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murder, but the authorities did not wish to undertake any investigation, mainly due
to the risk involved. There is a proceeding opened against other direct perpetrators.
It is an obligation of the State to continue the investigation and to try all those who
are responsible, for justice to be served in the instant case.
In 1994, a set of cassettes recorded by Noel de Jesús Beteta Álvarez was handed
over, in which he describes exactly how he murdered her sister, and he clearly
defined how the illegal intelligence operation was carried out to kill those who were
deemed enemies of the State. Through his statements, he sought redemption of the
sentence. In any case, he expected an amnesty. He stated that the person who
gave the order and who gave the “Roman” signal to kill her sister was colonel Juan
Valencia Osorio, who had received instructions from general Edgar Augusto Godoy
Gaitán.
At the trial that took place from September 3, 2002 to October 3, 2002 before a
competent tribunal, Beteta Álvarez recognized that it was he who did the interviews,
but that he did them under the influence of drugs, and he accused her of supplying
him a daily ounce of cocaine to buy his testimony. Nevertheless, the statements are
consistent in terms of space, time and place, so that if Beteta Alvarez were drugged
due to consumption of a daily ounce of cocaine for six or four months duration of the
interviews, he would not have been capable of making them.
Her family, her sister’s colleagues at AVANCSO and the staff of the Myrna Mack
Foundation have been threatened. The pattern has always been to threaten after a
judicial step has been taken. Recently, the security forces themselves have detected
following by suspicious drivers in vehicles around the foundation and near her home.
They have also tried to link her brother with drug trafficking activities, and they even
began a trial. They also filed legal actions against him. They have also sought to
dishonor the Mack Chang family by saying that they are linked to the “black market
in foreign currency-“ Both her family and AVANCSO have filed complaints regarding
these facts, and there are files at the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, but
they have attained no results.
Once, they asked the Government of the Republic to appoint an investigative
prosecutor´s office to look into threats against human rights advocates, and they
submitted a project on how to investigate those who threaten, including the legal
operators. However, there has been no response.
She had to move to a condominium with a guard service to ensure that entry of
individuals to her residence is more adequate. There are security guards and high
walls to avoid any control. No one likes to live with security because one never knows
when one is betrayed by someone who passes on the information, especially due to
their longstanding struggle in this case.
She has been emotionally affected by living with so much anguish and uncertainty.
The State has resorted very much to psychological warfare. The attitude of the State
of Guatemala at this Court was rather a tactic of psychological warfare. The Agent of
the State was a witness in her case and now they want to turn him against her,
resorting to the same delay tactics in the international proceeding that they used in
the domestic one.
For her family to avoid falling apart and to remain steadfast in their struggle to
obtain justice, each one had to go through an individual process. Her sister’s case is
a paradigmatic one not only for her family but also for many Guatemalans who see
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