UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, April 6, 1995
51B
Agency denies involvement in killings
Senate panel promises full investigation
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — As the widows of two men killed in Guatemala listened intently, acting CIA Director William O. Studeman denied complicity by the agency in the deaths.
But key Senate Intelligence Committee members accused the CIA of misleading Congress.
Studdeman also denied reports that the CIA increased funding for its clandestine programs in Guatemala to make up for President Bush's cutoff of military assistance at the end of 1990.
In the first detailed response to criticisms of CIA ties to the Guatemalan military, Studeman acknowledged Wednesday that the CIA:
Failed to give Congress information it had in the fall of 1991 regarding the death of American innkeeper Michael Devine.
Did not recognize the "potential significance" of information received in mid-1994 about the death of rebel leader Efrain Velasquez Bamaca.
Recalled its station chief in Guatemala in January after a key report was delayed for six days — "a management lapse," according to Studeman.
Studeman did not specifically discuss the agency's relationship with Lt. Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez, who is said to have been a paid CIA informant implicated in the deaths of Devine and Bamaca. Those questions, said to deal with classified material, were left for a private session with the Senate Intelligence Committee.
But Studeman told the committee in public that the CIA was diligent in providing other U.S. government agencies with information it obtained about Alirez' purported involvement in the deaths of Devine in June 1990 and Bamaca around March 1992.
Studeman and Assistant Secretary of State Alexander Watson both said the administration believed Alpirez was at least involved in a cover-up of Devine's death at the hands of the Guatemalan military, and is believed to be knowledgeable or involved in the death of Bamaca.
The CIA is not complict in the murder of Mr. Devine nor in the apparent killing of Mr. Bamaca," Studeman said.
Watson said U.S. Ambassador Marilyn McAfee pressed Guatemalan President Ramiro de Leon Carpio as recently as Tuesday night for a full investigation of both cases.
Bamaca's widow, American attorney Jennifer Harbury, recounted for the committee her three-year campaign to learn of her husband's fate and blasted the administration for withholding information.
"I'm not being given any information. I know nothing," said Harbury, whose hunger strikes in Guatemala and outside the White House helped
Her 30-minute presentation kept the senators and the crowded hearing room spellbound. She received a promise from committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa, that the panel would investigate her case fully.
draw attention to the unanswered questions about her husband and Devine.
Devine's widow, Carole, was far more generous in her assessment of the U.S. government's cooperation in trying to bring the perpetrators of her husband's death to justice.
Five years after his death, the motive for his killing was unclear to her. "To my knowledge, he had no enemies. His death was inexplicable," she said.
At one point, she held up a picture of her husband to demonstrate to the senators that they were dealing with a real human being and not an abstraction.
"A good man died and the truth must be pursued," she said.
Studeman acknowledged that the CIA failed to brief congressional intelligence committees as is required, but characterized the lapse as an unexplained oversight.
"I have no evidence that there was a deliberate attempt to mislead on the part of the CIA," said Studeman.
But Sen. William Cohen, R-Maine, accused the CIA of "deliberately" misleading Congress by giving information that was "designed not to inform, but to obscure."
The congressional intelligence committees, he said, "may even have been lied to," He said he was talking about a semiannual CIA report on human rights provided by the CIA in April 1992, and about
other instances of misleading information given members on the Guatemala cases.
Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., and Sen.
John Kerry, D-Mass., agreed with
Cohen.
Studeman declined to answer in public session senators' questions about a reported CIA payment of $44,000 to Alpirez several months after the agency had learned of his alleged involvement in the Devine case.
Although Guatemalan soldiers who later were convicted of killing Devine had spent time right before the murder at a training camp run by Alpirez, Studeman said the CIA did not link Alpirez to the case until October 1991, more than a year after Devine's death.
The agency learned Alpirez may have been present during the American's interrogation and promptly notified the State Department, the FBI and other U.S. agencies, he said.
Studeman said the CIA did not associate Alpirez with the Bamaca death until late January of this year, when it learned he was the senior military officer who had interrogated Bamaca in March 1992 before his death.
"We do not necessarily find our sources among the pristine, the honorable and the elegant," Studeman said.
Partly because of the nature of the agency's clandestine methods, he said, "our information has been fragmentary, sometimes contradictory and of varying reliability," in both the Devine and Bamaca cases.
Gunmen kill 46 in raid on Filipino business area
The Associated Press
IPIL, Philippines — Plumes of white smoke rose yesterday from the smoldering ruins of Ipil's business district, laid waste in a deadly rampage by Muslim separatists.
At least 46 people died Tuesday in the raid blamed on a shadowy group that has been linked to defendants in the World Trade Center bombing, plots to assassinate Pope John Paul II, and blow up American airliners.
Troops with shoot-to-kill orders pursued the gunmen in rugged hinterlands near Ipil, a busy coastal
The day after the attack, survivors poked around the rubble looking for loved ones. Others retrieved canned goods and cooking oil from the debris. Youngsters dug out pieces of jewelry glinting in the ashes of a pawnshop.
town of 50,000 people about 480 miles south of Manila.
Military commander Gen. Arturo Enrile said Abu Sayyaf loyalists were joined by renegades from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which has waged a 25-year struggle for a Muslim state in the southern Philippines. The Philippines is a predominantly Roman Catholic country.
Survivors said gunmen wearing military uniforms sprayed automatic rifle fire and fired grenades as they set shops and stores ablaze.
Townspeople were so frightened that a day after the attack, many of them ran screaming "Abu Sayyaf!" when government reinforcements arrived.
In the ruins of a barber shop,
Lolita Avanzado, 55, knelt weeping before a charred corpse she identified as her husband, Placido Avanzado, 60.
Survivors said the attackers spoke mostly in the Tausug language, spoken in southwestern islands where Abu Sayaf and other Muslim rebels are based.
ABS-CBN television reported that troops had caught up with some of the gunmen in a town north of IpiL. The regional military headquarters in Zamboanga could not confirm the report.
Philippine National Police Chief Recaredo Sarmiento told reporters that intelligence agents learned of a plot to strike against major cities on the main southern island of Mindanao, but not against Ipil.
The motive remained unclear. Officials speculated the main targets were the four banks that were robbed. In Manila, Brig. Gen. Job Mayo said there was a "strong possibility" the raid was in retaliation for the arrest of six alleged Muslim extremists in Manila on Sunday.
Police claim the six were associated with Ramzi Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing. Yousef eluded police in Manila in January but was arrested the following month in Pakistan and deported to the United States.
Police say Yousef had plotted to kill the pope during his January visit to Manila and blow up U.S. jets over the Pacific Ocean. They believe Abu Sayyaf provided Yousef support while he was in Manila.
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