June 19 and 20, 2012 Public Hearing before the Inter American Court on Human Rights San José, Costa Rica

CASE: Guatemala - Río Negro / Chixoy Dam Massacres

ADIVIMA -- ASOCIACION PARA EL DESARROLLO INTEGRAL DE LAS VICTIMAS DE LA VIOLENCIA EN LAS VERAPACES MAYA ACHI) [Association for the Comprehensive Development of the Maya Achi Victims of Violence in Alta and Baja Verapaz]

COMMUNICATES THE FOLLOWING:

From 1980 to 1985, using a scorched earth policy, those who governed Guatemala, Fernando Romeo Lucas García and General José Efraín Ríos Montt carried out acts of genocide against the Maya Achi civilian population in the Rio Negro village in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz. With the deployment of the national armed forces and the civil self-defense patrols from the Xococ village (in the same municipality), they sought to annihilate the civilian population in the village of Rio Negro.

To date, the Guatemalan State has protected the intellectual authors of these crimes against humanity by not bringing the criminals to justice, despite the obligation to do so in a court order issued in 2003. In this context, in the year 2005, the survivors and families of the victims of the massacre filed a complaint before the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. The complaint demonstrated that the acts were committed by state forces and showed the systematic manner in which the Guatemalan State has been shielding the intellectual authors of the crime. In October 2010, the Commission brought the case before the Inter American Court for Human Rights.

The Inter American Court of Human Rights programmed a hearing on this case for the 19th and 20th of June in order to have a better understanding of the serious violations of fundamental human rights that were committed, such as: 1. Right to Juridical Personality; 2. Right to Life; 3. Right to Personal Integrity; 4. Right to Personal Liberty; 5. Right to Due Process; 6. Right to Having Honor Respected and Dignity Recognized; 7.Right to Protection of the Family; 8. Right to a Name; 9. Rights of the Child; 10. Right to Access to Justice; and the rights established by the American Convention on Human Rights.

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In the light of this development, the survivors and families of the victims of the Rio Negro Massacres make the following requests:

1. To the international community and the media: inviting them to accompany this legal action, in the struggle to make justice prevail. There should be punishment for those individuals who, acting on behalf of the Guatemalan State in the implementation of National Security Doctrine, have intentionally violated the legal norms that protect life and human dignity, and thus share direct responsibility for the destruction of the Maya Achi civilian population in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz.

2. To Justice Officials in Guatemala: to ensure their objectivity in the trials against the individuals responsible for these horrific acts, in order to guarantee that history will not be repeated and that social peace can be reached.

3. To the Guatemalan Government: asking for the acknowledgement of State responsibility and the detention of Colonel José Antonio Solares González in compliance with the 2003 court order issued against him.

4. To national and international human rights, peasant, indigenous, environmental and labor organizations, and the general population: we ask for accompaniment and observance. We ask that you join us in the demand for the respect of human rights in Guatemala.

FOR JUSTICE, PEACE AND RECONCILIATION

Rabinal, Baja Verapaz , June 14, 2012