(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 6 March 2001 IAPA press release: FRIENDLY AGREEMENT BETWEEN IAPA, GUATEMALA REOPENS CASE OF JOURNALIST WHO DISAPPEARED IN 1980 The agreement reached before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights provides for financial compensation to the victim’s relatives and a number of acts of homage MIAMI, Florida (March 6, 2001) […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 6 March 2001 IAPA press release:
FRIENDLY AGREEMENT BETWEEN IAPA, GUATEMALA REOPENS CASE OF JOURNALIST WHO DISAPPEARED IN 1980
The agreement reached before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights provides for financial compensation to the victim’s relatives and a number of acts of homage
MIAMI, Florida (March 6, 2001) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and the government of Guatemala have agreed to set up an “Ad-hoc Committee” to spur a new investigation into the case of Guatemalan journalist Irma Marina Flaquer Azurdia, whose forced disappearance in 1980 led to an in-depth inquiry by the hemispheric free press organization.
Flaquer Azurdia won acclaim as a freelance journalist writing for several newspapers and radio stations. From 1971 to 1980 she was best known for her column “What Others Fail to Say” in La Nacion newspaper, in which she railed against political repression, corruption by government officials and military officers and human rights violations. On October 16, 1980, she was kidnapped. Her son was killed during the abduction. She was never found. The disappearance remained unsolved and unpunished and was investigated by the IAPA, beginning in 1995. Two years later, the IAPA submitted its findings to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which took the matter up as case number 11,766.
On March 2 of this year, through the mediation of the IACHR at a hearing in Washington, D.C., the chairman of the Guatemalan Presidential Commission for Human Rights (COPREDEH), Víctor Hugo Godoy Morales, and IAPA President Danilo Arbilla signed an “agreement of friendly resolution.” This provides for a series of compensatory and punitive awards for the victim’s relatives, in addition to sending a clear message against the impunity that surrounds the overwhelming majority of crimes against journalists in Latin America.
“This agreement demonstrates the will of the government of Guatemala, while for the IAPA this case is symbolic and a launching pad for other countries to take similar actions to combat impunity,” said Arbilla, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, news weekly Búsqueda. He added that “the support received from the Commission enables us to make our fight against impunity and on behalf of all journalists’ rights even more effective.”
The agreement provides for the creation of an Ad-hoc Committee to undertake new investigations, compensation for the victim’s relatives and homage to be paid to the memory of Flaquer Azurdia. Some of the actions the Guatemalan government committed to were to name a street and erect a monument in her honor and establish a scholarship for journalism studies. The document bears the signature of the IACHR chairman, Claudio Grossman.
Under terms of the agreement, creation of the Ad-hoc Committee is to be formalized at the IAPA’s Midyear Meeting in Fortaleza, Brazil, later this month, while several acts of homage to Flaquer Azurdia will take place in Guatemala on September 5 – her birthday.
The State of Guatemala acknowledged its responsibility for having failed in its duty to investigate Flaquer Azurdia’s disappearance, identify those responsible and punish them in a presidential decree issued in August last year.
In the text of the friendly agreement, the Guatemalan government admits “the imperative need to proceed with, and firmly reinforce, administrative and legal actions aimed at establishing the identity of those responsible and applying the corresponding criminal and civil sanctions”.
The Guatemalan government delegation was headed by Godoy Morales and was also made up of COPREDEH Executive Director Ricardo Alvarado Ortigoza, Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) Ronalth Ochaeta, and Supreme Court Justices Marieliz Lucero Sibley and Napoleon Rodríguez.
Representing the IAPA, in addition to Arbilla were Rafael Molina, Ahora, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; former IAPA President Horacio Aguirre, Diario Las Américas, Miami, Florida; Executive Committee Chairman Diana Daniels, The Washington Post Company, Washington, D.C.; IAPA 2nd Vice President Andrés García Gamboa, Novedades de Quintana Roo, Cancún, Mexico; Juan Ealy Ortiz, regional vice chairman for Mexico of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, El Universal, Mexico City, Mexico; Chapultepec Committee Chairman Alejandro Miro Quesada C., El Comercio, Lima, Peru; Inter-American Committee Chairman Jayme Sirotsky, RBS, Porto Alegre, Brazil; Roberto Rock, El Universal, Mexico City, Mexico; Executive Director Julio E. Muñoz and Press Freedom Coordinator Ricardo Trotti.
