From: "LPDC" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 13:48:22 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: update from Harbury Dear Friends, You may recall the urgent alert we released earlier in the year in regard to the break-in of Atty. Jennifer Harbury's home, and the death threats received by her witness as well as a member of Amnesty International - by the Guatemalan army. Jennifer Harbury, a long time Guatemalan Human Rights advocate, joined Peltier's defense team three years ago. Leonard had asked us to support Jennifer in her time of need. Below is an urgent update on that situation. Thank you, LPDC GUATEMALAN TERRORISTS : MILITARY AGENTS ARRIVE IN US AND THREATEN ACTIVIST October 14, 2001 Dear Friends, We are writing to ask for your very urgent assistance and support for Barbara Bocek, a U.S. citizen and human rights activist who is being stalked by Guatemalan military agents right here in the United States as a result of her tireless efforts on behalf of the Guatemalan people. Barbara began receiving death threats last May after her op-ed piece about the Gerardi case was published. The threats were very explicit and included warnings that if she returned to Guatemala she would be abducted, tortured and murdered. She nevertheless had the courage to travel to Guatemala in June with an Amnesty International research mission looking into the Gerardi murder trial and other ongoing abuses. She was attacked by two Guatemalan men at her hotel room door and told she was being taken away to be tortured and killed. Then she was forced at gunpoint down a stairwell, where she was bound, gagged, and left on the floor where her desperate friends found her two hours later. Despite this horrifying incident she has continued to work for Guatemala, but she is still regularly receiving threats here in the U.S.. Some threats are made by phone while others, disturbingly, left in notes at her home or on her car. One such note said that both she and her pet cat would be killed. Last week she returned home to find a knife imbedded in her window screen. Enough. This is a woman who has devoted herself to Guatemala and to Indigenous causes in the Americas. She currently works with Native peoples on a reservation in the United States. She has given her whole life to human rights. Now she needs our help and support. The telephone calls you made earlier for Otoniel De La Roca Mendoza ( the Guatemalan witness living in the US who was receiving death threats against himself and his children a few months ago) were extremely helpful. Thanks to your endless calls a few years ago, Jennifer Harbury survived her hunger strikes in Guatemala. These calling session may seem tedious, but they work, and often make a life and death difference. The abuses against Barbara are obviously coming from, or upon the orders of, Guatemalan military agents. The threats began in response to her op ed piece about the Gerardi case, when military officers were on trial for the Bishop' s murder. Moreover, the style, methods, motives, and high level planning and coordination, as well as the continuity between the US threats and Guatemala attack, all make the military involvement more than clear. Whether they are sanctioned or not by Guatemalan civilian authorities makes no difference. We cannot allow Guatemalan military thugs to travel to the United States to hunt down and terrorize Guatemalans or U.S. citizens living here. They cannot be allowed to obstruct the international human rights campaign against impunity by committing acts of terror like the ones inflicted on Barbara. This is not the first time such actions have been taken here. Otoniel was threatened for months. Jennifer Harbury was notified by the FBI in 1995 that the Guatemalan military had hired a hit man to kill her. A year later, the religious community where she lived was shot at, and her lawyer, Jose Pertierra, had his car firebombed at his D.C. home. In 1995 the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA had its security door torn off its hinges, and their answering machine stolen, as they prepared for Jennifer's last hunger strike. The Guatemalan government cannot be permitted to shrug this off and tell us that this is a problem for the US police and not for them. Guatemalan agents are traveling to the US, using pay phones and hiring people to carry out criminal acts. US authorities are actively investigating Barbara's case. The Guatemalan government is still responsible for controlling their own agents, whether they choose to terrorize at home or here in the United States. URGENT ACTION STEPS : 1. We urgently need you to call the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington D.C. and DEMAND that these immediate steps be taken by their government to halt all threats and attacks against Barbara. Tell them that : a. We will not tolerate any further terrorist style actions by Guatemalan military agents here. b The Guatemalan government must take immediate steps to guarantee Ms. Bocek 's personal safety and peace of mind. This is not just a US police problem. It is the responsibility of the Guatemalan government to control their agents. c. We demand an end to all human rights abuses in Guatemala, as promised in the Peace Accords in 1996, as well as concrete steps by the Guatemalan government to assure these rights. d. If these abuses do not halt we will demand that the United States Congress extradite the numerous Guatemalan military officials known by the DEA to be involved in the drug trade. 2. If you can make still more calls, please call any of the following Congressional offices, inform them of the case, and ask that they too call the Guatemalan embassy at once : Sen. Patty Murray, Sen. Leahey, Sen. Kennedy, Sen. Dodd, Sen. Torricelli, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Lantos, Rep. Jim McGovern, Rep. Rangel, Rep. Conyers, Rep. Serrano, Rep. Becerra, Rep. Steve Horne and Rep. Morella. GUATEMALAN EMBASSY : TEL. 202-745-4952 FAX 202-745-1908 E-MAIL : [EMAIL PROTECTED] CONGRESSIONAL SWITCHBOARD : 202-224-3121 Lisel Holdenreid, Chairperson of Coalition Missing Jennifer K. Harbury, Attorney and Human Rights Activist Until Freedom Is Won! The New Peltier Justice Campaign Leonard Peltier Defense Committee PO Box 583 Lawrence, KS 66044 785-842-5774 www.freepeltier.org _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
