NUN PLEADS FOR TRUTH ON GUATEMALA TORTURE
WASHINGTON TIMES
Monday, April 1, 1996
ASSOCIATED PRESS
With a graphic description of killing, torture and rape, a Roman Catholic nun from New Mexico launched a campaign yesterday demanding an end to secrecy about a U.S. role in repression in Guatemala.
"I was lowered into an open pit packed with human bodies .. . children, women and men, some decapitated, some lying face up and
caked with blood, some dead, some alive, and all swarming with rats:' said Sister Dianna Ortiz, describing a 1989 experience in the Central American country.
Sister Ortiz's voice broke as she recounted how her torturers held her hand to the handle of a machete being used to slash a woman, how blood was "spurting like a water fountain" from the woman and how "my screams [were] lost in the cries of the woman."
The 36-year-old nun then sobbingly halted her speech to an audience of about 250 people at Lafayette Square. opposite the White House. It was completed by Pat Davis of the sponsoring Guatemala Human Rights Commission-CSA, which lists a score of U.S. citizens affected by state-sponsored violence in Guatemala.
The nun vowed to appear at the park daily in a silent vigil until the government declassifies all U.S. information about human rights abuses in Guatemala since 1954 and releases full results of an investigation by the Intelligence Oversight Board into U.S. activities in Guatemala. Her demand was strongly backed by Amnesty International USA and Mrs. Jennifer K. Harbury, a friend of the nun's and the widow of a Guatemalan guerrilla leader.
The scene was reminiscent of Mrs. Harbury's hunger strike at
Lafayette Square last year. Mrs. Harbury had demanded information on the fate of her husband.
Sister Ortiz, from Grants, N.M. said she was abducted while teaching young Guatemalan children in November 1989.
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