Request for
Investigation of Human
Rights Violations
The Group for Mutual
Support (GAM) presented
a penal demand because
of 242 human rights
violations committed in
Guatemala during the
government of General
Romeo Lucas (1978-1982).
The humanitarian group
asked the Guatemalan
Public Ministry to open
an investigation of the
crimes against the life,
torture, disappearing
and arrests on which
officials and members of
the Guatemalan Army and
Police took part.
"We are before a new
government, which says
it is respectful for the
state right, and we want
it to show it is not a
similar government to
the ones before," said
GAM general director
Mario Polanco to Prensa
Latina Friday.
He specified that all
the presented cases are
urban, among them some
paradigmatic ones as the
murder of Manuel Colom
Argueta, uncle of
current Guatemalan
President Alvaro Colom,
and that of Oliverio
Castañeda, president of
the Association of
University Students.
When asked if he
considers that there is
a progress in the topic
of human rights, Polanco
responded affirmatively,
but he considered that
the impunity for non
investigation of the
facts of the past is
still maintained.
During the internal
armed conflict in
Guatemala (1960-1996)
more than 250,000 people
died or disappeared,
mostly at the hands of
the security forces.
The government of Romeo
Lucas, deceased in 2006,
is considered one of the
bloodiest and among the
multiple accusations
against it, there is a
fire in the Embassy of
Spain, in 1980, where 37
people died.
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