Fernando, el padre de Alejandra, fue desaparecido por la dictadura militar en 1984, cuando ella tenía apenas dos años de edad. En respuesta su madre, Nineth Montenegro, comenzó la primera organización de derechos humanos en Guatemala, el Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) en busca de él y las otras personas desaparecidas. Alejandra decidió convertirse en un abogado para vengar la muerte de su padre. Con el descubrimiento de los archivos secretos de la Policía Nacional en Ciudad de Guatemala, se descubrieron los documentos con los nombres de los autores de la desaparición de su padre. Armada con esta evidencia, Alejandra fue a juicio en octubre de 2010.

 

Carta a Fernando García

Esta carta es para ti, sin embargo no sé cómo iniciarla, ni siquiera sé cómo debo de llamarte,…ha pasado tanto tiempo desde la última vez que nos vimos, en ese día tan fatal para todos. Quisiera decirte que recuerdo tu último beso de despedida, pero esto no es así, yo era muy pequeña, y aunque quisiera hacerlo, estaba dormida cuando tú partiste de casa esa madrugada del 18 de febrero de 1984. He pensado en tantas formas de comunicarme contigo, quisiera que a veces tu pudieras escuchar mis pensamientos y darme ese consuelo que mi corazón demanda. Sólo Dios, la vida y tu, saben si algún día te voy a volver a ver. Mientras ese momento llega, quiero prepararte para el impacto que nuestro reencuentro puede causar,…la bebe de casi dos años que tú dejaste en la cuna, hoy tiene 28 años, me gradué de abogada y me he casado. Quisiera saber si tienes arrugas, si te has dejado la barba o si has engordado, pero no tengo idea si sigues siendo joven o si has envejecido, no puedo imaginar tu rostro después de tanto tiempo. Pero tengo lista la estrategia para que nos podamos reconocer, te recuerdas del regalo que me diste cuando cumplí un año, aún guardo esa conejita, y la voy a llevar conmigo el día que te vuelva a ver. El día 18 de octubre de este año se inicia el juicio de tu caso, sé que si tu estuvieras cerca de mí te sentirías orgulloso por las acciones que promuevo a tu favor, aunque reconozco que todos lo papás se sienten orgullos de sus hijos o hijas, aún así nuestros logros no sean relevantes. Con el juicio, espero darte la dignidad que tu alma merece, esa etapa de tortura que viviste privado de tu libertad, ni si quiera quiero imaginarla, pero no puedo olvidarla, es por esto que he decidió reivindicar tu nombre y el de muchos desaparecidos más, la verdad llegará con la justicia, y con ella, espero que tú puedas descansar en paz.

 

 

Fernando García’s entry in the military intelligence document, the diario militar

 

Washington, DC, March 17, 2009 – Following a stunning breakthrough in a 25-year-old case of political terror in Guatemala, the National Security Archive today is posting declassified U.S. documents about the disappearance of Edgar Fernando García, a student leader and trade union activist captured by Guatemalan security forces in 1984.The documents show that García’s capture was an organized political abduction orchestrated at the highest levels of the Guatemalan government.

Guatemalan authorities made the first arrest ever in the long-dormant kidnapping case when they detained Héctor Roderico Ramírez Ríos, a senior police officer in Quezaltenango, on March 5th and retired policeman Abraham Lancerio Gómez on March 6th as a result of an investigation into García’s abduction by Guatemala’s Human Rights Prosecutor (Procurador de Derechos Humanos—PDH). Arrest warrants have been issued for two more suspects, Hugo Rolando Gómez Osorio and Alfonso Guillermo de León Marroquín. The two are former officers with the notorious Special Operations Brigade (BROE) of the National Police, a unit linked to death squad activities during the 1980s by human rights groups.

According to the prosecutor Sergio Morales, the suspects were identified using evidence found in the vast archives of the former National Police. The massive, moldering cache of documents was discovered accidentally by the PDH in 2005, and has since been cleaned, organized and reviewed by dozens of investigators. The National Security Archive provided expert advice in the rescue of the archive and posted photographs and analysis on its Web site.Last week, Morales turned over hundreds of additional records to the Public Ministry containing evidence of state security force involvement in the disappearance of other student leaders between 1978 and 1980. As the Historical Archive of the National Police prepares to issue its first major report on March 24, more evidence of human rights crimes can be expected to be made public.

Government Campaign of Terror

The abduction of Fernando García was part of a government campaign of terror designed to destroy Guatemala’s urban and rural social movements during the 1980s. On February 18, 1984, the young student leader was captured on the outskirts of a market near his home in Guatemala City. He was never seen again. Although witnesses pointed to police involvement, the government under then-Chief of State Gen. Oscar Humberto Mejía Víctores always denied any role in his kidnapping. According to the Historical Clarification Commission’s report released in 1999, García was one of an estimated 40,000 civilians disappeared by state agents during Guatemala’s 36-year civil conflict.

In the wake of García’s capture, his wife, Nineth Montenegro – now a member of Congress – launched the Mutual Support Group (Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo—GAM), a new human rights organization that pressed the government for information about missing relatives. Co-founded with other families of the disappeared , GAM took shape in June of 1984, holding demonstrations, meeting with government officials and leading a domestic and international advocacy campaign over the years to find the truth behind the thousands of Guatemala’s disappeared. The organization was quickly joined by hundreds more family members of victims of government-sponsored violence, including Mayan Indians affected by a brutal army counterinsurgency campaign that decimated indigenous communities in the country’s rural highlands during the early 1980s.

For more information:  National Security Archive  http://casofernandogarcia.org

* Family snapshot of Nineth de García, daughter Alejandra and husband Fernando before his abduction on February 18, 1984. Photo from “Guatemala, The Group for Mutual Support,” An Americas Watch Report.

[Courtesy of Jean-Marie Simon]

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