Guatemala apologizes to U.S. widow over murder
Source: Reuters
(Corrects penultimate paragraph to make clear the incendiary device was in lawyer's car, not widow's) By Mica Rosenberg GUATEMALA CITY, Oct 16 (Reuters) - After three hunger strikes, a Supreme Court case and over a decade of waiting, U.S. lawyer Jennifer Harbury received an apology on Monday from Guatemala for the torture and murder of her guerrilla husband. The government claimed responsibility for the disappearance of Mayan rebel leader Efrain Bamaca at an official event at the National Palace, where in 1994 Harbury went on a 32-day hunger strike to push for information about her husband's death. "Today Guatemala wants to publicly recognize the atrocities of the past ... to stop denying the undeniable, excusing what is not excusable," said Frank La Rue, head of the government's human rights commission. La Rue admitted Bamaca was kidnapped and murdered by state security forces. Over 200,000 people were killed during Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war with a U.N. truth comission report blaming government-backed forces for the bulk of the murders. Bamaca, a high-ranking leader who was illiterate before joining the guerillas met Harbury in 1990 when she visited their mountain hideouts to research a book about the war. The Harvard-educated lawyer and indigenous farmer were married a year later, but in 1992 he was captured by the military in combat. The army claimed he committed suicide before he could be taken prisoner but Harbury found he was tortured in clandestine military prisons for two years and injected with poisons before being murdered. The U.S. State Department denied having any knowledge of the case until Harbury staged a hunger strike in front of the White House and until, in 1995, Congress released documents revealing the United States knew Bamaca was taken alive. Harbury said she will not give up searching for his body, which has never been found. She suspects it was thrown into the sea or dismembered and scattered in a field. "I plan to give him a decent burial," she said after the event. "I am not going to leave him dumped like garbage somewhere." Harbury sued high-ranking Clinton administration officials for concealing information about her husband's whereabouts, which she said could have saved his life if made public. Her case was dismissed from the U.S. Supreme Court, but despite years of death threats, including a call on her cell phone last year and an incendiary device in her U.S. lawyer's car in Washington, Harbury is still pursuing the case. "This recognition here is definitely a step," said Harbury "I'm surprised we got this much. But it's not enough."
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