[From: Heartland Journal, July-August 1990] Puppets Get Strings Crossed, Abduct U.S. Nun ============================================ GUATEMALA By Patti McSherry The abduction and torture of U.S. nun Diana Ortiz in Guatemala last fall generated little press interest here. Yet the reactions of the Bush administration, the State Department, and the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala -- especially towards a recent religious delegation visiting Guatemala on behalf of Sister Diana -- suggest that the case is political dynamite. These developments have thrown into sharp relief once again the role of the U.S. in Central America -- particularly the relationship between the Embassy and mysterious foreigners who work with Guatemalan "death squads." Sister Diana's torturers were interrupted by a man who burst into the room and halted them. The nun swore under oath that he was an American. Sister Diana was forced away from a retreat house last November by two armed men. They took her to a deserted place where a member of the National Police was parked. The three then took her, blindfolded, to a warehouse where Sister Diana could hear screams and moans of men and women in pain. There they taunted her, sexually molested her, and burned her 111 times with cigarettes. When Sister Diana said she was a U.S. citizen, the men just laughed. In her affidavit, Sister Diana said, "The men who had stopped me in Guatemala City [previously] knew I was a North American nun, so I knew their laugh was from their sense of power, not disbelief." The terror abruptly stopped when the fourth man entered, uttered a common U.S. expletive in English, and then said in Spanish, "Idiots, she is a North American. Let her alone. It's already on the news on television." The foreigner took the nun out of the place and put her in a car, saying he would take her to "A friend from the U.S. Embassy" who would help get out of the country. However, Sister Diana escaped from the car in heavy traffic. The case was immediately met with hostile responses from the Guatemalan government. on November 10, _Prensa Libre_ reported that Guatemala's President Cerezo expressed doubt as to whether the attack had occurred at all. Defense Minister Hector Gramajo -- the de facto head of state -- stated the case was a self-kidnapping, staged in order to conceal a lesbian tryst. Interior Minister Morales (also a General) repeated the same accusations and officially closed the case. Not only did the U.S.Embassy fail to defend Sister Diana -- at least one official was reported to be making jokes to journalists about "the lesbian nuns" -- but the State Department and President Bush have maintained a deafening silence about the case. The State Department told me November 20 that no protest had been filed, as the case fell under Guatemalan jurisdiction, and the Guatemalan police were investigating. This despite the fact that one of Sister Diana's kidnappers _was_ a policeman. Moreover, according to human rights organizations like the International Human Rights Law Group and Amnesty International, the Guatemala National Police function as a virtual arm of the Guatemalan army's counterinsurgency apparatus. Members of the police often comprise the "deaths squads," usually under direct orders from their superiors. Further, the U.S. remained silent after the Guatemalan investigation was terminated. When the U.S. Ambassador Stroock complained about the level of human rights violations the Guatemalan government last February, Sister Dianas' case was conspicuously absent from his list of abuses. Despite complaints from Father Joseph Nangle and Paul Soreff, Sister Diana's lawyer, this "omission" was never corrected in the official record, despite their complaints to the State Department. In April, the Ursuline community in Kentucky, Sister Diana's order, sent a delegation to Guatemala expressly to protest the false statement by Guatemalan officials and the U.S. Embassy's indifference. Soreff reported that the delegation was immediately summoned to the Embassy where, "evidenced by the array of stone cold faces and the tone with which the encounter began, the Embassy people were most upset with the Ursulines." The Embassy aggressively defended its conduct in the case and protested allegations of collusion, arising from the foreigners' comment to Sister Diana about his "friend from the Embassy." Father Nangle, another member of the delegation, expressed dismay at the conduct of the Embassy. He reported that the Embassy was silent in the face of public accusations by top Guatemalan officials that Sister Diana was lying, and the Embassy inexplicably failed to publish medical finding of cigarette burns on sister Diana's body -- clear evidence of torture. Father Nangle continued, "It must be said that once Sister Diana left Guatemala, the U.S. official presence there was inimical to her good name and interests. The Embassy did seem to show concern for her safety while she was in captivity and again before she took lease of Guatemala. But it is my distinct impression that afterward the chief concern of U.S. representatives in that country was `damage control'... Further, I am left with the strong impression that the identity of the mysterious American, named by Sister Diana under oath as the one with sufficient authority to take her away from her torturers, has the Embassy so upset that their chief concern is to sweep this case as far away from them as possible." The total impunity with which Sister Diana's captors operate gives direct evidence of several of the shady structures of Guatemala's national security state. The Guatemalan government has long denied the existence of secret places of detention and torture -- places beyond the reach of the law. Yet the nuns' testimony is proof of such clandestine centers, and the involvement of the national police. Inevitably, questions about the precise U.S. and CIA role in Guatemala's national security structures again arise. ----- Patti McSherry is the human rights activists and a doctoral student in political science. She writes frequently on Guatemala and counterinsurgency ****************************************************************** For a subscription to the Heartland Journal, send $24 (Check, Money Order, or Credit Card (VISA/MC/AE)) to: Subscriptions 7000 N. Glenwood Chicago, IL 60626 Or call (credit cards) (312)465-8005