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Why are CIA & FBI Targeting Me? Jennifer Harbury. Guatemalan rights.
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July 22, 2002
Exploiting 9/11 to Justify Abusive Regimes
http://www.counterpunch.org/harbury0722.html
Why are the CIA & FBI Targeting Me?
by Jennifer Harbury
I am writing today because I would like all of you to be informed about
some very disturbing information I received last week. September 11 was
certainly one of the most horrifying tragedies we have ever witnessed on
our own soil, but I fear it is being badly exploited by certain
government officials in order to justify both human rights violations
abroad, including torture, as well as extreme repression against our own
citizens. Our civil rights are eroding with a speed which I find
frightening.
Given the situation, I have not been a bit surprised to find myself a
target. Not long after Sept. 11, various government officials, including
many of the CIA people exposed in Everardo's case, began to publicly
insist that it was all my fault. When asked again and again if the
tragedy did not represent the biggest failure of our intelligence system
in U.S. history, they replied that I was to blame, that CIA operatives
in the field had been afraid to aggressively seek out information from
unsavory characters. In fact, the 1995 reforms simply required an
operative to inform his superiors before hiring a known human rights
abuser, and the CIA itself admits that permission has never been denied.
Nevertheless the accusations were made again and again, especially on a
lengthy BBC program. I took all this with a grain of salt and figured
things would come out in the wash. They did indeed....I know that all of
you have seen the lengthy disclosures about exactly how much the CIA and
FBI did in fact know, but somehow never acted upon. Similarly, I have
not been particularly upset by harassing phone calls or right wing
articles which have appeared in remote publications.
I was however, very taken aback by the most recent news I received,
specifically, that an FBI official told an Amnesty International staffer
that they consider me a top suspect in the death threats and assaults
against Barbara Bocek. Barbara is the Amnesty worker who has received
death threats for a year now and who has been assaulted twice, once in
Guatemala and once in Washington state. All threats have made it very
clear that she is being targeted for her work for Guatemalan human
rights. The FBI has made it very clear that they do not believe her at
all. As in the case of Sister Diana Ortiz, there seems to be a
government effort to suggest that Barbara somehow, inexplicably,
assaulted and threatened herself, not once but twice. I am sure most of
you saw the recent New York Times article. Now, apparently, the story
has shifted a bit to suggest that I have carried out the threats, to
somehow make my own case stronger. In fact, as a matter of law, the
assaults on her, some ten years after Everardo's abduction, has a legal
relevance of zero for my own case. I have, however, been outspoken in my
support for her, which is evidently more than enough. I get the message:
Shut up about the Guatemalan terrorists here in the US who happen to
have CIA links, or else suffer the consequences.
Barbara first began receiving threats a year ago when she wrote an op ed
piece about the Bishop Gerardi murder trial. When she went to Guatemala
with a delegation in June 2001 she was assaulted outside her hotel room
and left bound and gagged at the bottom of a stairwell. Her abductors
were telling her she would be tortured and killed for her human rights
work. Clearly, a warning was being sent to the international human
rights community. Foreigners should not feel safe, even members of the
highest level ngo's could and would be attacked and perhaps killed
whenever the killers so desired. The Guatemalan response was
predictable. It didn't happen, or else she did it to herself for
whatever reason. The U.S. government response was a throwback to the not
so good old days. No real action was taken and slowly but surely we
began to hear insinuations that perhaps Barbara indeed was either
fabricating the threats or staged the abduction.
While this was going on, my own witness was having grave problems as
well. He is living here in the US with his family, and began to receive
very frightening death threats against himself and his children. His
friends and family back in Guatemala too were having the same problems.
Upon the request of an Amnesty staffer , we did go to the FBI offices to
give them the details. The response was shocking. The officer read
through a few lines of the police report and asked if the assertions
were true. He then stated that no threats had been made, only
obscenities. When we pointed out the portion of the report specifically
describing the threats, he refused to accept them, stating that the
witness should have mentioned them earlier in the interview. The
witness, however, was never asked. Later, an FBI agent approached the
witness at home, stating that he had spoken with local Guatemalans, and
none had noticed any military types or death squad members around town.
This was rather laughable, and the witness asked that he not be
contacted again.
I was particularly incensed by this because it was more of the same from
the mid-1990s. In the spring of 1995 just after the disclosures by Sen.
Torricelli, the FBI arrived late at night on my doorstep in Texas to let
me know that the Guatemalans were hiring a hit man to kill me. The iron
security door of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission was torn off its
hinges and left in the street. Only the answering machine was taken. A
few months later, in January 1996 my lawyer, Jose Pertierra, had his car
firebombed at his Washington D.C. home, and the religious community
where I was living in D.C. was shot at by someone in a pickup truck with
dark glass windows. The FBI agent in charge opened the case under
potential international terrorism. We also received a tip from a high
level insider, indicating a Guatemalan military person who fought in
Vietnam, owned a car repair shop, a luxurious home, and had unexplained
income. The FBI agent was very interested but was swiftly tran sferred
off the case. None of us ever received any further communications from
the FBI, although some truly foolish statements have come back to me
through the grapevine.
When I heard about the incipient smear campaign about Barbara, I
immediately sent in all of this information as to the same or similar
events to corroborate her story. The Guatemalan army clearly has a modus
operandi of sending or hiring people here to terrorize human rights
activists and witnesses living in this country. And our own government
has a practice of looking the other way when the perpetrators happen to
be working with the CIA.
Things went from bad to worse. Barbara was attacked again, this time in
the United States near her place of work. She was returning home one
night and heard a grating sound beneath her car. When she got out to
investigate, a car with its headlights off pulled up behind her and she
was seized and tied up and told not to return to Guatemala for the
investigation as planned, or she would be killed. The men spoke in
Spanish. Her eyes were taped, she was gagged, and she was locked into
her car where police found her later, semi-conscious. According to the
New York Times article which followed, the police found her story
questionable. Yet most of their questions could have been easily
answered had they spoken with Barbara. But they failed to do so.
Barbara was also sent to the FBI to give her story. As soon as she
arrived it became clear that she was a suspect and not the victim. Her
sister had accompanied her but was not allowed to attend the
"interview". Instead, Barbara was given a hostile interrogation of many
hours, and then told that she was probably fabricating the whole story.
What on earth her motive would be has never been elucidated.
Barbara is a quiet and mature woman who has a PhD from Stanford which
she is too shy to mention, and who worked for several years in
Guatemala. She then chose to return to the U.S. and do public service
work for Native Americans in a remote northwestern reservation. This is
clearly not a woman seeking attention for herself. This is a modest and
courageous woman who has long dedicated herself to working for the human
rights of others with little or no recognition for herself.
Now I learn that because I have outspokenly defended her and offered up
evidence of the same and similar events when her credibility was
questioned, that I too have become a "suspect". Evidently these
statements were made some time ago. It is clear to me that I have not
only received an insult, but also a direct threat. Silence about these
matters, or else. Since I am not too good at silence, I am considering
my legal alternatives at this time. But most importantly, I wanted to
keep all of us in the network fully informed. I have no doubt that more
is coming.
Should you wish to call anyone in Congress in this regard, I would
recommend three Members on the Judiciary Committees who have been truly
heroic on the issues of human rights : Rep. Conyers, Rep. Frank, and
Senator Leahey. If you call them, please remember that they are our
friends, and simply call their attention to yet one more example of
abuse of power by government officials. They have long been very
interested and supportive. The Congressional Switchboard telephone
number is 202-224-3121.
Jennifer Harbury is a human rights lawyer, who represents Leonard
Peltier, among many other clients. She the author of Bridge of Courage:
Life Stories of Guatemalan Companeros and Companeras and Searching for
Everardo: A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala.
----End of article----
-----------------------
FBI abuses of power. Framing, blacklisting, firing, harassing, smearing.
http://corporatism.tripod.com/fbietc.htm
Terrorism of USA. Death Squads, Drug War. World Links.
http://corporatism.tripod.com/squads.htm
Police corruption via Drug War. Chief Joseph McNamara.
http://corporatism.tripod.com/corruption.htm
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