Jennifer Harbury talking:
when my husband was captured alive by the Guatemalan Army the CIA notified the White House the State Department and numerous other U.S. agencies six days after his capture in 1992 saying what an amazing prisoner. He’s very important. He probably has a great deal of very important information and the army is going to fake his death most likely so that they can better take advantage of that information. There is a big gap in the records until they say oh yes he was killed a few years ago back you know as of 93 there reporting that he had already been killed.
He was in fact in the hands of their own assets their own paid informants who were torturing him. He was severely tortured with drugs at one point causing his body to swell several times normal size. And we also know that he was placed in a full body cast to prevent him from trying to escape which he had done already on numerous occasions.
For the CIA to think he was such an exciting and important prisoner and then just suddenly stop trying to find out what he was saying. I find completely silly.
what had happened to him as of the time that I first went public with my relationship because I had found out that it did not die in combat and was in fact being held and tortured by the army. That was March 1993. That’s when I first approached the embassy from then until after I. After 60 Minutes reported that the CIA did in fact have information about him which was late 1994 when I had stopped eating for 32 days on my second hunger strike. And that entire time frame March 93 to November 94 all I ever heard was. Well Jennifer we’ve asked and asked and we’ve tried to find out what happened to him but the Army says they don’t have them. So what more can we do. In fact as I’ve already said the CIA notified the White House and the State Department that it was captured alive not seriously wounded and was being secretly detained as of the first week of his capture in 1992.
Intelligence Oversight Board report
I have gotten more documents most of which repeat you know a lot of things that I had finally been told before I did get some more grim information about the sorts of torture that it was submitted to. And most of the reports seemed to coincide and his death as of 1992 something that was not completely clear before.
What I’m not at all satisfied like I say is the enormous gap between the time that they announced that he’s been captured and what an exciting prisoner he is and then the time that they start reporting his stuff. They obviously were interested enough that there are many reports about what he was saying and what was happening to him in between. I want the documents in that gap. And of course we’re pleased with such things as the admission that the CIA was aware that their assets engaged in gross human rights violations.
The CIA pays certain people in the Guatemalan Army in return for information. Our quarrel as very well illustrated in my own case or my husband’s case is that they pay for information that they know is being extracted from people who are being seriously tortured grimly tortured mutilated held in secret cells and then murdered without a trial and tossed into secret cemeteries. We don’t think this is a good use of our tax dollars.
I think I certainly agree that it was a very serious crime to fail to report accurately to Congress. We’ve managed to cover up for 200000 tortures and murders in Guatemala which is I think is a pretty serious distortion. What I don’t agree with is that as the only crime in this country you aid and assessed in a murder robbery you’re in big trouble if you pay for goods that were taken in a robbery. If you buy stolen goods you’re in big trouble if you buy stolen goods in a murder case you’re in very good trouble. If you if you pay for goods that you know are going to be stolen if you pay for those in advance you’re in huge trouble and if you know someone is going to be tortured and murdered and pay for the goods in his house in advance you’re in horrible trouble.
Now the CIA has done exactly that in all of these different cases in Guatemala. My husband’s case being a classic. They paid for information they knew would be extracted through hideous torture and eventually his murder. Now why aren’t they in trouble for that.
Well all of us and coalition missing on behalf of all of our friends in Guatemala are demanding their follow up coalition missing
coalition missing is an association of all of those of us U.S. citizens that were either tortured ourselves in Guatemala as the case of Sister Dianna Ortiz or had a family member murdered in Guatemala. Not street crime but official repression. There’s a young woman whose father worked with street children who was bludgeoned to death etc. etc.. All of us are asking that all files on Guatemala human rights cases be opened. As of 1954 we want all of the files open for all Guatemalans for all of our selves. We feel it’s very important for the Guatemalan people and very important for us as U.S. citizens to find out what our government did so that we can clean up our own house.
– 1954 being the time when the U.S. CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Panama.
I think we got a big battle on our hands. It’ll last quite a few more years. I think it’s very important because I think what those documents will show is that our CIA worked hand in glove with the Guatemalan Army. I think we knew very well about all of the tortures secret prisons and murders that were ongoing. I think we were involved very directly I think that in many many cases CIA agents were walking in and out of torture cells. I think we know where they were. I think we knew who was being tortured. I think we never called the Red Cross. I think we never called the U.N.. I think we lied to Congress about it. And I think we paid for it. And then I think we covered up for it. And I think that’s going to be very embarrassing and that’s why it’s going to be quite a battle to get those files released.
I believe that my husband’s body is buried at a military base called Laska Habanos?. It’s a small outpost base very remote in the middle of a cornfield located between two of the military bases where he was last seen alive and being tortured. It’s well-known to be a body dumping grounds. The local villagers estimate 500 to 2000 people are buried underneath that base. That’s the most probable place that he’s buried although there are certainly differing reports.
The situation in Guatemala iss deteriorating very seriously. The army is disintegrating as far as I can see into a group of mafia style warlords. They are carrying out drug trafficking. They’re attacking cars driving on the highway stealing the cars killing people carrying out kidnappings et cetera et cetera human rights violations are way way up.
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— source democracynow.org