Is justice finally coming to Guatemala?

History was made this week in Guatemala: for the first time the perpetrators of mass murder have been convicted of their crimes. These were four soldiers who were found guilty of taking part in the massacre of Dos Erres in December 1982 when over two hundred peasants, many of them women, children and old people, were killed by the Guatemalan army during the short-lived but bloody regime of General Efraim Rios Montt.

The Rios Montt regime

 A struggle between various left-wing guerrillas and the military government of Guatemala had been going on since the early ‘60s with the Guatemalan army, backed by the United States and Israel  committing ever more disgusting violations of human rights.  Rios Montt was a career soldier who had dabbled in politics. Many observers felt that he had actually won the 1974 presidential election as candidate for the Christian Democrat party, but was denied victory by massive fraud. He came to power in June 1982 in a palace coup promising to pursue the war with

... and the same to you!

renewed rigour. In 1968 he had left the Catholic faith, as like many conservative elements he believed that it had been taken over by “Marxists” and joined the American-based fundamentalist Pentecostal Church of the Word or Verbo Church, in which he became a lay preacher. When he took power he stated in his inaugural address that his presidency was the wish of God – and if God had demurred he would probably have been tortured and shot. His policy was summed up in three words: frijoles y fusiles: beans and guns. In other words: if you‘re with us you will be fed; if you are against us, you’ll be shot. Among those singled out for special treatment were the dirt poor indigenous Guatemalans. Centuries of discrimination at the hands of the Creole dominated governments, whether military or civilian, made them sympathetic to the guerrillas, but most found the backbreaking struggle for survival took up all their time. Any area of the countryside considered friendly to the guerrillas was subjected to a scorched-earth policy, whereby villages were burned to the ground, livestock killed and crops destroyed. The inhabitants – those who were not killed immediately – were often herded into concentration camps. Because Rios Montt was fighting a “communist-inspired” insurgency, as well as his links to the American right through his Christian fundamentalist beliefs, he enjoyed the support of the American government and CIA,

The massacre at Dos Erres

Peten

In late October twenty-one members of the military were killed and some weapons stolen in an ambush in the northern province of Petén. The landscape was dominated by swamps, jungle and lagoons and inhabited largely by subsistence farmers belonging to the Maya ethnic group. The army was itching for reprisals and early in the morning of December 6th members of the Kaibiles, the Guatemalan equivalent of the SAS entered the village of Doss Erres disguised as guerrillas.  They were convinced that many of the villagers belonged to the guerrillas or were concealing information about them. Male villagers were separated from women and children. They were corralled in the village church and school and subjected to brutal interrogation while the village was searched. No incriminating material – and crucially no weapons – could be found and the soldiers began to grow frustrated. The children were separated from their parents and were dispatched, often by having their head bashed against trees. Then it was the turn of the old and the womenfolk, who were usually raped prior to being killed. The last to die were the men. This went on for three days until the whole of the village’s population had been annihilated and their bodies thrown into a well. Apparently the last to die was a young girl brought off as a sort of trophy, gang raped and then strangled. 

 By wiping out the village and its population the soldiers and their superiors in the government hoped to erase any memory of what had happened at Dos Erres. However word did get out. The events were publicised by human rights groups but the Guatemalan army denied any responsibility, even though the country returned to nominal civilian rule in 1986. A peace deal ending the war was signed in 1996 but it included an amnesty for soldiers who had committed crimes during the war. In 1998 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that the amnesty did not cover seriou8s crimes such as genocide or mass killing. It was only in 2000, eighteen years after the massacre, that the then Guatemalan president, Alfonso Portillo, admitted that the Guatemalan army had been involved in the killings at Dos Erres and offered the victims’ relatives cash compensation.

Who was really responsible?

The real instigator of these crimes, Rios Montt, is still alive and is, by all accounts, hail and hearty as he goes into the eighty-sixth year of his miserable life. Even though he was deposed in 1983 he went on to become the speaker of the legislature and to stand for the presidency in 2003 in which he received 11% of the vote. In 2007 he was elected to the legislature and so enjoys parliamentary immunity from criminal proceedings. An attempt was made to pursue him through the Spanish courts, but this was thwarted due to the obfuscation of Rios Montt’s lawyers.

It is reckoned that as many as ten thousand people were killed during the time Rios Montt was president, the vast majority innocent bystanders in a conflict over which they had no control. What is more, just as the brutal repression of the Guatemalan people did not begin with Rios Montt but simply grew in intensity, neither did it end with his ouster.

Has justice been done?

One may ask whether such judgements are useful. What good does it do the victims? Should we not forget the past? It is important that those who carry out such barbarous acts should be punished and should not think that the passage of time exonerates them. They must be shown that the murder of the defenceless and the innocent will not go unnoticed by the civilised world.

The convictions of some of those involved in the Dos Erres massacre is but a start. The pursuit of those responsible for other massacres during Rios Montt’s time, such as those in the village of Plan de Sanchez, have been delayed because the judges have not found sufficient evidence for conviction. For far too long Guatemala has been bathed in a culture of impunity, created and maintained by its judiciary. Its courts are staffed by judges who make judgements in the interests of their patrons. Not only have the victims of the army looked for justice in vain. So too have the families of the girls and women who have disappeared, probably murdered. These people died not because of their political views, but solely because of their gender. The price of human life in Guatemala is still ridiculous low, compared to the price of justice.

Bashir victorious in Sudan

Aam de business bro

Surprise, surprise. Sudanese strongman and would-be break-dancing king Omar al-Bashir has won re-election in the country’s presidential elections. Now isn’t that a turn up for the books?

 Al-Bashir is a wanted war criminal, so he can’t travel that much outside of his country, except to visit other despots. He had been hoping for a relaxation on British travel restrictions, as he had set his heart on taking part in this year’s Strictly Come while Dancing. Being honest Omar, you’ll have to put in more practice before you could get by Len Goodman. Brucie wouldn’t mind you though. You could even stay in his gaff. Augusto Pinochet was his neighbour for a while, so he’s used to living beside blood-thirsty dictators.

A land fit for pariahs

The BBC reports that President Ahmedinejad has arrived in Zimbawe on an official visit. Photographs show the two pariahs – Ahmedinejad and Mugabe – together. I’m not sure whether there are any Jews left in the country that he can insult.

I find it sstrange that when a bad-mouthed pseudo historian like David Irvine makes comments denying the Holo0caust he is (rightly) ostracised, but when a heade of state does it he suffers little by way of such a cordon sanitaire. I am sure he would be welcome in Ireland. 

But Mugabe’s days are numbered. I can reveal though that part of his exit strategy includes retiring to Ireland. This will be announced in conjunction with  his ttrip to Dublin to receive the Jim Tunney Memorial Gay Bashing award next year. President Bob has long complained how his rest has been disturbed by a homosexual on the farm he seized from its white owners. As for Ahmedinejad there are persistent rumours that he intends to apostasise from Islanm. This would mean automatic death. To avoid this he will stay in disguise in the Redemptorists’ Mother House in Limerick City.

True courage

The decision by Donal Og Cusack to admit to being gay is a tremendously courageous one. But his sexuality shouldn’t have

Doma; Og Cusack

anything to do with the fact that he is a great Gaelic games player. Hopefully it may provide an alternative role model for players at all levels of the game. They’ll now realise that it is possible to operate at the pinnacle of the sport while eschewing the long-accepted and too long tolerated stereotype of the GAA player i.e. a heavy-drinking, philandering, wife=beating thug who nevertheless sits beatifically through Mass, and who is willing to do anything his church tells him. Let’s hope more players are able to stand up to the hypocritical homophobes in the association, most of whom would shit themsel at the sight of a ball hurtling towards them.

Darkness visible

There’s husbandry in heaven –
Their candles are all out..

I want to tell you a story; let me assure you that every word of it is true, no matter how fantastic it may appear.

 Recently Rosie and myself have had a couple staying with us who have been attempting to liberate their son from care, into which he was delivered on the flimsiest of reasons. One of the couple established a website in which he attempted to publicise their plight and that of other families in similar situations.

 Last Thursday, Ms Helen McGovern, solicitor for the Health Service Executive, succeeded in extracting a High Court injunction against the website. The manner in which this injunction was subsequently delivered beggars belief in a free society. At approximately 1.30 am on the following morning all of the residents of the house were awoken by the arrival of Ms McGovern, accompanied by no less than four gardai. Ms McGovern obviously does her best work after dark, but I cannot for the life of me see why they had to be served at such an ungodly hour. I also fail to see why she had to be accompanied by such a large force of police. Did they believe that the couple were going to “make a run for it”? or that they would be offered physical resistance? One of the garda squad cars had come all the way from Navan with Ms McGovern. Most people know that sadly, Co. Meath is awash with illegal drugs. The gardai respond as well as they can, though they are often hampered by insufficient resources. On the morning of Friday, September 18^th, their ability to fight not only the drugs problem but crime in general was severely hampered by allocating one squad car with two gardai to accompany Ms McGovern’s nocturnal frolic. The forces assigned for this visit were equivalent to those for a raid, yet this group presented the unedifying spectacle of skulking  through the blackened Cavan countryside asking for directions. Obviously the Gartda Siochana haven’t heard of GPS yet.

 Luckily I wasn’t in residence at Putiaghan Upper that night. I would have been terrified to be disturbed by the headlights of police cars. The whole thing would have reminded me too much of a scene from Alan Parker’s film Mississippi Burning. Both Rosie and myself are law-abiding people, without so much as a parking ticket to our names, so to be treated in this shameful manner by the police is intolerable. My first reaction upon hearing the front door being knocked in the middle of the night would have been to seek the protection of the gardai by telephone. Imagine how I would have felt on learning that those who were disturbing my peace, those who were frightening me, were the very people towards whom I looked for protection, I feel that my customary civility towards the Civic Guards would have been stretched to breaking point.

 On the following evening, at approximately 10.30 pm our peace was again disturbed by a Process Server delivering additional court documents. Why can documents only be delivered at night? The Process Server, who seemed genuinely embarrassed, explained that the late hour was caused by the delay in preparing the documents. This preparation had been so rushed that they hadn’t been filled in properly or signed.

 The serving of the papers at such an unorthodox manner on the morning of the 18th, accompanied by such a large contingent of police, was a clear and deliberate attempt to intimidate the couple and my partner Rosie. Ms McGovern’s visit was no act of charity; she will indeed seek and no doubt receive handsome payment of expenses for her after hours’ exertions by the HSE. How can the HSE don the poor mouth, citing lack of money when cutting back vital and essential services, but yet they have money to burn on such non-vital expenses? Is it not true that at a time when we are told we must swallow “tough” decisions regarding public spending, which will cause genuine hardship, our public servants and those whom they employ can waste as much money as they can?

 I wish to stress that everything I have said above is factually correct. When (or if) Ms McGovern reads it I am sure she will be enraged, and as a well-connected member of the judiciary she will possibly seek to gag me by undertaking legal action against me. She may labour under the mistaken belief that I can be frightened into silence, as was her intention in visiting our house at such an inappropriate hour. But if the truth hurts don’t blame me. Furthermore I believe all the comments made to be fair in the circumstances. The above statements are not motivated by malice, but by a desire to expose abusive behaviour by the executive, including an abuse of judicial process, I am also conscious that in writing the above I have not made myself many friends amongst those who seek to dominate our lives. Let me remind everyone that we still live in a free society – just.  Amongst the freedoms we take for granted are not just freedom of speech, but the freedom to enjoy an undisturbed night’s sleep.

 

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Tea for two

In Chile a former conscript has been charged with the brutal murder of popular singer Victor Jara in the immediate aftermath of General Augusto Pinochet’s fascist putsch in 1973. Victor Jara, among with hundreds of others, was brought to Chile’s National stadium where he was subjected to an orgy of mindless thuggery and violence before being shot forty-four times.

And the man who masterminded the coup and who was the intellectual author of Jara’s murder and that of thousands of others sipped tea in the cosiest of tete-a-tetes with that rabid bitch Margaret Thatcher. He was also the darling of members of the Catholic right in England and Ireland, such Norman Lamont. I remember how I was told by a member of the Knights of Columanus that Pinochet had “rescued Chile from communism” and that most of those who were murdered by the military were communist sympathisers who deserved what they got.

Crime and Punishment in Ireland

The sentence handed down to Frank Dunlop shows once again how blind and socially prejudiced the Irish courts are. He’d have got a heavier sentence for having multiple welfare claims. But this reiterates what every one knows: Irish jails are for poor people – knackers, people from the other side of the tracks who aren’t members of golf clubs.

 

There is another peculiarity of the Irish judicial system. Those who are prosecuted can get time taken off their sentence for the trauma of the prosecution itself. The fact that they have been outed as crooks and the resultant loss of social cachet is viewed as something deserving pity and the commiserations of the court.  There is a glib saying in the ‘states; if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.

 

But then there are the personnel of the judicial system: judges, barristers, solicitors. They wouldn’t know justice if it jumped up and bit them on their penises, though from what I have heard some of them are willing to pay a lot of money for the experience in the North Inner City.

A victim of abuse

I have learned that a good friend of mine, now sadly deceased, was the victim of a serious assault from a priest during his youth. It happened when he was a boarder in a diocesan secondary school. On his fifteenth birthday he received a present of some money – quite a large sum by the standards of the time. So excited was he that he began to jump up and down on his bed. He was observed by one of the priests who decided to offer some physical chastisement. So badly did he beat my friend that he needed hospital treatment. This would constitute an assault, but did the priest suffer for his actions? No, for no policeman would arrest him, no lawyer would prosecute him, and no judge would sentence him because he was a priest. But what sort of person beats up a child? He was certainly bigger than my friend at the time. What was more this coward could act in the full knowledge that his actions wouldn’t be resisted, for no one would hit a priest. To do so was to earn eternal damnation, not only for one’s self but possibly for one’s descendants.

My friend’s choice of career therefore, appears somewhat bizarre, for he trained to be a priest himself. Once ordained he was appointed to the teaching staff of the institution where he had been assaulted and indeed brutalised. Although I always found him to be the most harmless and inoffensive of men he had the reputation among students of being a “villain” and a “demon”. I have heard that he was given to outbursts of hysteria accompanied by physical violence towards students.

In later life he was appointed to a parish where he earned a reputation as a kindly pastor. In fact he tried to do the work of three men, even though his health wasn’t up to doing the work of one.

He was a most talented historian who has not received the recognition of those who have seized control of local history. Some of these people know all about silencing even the mere whisper of clerical abuse.

I don’t seek to lessen the evil acts of my friend or to call for understanding. Hr was a victim, firstly a direct victim of physical abuse, and secondly of a system which viewed physical violence by adults against adolescents as somehow acceptable. Like so many victims of systematic abuse he became a perpetrator.

Child abuse

The report of the commission on child abuse has publicised what the dogs on the street knew – that physical, sexual and mental abuse of “inmates” in certain institutions run by the Catholic church was widespread, systematic, institutionalised, and carried out with the tacit knowledge and approval of the hierarchy.

We should not tarnish all the religious with the same brush. There were many who took no part in this; there were others who were aware of these activities but who were powerless to act. They knew that to stand up to this would be rewarded by victimisation by the church authorities.

Commentators in leafy, liberal Dublin suburbs seem unaware that the climate of fear and silence which accompanied these crimes still persists in many areas of Ireland. Those who committed them and more importantly those who abetted them in their actions, are often still very influential and they, together with their friends in Catholic lay organisations, often have a stranglehold over local societies and communities.

Regrets

 

I wish I weren’t disabled. I think back to the days when I could walk for miles or strut my stuff on the dance-floors of smelly, over-heated nightclubs.. I wish I could recognise people’s faces.

 

But you know I don’t think I’ve done too badly.

 

Regrets? Sure! I’ve got a few – who hasn’t? I regret having stayed on at university to get a doctorate. I also regret coming back down to Cavan in 1995 and getting in with a bad crowd, though as they were my employers I could hardly help it. But as we haven’t mastered time travel and going back in time, regrets are stupid.

 

Some may think I’m angry – surely none but a person steeped deeply in anger could write such forceful denunciations of the bandits and thieves who think of themselves as our leaders.

 

But I’m sorry to disappoint. I’m not angry, certainly not with my disabilities. Who should I be angry with? God? I’ve never been a believer in a vengeful and wrathful deity delivering his displeasure by life-shattering thunderbolts. I see divine intervention in my life as far more benign. God could have made me less imperfect, but the reasons he didn’t have nothing to do with punishment. If anything they are challenges for me to overcome – on my terms, not on someone else’s.

 

Maybe it’s a cross to bear, but then this makes me feel immensely privileged. Maybe Jesus is giving me the opportunity to carry his cross and share in his sufferings for mankind. I think it was Edith Stein who wrote: “Sufferings endured with the Lord are his sufferings.” But listen – I’m no Jesus freak and I wouldn’t like the powerful holy joes to feel they had competition.

 

But I’m not the only one who’s privileged here. I have never believed that there is a hierarchy of illness – that I’m sicker than someone else, and therefore deserving more soup and sympathy.

 

I don’t feel angry or resentful of “able-bodied” people. We’re all members of the human race, Some people are just luckier, that’s all.

 

I do feel angry – very angry – at the responses of society and government to the disabled. They claim they want disabled people to feel included and to pursue the removal of discrimination. In fact they don’t give a damn – they never have done. What they give (or rather promise) with one hand they take back with blooded claw on the other. I am incandescent at being sidelined, looked down upon and discriminated against by shitty little people leading shitty little lives who think that their proximity to bodily perfection places them in positions of unassailable authority over me and countless others.

 

I am livid with being expected to blend into the wall-paper of society, and then being ostracised because I have never wanted to be imprisoned in the world of low (or no) expectations. Along with other disabled people I have so much to give to the world, but we have been told by many (including many of the voluntary organizations supposedly pursuing our welfare) that the highest occupations we can aspire to are telephone operators. I dare to say that not everything in the garden of disability (only partially accessible to people in wheelchairs) smells of roses, but that quite a lot stinks of human piss.

 

Amongst the most craven in our world are those who preen themselves as being friendly to the disabled, who initiate expensive schemes accompanied by lavish publicity, to investigate the needs of the disabled, but which never lead to anything except the short-term enrichment of their organisers.

 

God gave me a brain, which he expects, nay demands I use. He also gave me the means of expressing my thoughts and I am so thankful to be able still to use them.

 

I am really, really happy. I live with a beautiful woman, safe and secure in her love, in a beautiful spot. I have so many truly wonderful friends.

 

Sometimes I wonder what I’ve done to deserve such happiness. At other times I fear that my happiness consists of fibres of a rug which can all too easily be precipitously withdrawn. I know how fragile my happiness is and how it can so easily be destroyed by the bloody-minded actions of others. I have made many enemies among the “powerful” who are just itching to get back at me.

 

I have my dignity; this is very precious.

 

But you know life is for loving. I believe in the present and the future. The past can take care of itself.

 

But I don’t know why I’ve written this. There will be those who’ll understand. Others will just scoff, maybe seeing it as the belly-aching of an arse-hole, as I was once described by a fellow member of an online forum for the partially-sighted.