by Amy Fagin | Feb 9, 2014
Upon learning on February 6, 2014, of the Guatemalan Constitutional Court’s ruling that Atty. General Claudia Paz y Paz is obliged to step down, and truncate her post seven months before the end of her four-year term as Attorney General of Guatemala, ignited my indignation, concern and interest in the details of the apparent and overt injustice of this “official ruling” of Guatemala’s Constitutional Court and its role in the increasing disintegration of the newly ignited sparks of justice in the Guatemalan legal system.
This brief post is an effort to hold a torch of recognition of the heroic efforts of Atty. General Paz y Paz and to kindle a spark of awareness and interest, among those of us less versed in the ephemeral path of justice in Guatemalan history against the ferocious winds of resistance within the Guatemalan power structure in an apparent collusion of converging forces to thwart her efforts to bring Guatemala safely into the harbor of justice under the rule of law.
The landmark conviction of genocide against former Guatemalan military head of state, Efrain Rios Montt, this past May was a luminous victory over the “savage counterinsurgency campaign that massacred thousands of unarmed Mayan civilians in the country’s northwestern department of Quiche” (Kate Doyle, The Pursuit of Justice in Guatemala, March 23, 2013). Attorney General Paz y Paz’s ongoing and spectacularly successful efforts to expose and bring to justice entrenched criminals of human rights violations; corrupt government officials, and the puppeteer, narco-trafficking oligarchy was unexpectedly thwarted just days after the conviction of genocide against Rios Mont, when the very same Constitutional Court overturned the ruling on a complicated procedural matter and disqualified the trial court. The trial is now obliged to resume at the point of this ruling, prior to the conviction, and threatens to be driven by interference to the judicial nomination process for the new trial.
The shock-waves felt in the international community in wake of the overturning of the verdict against Rios Montt back in May of 2013 drowned the life-breath of autonomy and impartiality in the Guatemalan justice system. But the watershed conviction also unleashed “a storm of national and international outrage – making Guatemala one of only three countries in Latin America with the wherewithal to charge a head of state with human rights crimes, along with Peru and Uruguay” (Kate Doyle).
The newly imposed ruling from the Guatemalan Constitutional Court and its ominous potential for undermining neutrality for the nominations of key judicial actors for the country’s highest courts threatens to extinguish the credibility of Guatemala’s Public Ministry. Its new found influence, under the leadership of Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, must not be allowed to be extinguished by those very same entrenched criminals whose legacy of brutal violence has wrought such profound pain and suffering to so many innocent citizens of this tiny, traumatized nation.
In the words of Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, herself: “Justice is the possibility for victims to face under equal conditions those who committed serious crimes and reaffirm their citizenship,” says Paz. “It sends a powerful message for the rule of law. Nobody is above the rule of law.” (Mark Tran, The Guardian, October 8, 2013).
Let’s keep the torch of justice held high for Ms. Paz y Paz in her Olympic quest for justice for all citizens of Guatemala.
Featured image: EneasMx, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
by Amy Fagin | Jan 20, 2013
As I sit in the comfort of my home office—exploring the Internet for articles, definitions and images to help crystallize my desire to understand and make a plea about a perceived unjustifiable act of genocide—I have to admit to you that I have not had the opportunity to visit Aleppo. I have read about exotic international art fairs and music festivals in the city. I know that Aleppo boasts a pantheon of succeeding civilizations predating Christ by over 2000 years; from the Amorites, to Hittites, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans all claiming their rightful role in the ancient history of the Middle East. In recent years, the city of Aleppo caught my attention when hearing about cultural highlight news stories celebrating the city’s revival. These stories whetted my thirst for an adventure to explore this ancient, multifarious and historically intricate city.
Today, a Google Image search of Aleppo brings up obliterated city blocks and buildings; desperate and injured people walking dazed amidst utter destruction. I recall in early spring of this past year, news reports covering “white noise” car bomb blasts in the city and in other parts of the country killing dozens to hundreds of people with every blast, almost every day. Escalation of bombings in frequency and volume began to dominate the news broadcasts this fall with reports of leveled kindergartens; hospitals; residences and businesses. News of government warplanes and attack helicopters circling overhead and pounding rebel territories peppered the airwaves back here amidst the splendor of the New England fall season. Other tragic reports about looting on a mass scale of museums and monuments around the entire country pricked a deep part of my conscience with excruciating apprehension for the safety of the country’s cultural monuments and museum collections. Then the stunning news broke wide open in October of the obliteration of Aleppo’s Medieval Souk, Great Mosque, Citadel and other sections of the old city designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Without a strategic change of geopolitical aspirations the destruction of Syrian civilization appears imminent and likely beyond recovery for generations to come, if recovery is even possible. As powerless as I feel about having any singular influence over this ongoing, distant lands’ cultural genocide, I feel as though I must put words to my troubled conscience. As intimidated as I feel about speaking out publicly about an issue I have no personal experience with, silence over this matter feels cowardly and inexcusably apathetic.
In the process of crafting this citizen’s appeal as a complaint against the Syrian Government of committing cultural genocide upon own country I learned that Syria is a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of an Armed Conflict. Has any action been taken with regards to this treaty and its member states? Have any other member states enacted any collective address to this blatant violation of this agreement?
With regards to making a plea for legislation of the cultural genocide perpetrated upon the citizens of Syria (please, legal scholars, forgive my lay-persons simplicity here): It appears that this matter is not privy to ICC criminal jurisdiction as there is no specific and independent article in the UN Convention on Genocide which recognizes that the mass destruction of cultural property can be legally classified as a form of genocide. A clearly defined article outlining the destruction of cultural property, as a means to destroy the group in whole or in part, as a form of genocide must be adopted to the Convention’s provisions. An article with this specific declaration would support Lemkin’s original concept of genocide; which expressly recognizes that destruction (vandalism) of a groups’ cultural property, and by extension the groups’ right to exist, could be an act of genocide.
Featured image: © Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
