15
He knew of no training programs for police agents in Guatemala on how to
treat children.
d.
Testimony of Rosa Angélica Vega, “street child” at the time the
events occurred
She declared that she was a friend of the five youths in this case. In 1990,
she worked at night in the kiosk of Julia Griselda Ramírez López on 18th
Street. On the day of the events she saw how three police agents abducted
the four youths later found dead in the San Nicolás Woods. She stated that
they were held up at gunpoint and taken away in a black “pick-up”. The
police agents were dressed in civilian clothes, but she knew they were
policemen because of the heavy-caliber arms that they carried. Following the
event, she went to the Identification Section of the National Police Force to
see the photographs of the bodies.
She stated that on the night of the murder of Anstraum Aman Villagrán
Morales, she saw him drinking beer with a young man with curly-hair wearing
“tight denim trousers and boots”, who she did not know. The young man
urged Villagrán Morales to leave; then the two of them walked to the corner
and she heard a shot. When she left the kiosk to see what was happening,
she saw Villagrán Morales running and then “he bumped into some boards
and fell there, face up”. Because she was afraid, she waited for people to
approach Villagrán Morales’ body before she herself went to look at it. Julia
Griselda Ramírez López and she approached the body and saw a child known
as “Pelé” among those who were looking at it. Then, a man who was there,
kicked Villagrán Morales’ hand as he left and “Pelé” commented “there goes
that beggar (“mendigo”)”. When he heard these words, the man turned
round, with a gun in his hand, and asked who had spoken and “whether he
wanted one also”. When she returned to her kiosk, she saw that the same
man was there drinking beer, accompanied by another person. Gustavo
Adolfo Cóncaba Cisneros, alias “Toby”, was also present. According to the
witness, three men may have participated in the murder of Villagrán Morales,
as she is unable to say if the person who was drinking beer with the victim
before the events was one of the two she later saw near the body.
The witness was afraid of the threats of the National Police Force when she
was a “street child” and, even today, she is afraid to make statements on the
case, such as before this Court. Consequently, when on April 12, 1991, she
make a statement before the Judge of the Guatemalan Second Criminal Trial
Court, she said nothing about what she had seen because she feared for her
life and, in the instant case she fears also for that of her children. She stated
that she identified the man who accompanied Anstraum Aman Villagrán
Morales in the kiosk in photographs before the Guatemalan court. However,
on that occasion she said that it would be more appropriate to identify him in
person.
In continuation, she referred to Rosa Trinidad Morales Pérez, who also worked
in a kiosk on 18thStreet, and declared that this woman mistreated the
children, throwing hot water and coffee at them. On one occasion, she heard
her threaten Anstraum Aman Villagrán Morales saying that “if he did not want
to go the same way as the other four [children killed in the San Nicolás