office, the National Coordinator of 
Campesino Organizations, San Marcos Department Bishop (and 
land reform activist) Alvaro Ramazzini, the Public Ministry, 
and the journalists present at the August 31 eviction. 
 
6. The basis for the squatters additional demands was a 
report by the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office on October 12 
that criticized the security forces for excessive use of 
force and suggested that three of the seven squatters' deaths 
were the result of extrajudicial killings by the security 
forces.  Through the Ministry of the Interior and the 
National Civilian Police, the Government rejected the 
Ombudsman's report, suggesting that it had been influenced by 
politics.  The Congressional Commission on Human Rights also 
agreed that no evidence had been presented to back the PDH 
claims of extrajudicial killings.  The Commission noted that 
the forensic investigation was shoddy at best, and the 
circumstances of the August 31 deaths will likely never be 
clarified. 
 
Congressmen and Ombudsman address demands 
----------------------------------------- 
7. The squatters say that their primary motive for both 
occupations was the 2003 disappearance of farm manager Hector 
Reyes and the lack of any substantial investigation by police 
and prosecutors.  The Human Rights Ombudsman's Office 
reported that police and prosecutors failed to investigate 
Reyes' disappearance and noted discrepancies and 
methodological failures within the official reports. 
Allegations persist, however, that Reyes in fact now lives in 
the United States.  A local newspaper reported recently that 
Reyes' wife expressed in a telephone interview from the 
United States that she has come to an arrangement with the 
farm owners and is no longer pursuing a case. 
 
8. The Ombudsman's Office and the Congressional Commission on 
Human Rights, headed by Member of Congress Nineth Montenegro, 
have requested that the Attorney General reactivate the case 
of Reyes' disappearance both to review existing evidence and 
to initiate further investigation, such as the exhumation of 
several unknown bodies that were buried shortly after Reyes 
disappeared.  The Commission on Human Rights also requested 
that President Berger dismiss the Retalhuleu Governor for his 
role in the violence. 
 
Journalists and the first eviction 
---------------------------------- 
9. Additional developments have also occurred regarding the 
press coverage of the August 31 eviction, during which police 
allegedly assaulted and threatened journalists and 
confiscated their cameras and other equipment. 
 
10. Based on the events of the August 31 eviction, seven 
journalists filed a case against the police through the Human 
Rights Ombudsman's Office and the Inter-American Court of 
Human Rights.  Since then, family members of two of the 
journalists have been murdered, which some human rights 
activists suggest was intended to intimidate the journalists. 
 Although government figures believe that the two murders 
were examples of common crime (the second of the murders 
occurred during the second of two bus robberies by the same 
armed gang on October 31), the prosecutor's office of the 
Public Ministry and the National Police are keeping the cases 
open. 
 
11. Additionally, the equipment confiscated from the 
journalists still has not been returned.  The Special 
Prosecutor for Crimes against Journalist and Trade Unionists 
transmitted a request to the National Police for the 
equipment, but the Attorney General ordered them to transfer 
the case to the Special Prosecutor for Organized Crime's 
office in Quetzaltenango (the regional office covering the 
area in which the eviction took place). 
 
Comment 
------- 
12. The reoccupation of Nueva Linda is a test for the 
Government's ability to enforce the rule of law, one that the 
Government has so far failed.  Prosecution of squatters for 
the shooting deaths of the four policemen killed in the 
August 31 eviction has stalled, as has disciplinary action 
against the riot police who apparently used excessive force 
against the journalists. 
 
13. With some 130 current farm invasions, the Government 
faces an obvious dilemma in that the informal freeze on 
evictions avoids violence but also may serve to encourage 
further takeovers.  In addition, it appears that in some 
cases takeover organizers have turned these siezures into a 
business by charging fees for squatters to participate. 
(According to some media reports, the initial Nueva Linda 
takeover was led by a notorious alien smuggler.)  Along with 
the ex-PAC blockades (septel), these takeovers are one more 
public security headache for a government that is 
ill-equipped to cope with such challenges. 
HAMILTON