Juan de Dios and witnesses to the Rio Negro massacres testified before the InterAmerican Court of Human Right in Costa Rica on June 19 and 20, 2012.
ADIVIMA director, Juan de Dios García, left, and their attorney in court.
A delegation of survivors from Rabinal attended the court hearings in Costa Rica while 500 watched the proceedings from ADIVIMA headquarters via video streaming.
Below are three heart-wrenching videos from the testimonies given during the trial at the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights
ADIVIMA demanded justice through the Guatemalan courts in spite of constant personal threats from the Guatemalan military and being labeled as terrorists.
First they demanded and succeeded in removing the military base near Pacux, then began exhumation of hundreds of mass graves. They demanded that the perpetrators be punished and the survivors compensated for their incredible losses.
The Guatemalan courts delayed action for years, punished a few lower level participants and refused to capture the intellectual authors at higher levels. All demands for basic services were ignored.
ADIVIMA took the case to the InterAmerican Human Rights Commission in Washington, D.C. in 2005.
After many years of investigation, the Commission referred the case to the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica in 2011.
In June of 2012 the case was heard and in September the Court ruled in ADIVIMA’s favor. The government, however, ignored the court’s demands.
Click on the document below to read a summary of the background information on the massacres written by the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights.
The Guatemalan government refused to comply with the Court’s orders to provide reparations as negotiated in 2010 and has been held in contempt of court.
In 2015 the government finally agreed to begin paying reparations which have allowed a number of families to build adequate homes.
But every new administration refuses to continue with the fulfillment of the Plan of Reparations. So now it is stalled.
Jesus Teco Osorio, one of the founders of ADIVIMA, was ten years old when the massacre of Rio Negro happened. The army and civil patrol members took him and seventeen other youngsters as slaves to work for them for several years.
Carlos Chen Osorio was an eye witness to the massacre of the women and children of Rio Negro including his wife and two children. He spent several years in the mountains with other survivors hiding from the army who was hunting them. He was the principal founder of ADIVIMA and is president of the Board of Directors.
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