8B
Tuesday, April 4, 1995
UN I V E R S I T Y D A I L Y K A N S A N
Nun's tortuous experience reveals possible CIA links
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — When asked about the horrible events of that day in Guatemala, the American nun's engaging smile fades into a look that shows the pain is undiminished after five years. She fidgets, speaks haltingly, omitting some details because they are too grusome to repeat.
Diana Ortiz's tale of rape and torture by Guatemalan security officers might have been dismissed as yet another example among thousands of horror stories from Guatemala's three-decade-old civil war. But last week it got the attention of President Clinton, following allegations of CIA links to perpetrators of gross human rights abuses in the Central American country.
Ortiz, an Ursuline nun from New Mexico, only meant to help underprivileged children in Guatemala's highlands learn to read and write. On Nov. 2, 1989, two years after her arrival, she was kidnapped and driven in a Guatemalan National Police car to a clandestine prison.
There her nightmare began: "They interrogated me and burned my back with cigarettes 111 times, and they raped me numerous times," she says. "If that wasn't bad
she says. "If that wasn't bad
enough, they lowered me into an open pit that was filled with human bodies." After hours of barbaric treatment, a brown-bearded man who spoke colloquial American English showed up. "Alejandro" appeared to have supervisory authority over her tormentors and left Ortiz with the impression that
insists it has no idea who the man was.
Clinton believes Ortiz's experiences deserve a thorough airing. His interest in the case was prompted in part by the allegation that a paid informant of the CIA ordered the killing of an American innkeeper, Michael Devine, in 1990, and two years later directed the torture and murder of a Guatemalan guerrilla leader who was married to an American woman, Jennifer Harbury. There also have been allegations that the CIA and the Defense Department knew the circumstances of their deaths and that there was direct involvement in them by U.S. Army Intelligence.
After Devine's death, the Bush administration suspended $7 million in military aid because the Guatemalan government refused to launch a serious investigation. But a $5 million CIA liaison program with the Guatemalan military was allowed to continue, a Bush appointee says. He says a cutoff of that program would have left the U.S. government uninformed about such issues as drug trafficking and Guatemala's civil war.
The investigation ordered by Clinton also encompasses the 1985
"They interrogated and burned my back with cigarettes 111 times,and they raped me."
he had links to the American Embassy. He helped her escape her plight, but his actions left her suspicious about a hidden American hand in the operation. The embassy
Diamna Ortiz
an Ursulinenun from New Mexico
deaths of two American journalists, Nicholas Blake and Griffith Davis. The Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA says that at least 19 other Americans have either been murdered or abused by Guatemala's notorious military-police establishment, which
tary merely because they were rights activists or labor organizers.
pects anyone involved in altruistic activities is really a communist agitator in disguise. Human rights groups say countless Guatemalans have died at the hands of the mili-
Ortiz and family members of other victims need no convincing that the U.S. government is part of the rights abuse problem. Ortiz says her efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice have gone nowhere.
"I believe the Guatemalan and U.S. governments initiated a smear campaign against me in their attempt to avoid an admission of their involvement in these crimes," she says. U.S. officials complain that Ortiz refused for a year and a half to cooperate with their efforts to learn the facts.
While Ortiz was able to escape with her life, other Americans were less fortunate. The most spectacular incident involved the crash of a plane in 1976 piloted by the Rev. William Woods, a Maryknoll priest and campesino organizer. Four other Americans were killed, including Ann Louise Kerndt, whose sister, Patricia, said witnesses blamed the incident on military snipers.
Other victims:
—Peter Wolf was a Peace Corps volunteer who worked with citizens groups and the Guatemalan government to establish a national park system. He was shot to death on a Guatemala City street on Oct. 28, 1984. According to Wolf's brother, John, a Guatemalan court released the two prime suspects just days after one of them confessed to the crime on national television. John Wolf says he believes the State Department and the U.S. Embassy were passive and unhelpful and may have thrown up bureaucratic roadblocks to discourage the Peace Corps pursuit of the case.
—James "Santiago" Miller, a Christian Brother, was deputy director of a home for needy Guatemalan male students 150 miles north of the capital. Three masked men shot him to death on Feb. 13, 1982, while he was repairing an outer wall at the home. An American colleague, Paul Joslin, said the U.S. Embassy showed little concern about Miller's fate and registered strong doubts that the perpetrators would ever be found.
THE NEWS in brief
WASHINGTON
O'Connor presides over Supreme Court
For the first time in Supreme Court history, a woman presided over one of its sessions Monday. It lasted 20 minutes.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor sat in the middle chair usually occupied by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist because both Rehnquist and Justice John Paul Stevens, the senior associate justice, were absent.
O'Connor, who became the first woman on the Supreme Court when she joined in 1981, announced that orders and one decision were released. She is now third in seniority among the court's nine members.
After Justice David H. Souter, the majority opinion's author, gave a short summary of the case and its resolution, O'Connor departed from recent tradition by saying, "Thank you."
She then asked the court clerk to administer to 140 lawyers the oath that, along with a $100 fee apiece, makes them Supreme Court Bar members.
The presiding justice then signaled the marshal to gavel the session to an end and to announce that the court would be in recess until April 17.
Only five of the court's nine justices were on hand for the historic, if abbreviated, session.
Rehquist had not yet returned from his visit to a 3rd U.S. Court Court of Appeals judges' conference. A court representative said Stevens and Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer were out of town but wouldn't elaborate.
NEWPORT, Ireland Princess' home may be restored
The family of the late Princess Grace of Monaco wants her ancestral home in remote western Ireland to become a memorial to the former screen star.
Tourism officials in Newport, County Mayo, said yesterday they hoped to transform the crumbling cottage into an international attraction.
The two-room house belonged to Princess Grace's grandfather, John Bernard Kelly, who emigrated to the United States in the 19th century.
She bought the cottage and 17 acres for $12,800 in 1976, six years before her death in a car crash. The property now belongs to her children.
"It would be a major tourist draw to the area if it were restored," said Gerard Bracken, representative for the community development association. "Many tourists, especially Americans, come to the area, but there is nothing to mark it out at the moment."
Princess Grace visited the cottage at Drumluria, near Newport, during a state visit to Ireland in 1961.
FORT LEAVENWORTH Army specialist faces court-martial
A third soldier faces court-martial charges because of alleged improprieties with inmates in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks.
Spec. Felicia A. Smith, 24, a correctional specialist, was charged with wrongfully communicating with an inmate and giving gifts to an inmate, the Army said yesterday. She will be prosecuted before a special court-martial.
The maximum punishment, if she is convicted on all charges, is confinement for six months, a bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of two-thirds pay and allowances, and reduction to private, an Army representative said.
Officials at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks have been investigating six separate instances of alleged improprieties by staff members with inmates. Of the six soldiers investigated, three have been charged and will face court-martial and one has accepted non-judicial punishment.
Two soldiers remain under investigation.
GREENWOOD, S.D.
Blaze interrupts Sioux burial rite
Sioux officials reburying eight ancestors whose bones were returned by the Smithsonian Institution accidentally started a 50-acre grass fire while lighting a bundle of sage to purify the remains.
The blaze on tribal land disrupted the ceremony for 2
1/2 hours Sunday.
The Smithsonian returned the bones of the three women, three men and two children last week. Collectors working for the Army had stolen the remains from graves between 1865 and 1877.
The Sioux and other tribes believe a person's spirit cannot rest until the remains are properly buried.
"I know they feel happy lying there," said Wendell Archambeau, a tribal spiritual leader. "They can see we haven't lost everything. We haven't lost our culture."
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Special Guest Speaker DR.CARLOS E. CORTES
"The Implications of Ethnic and Global Diversity for Education, Government and Business"
Tuesday, April 4th
7:00 p.m. Kansas Ballroom(Kansas Union)
Open to the public
Is a widely published author and recipient of numerous awards. He has lectured throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Dr. Carlos E. Cortes, Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside
COME & JOIN IN THE INAUGURAL CELEBRATION OF KU'S NEWEST CAMPUS PROGRAM
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