Resources
GRANITO: CJA’s Guatemala Genocide Case at Sundance Film Festival
On January 25th, 2011, Pamela Yates’ powerful documentary GRANITO will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. GRANITO documents how Yates’s 1982 film, When the Mountains Tremble, on the Guatemala genocide became evidence in CJA’s international human rights case against the former military leadership. Yates was allowed to shoot the only known footage of the army as it carried out the genocide. Featuring interviews with CJA attorney Almudena Bernabeu and long-time CJA adviser Naomi Roht Arriaza, GRANITO takes us through a riveting, haunting tale of genocide and justice that spans four decades and two films.
Updates
CJA Defendant and Former Guatemalan Dictator Efraín Ríos Montt Facing Genocide Charges in Guatemala
Guatemalan Attorney General, Claudia Paz y Paz, demands that former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt face genocide charges for his role in the “scorched earth” campaign during the country’s civil war in the 1980s. The accusations include torture, genocide, forced disappearances, state terrorism and crimes against humanity. CJA fully supports this prosecution and will do everything possible to make sure justice is served.
Guatemalan National Civil Police arrested former Guatemalan National Police Chief Pedro Garcia Arredondo on July 24 for the 1981 forced disappearance of Edgar Saenz Colito and for his participation in the hundreds of forced disappearances and brutal killings by Guatemalan security forces in the 1980’s. Garcia Arredondo has also been charged with participating in the 1980 Spanish Embassy burning in Guatemala, in addition to facing claims in Spain for terrorism, genocide and systematic torture.
Spanish Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Guatemalan Lieutenant Responsible for Dos Erres Massacre
Jorge Sosa Orantes, recently arrested in Canada, is charged with genocide, torture, terrorism and extrajudicial killing, in connection with CJA’s broader Guatemala Genocide Case. After his extradition he could face trial and be sentenced to 30 years in Spanish prison. In the 1982 Dos Erres massacre, more than 200 people, including women, children, and the elderly, were slaughtered.
Expert Witnesses Testify in the Guatemala Genocide Case
December 3rd, 2009
December 3rd, 2009
Judge Santiago Pedraz heard extraordinary testimony from Fredy Peccerelli, Director of the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG), on hundreds of exhumations conducted across Guatemala to unearth the remains of civilian victims killed in Guatemala during the 1980s. Peccerelli, who was brought into the case as an expert witness by CJA and the Spanish Association for Human Rights (APDHE), presented the Judge with a 900-page report analyzing 363 exhumations conducted by FAFG of victims killed between 1978 and 1984 in five municipalities in Guatemala. Peccerelli’s testimony supported the accounts of dozens of witnesses and survivors who have previously testified.
