A NUN CONFRONTS HER TORTURE
Ortiz, Sister Dianna
A Nun Confronts Her Torture BY SISTER DIANNA ORTIZ Today, on Palm Sunday, I begin my silent vigil for truth in front of the White House—the truth about my own case, and the truth about all those...
...I received an answer almost two months later, and it was the same as all the other "answers" have been in the past six years: We sympathize with your suffering...
...Former Defense Minister General Hector Gramajo said that these remarks origin nated in the U.S...
...Who is AWftfao, the US...
...But my torturers put their hands onto the handle, on top of mine...
...I have struggled with so many others, for so very long, to bring the truth to light, but this blanket of lies remains, thick and heavy, nailed down by the U.S...
...A Nun Confronts Her Torture BY SISTER DIANNA ORTIZ Today, on Palm Sunday, I begin my silent vigil for truth in front of the White House—the truth about my own case, and the truth about all those Guatemalans who have suffered and died at the hands of the officially sponsored death squads...
...government, stamped classified...
...Two days ago, a white envelope was left at my home...
...My back and my chest were burned more than 111 times with cigarettes...
...Sister Dianna^Ortiz, a staff member of the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission U.S.A., (202) 529-6599, kept a vigil from March 31 to May 6, when she sued ike U.S...
...And so the torture of silence continues...
...He then escorted me into a gray Suzuki jeep, and in poor, heavily accented Spanish, he told me that he was going to take me to a safe haven, the U.S...
...My experience is a daily occurrence in Guatemala...
...I appreciate the efforts of some government officials who are spending long hours making sure this investigation is thorough...
...We need and demand this information so that we can heal our wounds, bury our dead, and carry on with our lives...
...Some steps have been taken...
...He made it very clear that he had been given a videotape and photographs that would incriminate me of crimes that I was forced to participate in...
...Hundreds of people vanished...
...I was lowered into an open pit packed with human bodies—bodies of children, women and men, some decapitated, some lying face up and caked with blood, some dead, some alive—and all swarming with rats...
...For those of us who know and love Guatemala, it is painfully clear that our own United States government has been closely linked to these death squads, and has a great amount of detailed information about those of us who have survived, as well as those of us who have perished...
...I was forced to use it against another human being...
...What I remember is blood gushing—spurting like a water fountain, droplets of blood splattering everywhere—and my screams lost in the cries of the woman...
...He claimed it was a case of mistaken identity...
...Even to this day, I can smell the decomposing bodies, disposed of in an open pit...
...For a long time I received death threats, then was abducted from the backyard of a church retreat by members of the Guatemalan security forces...
...I demand the right to heal...
...The total death toll may never be known...
...At this point, he switched to English, which he spoke with a distinct, completely American accent...
...For you see, I was handed a machete...
...When will the truth be exhumed...
...The army's counter-insurgency campaign has left an estimated 150,000 dead and another 45,000 disappeared, victims of the dreaded official death squads...
...I can see the blood gushing out of the woman's body as I thrust a small machete into her...
...government for release of documents about her case...
...I will now maintain my silence, not a silence of complicity or cover-up, but a silence of commemoration for the thousands of known and unknown victims and survivors who have been abducted, tortured, assassinated, and disappeared in Guatemala in the past three decades...
...Iwas teaching young children in Guatemala to read and write and to understand the Bible in respect to their culture...
...District Attorney's Office (Department of Justice) had also launched an investigation, six years too late...
...embassy...
...courts...
...I demand that President Clinton declassify all U.S...
...government protecting him...
...Thinking it would be used against me, and at that point in my torture, wanting to die, I did not resist...
...Guatemalan army officials accused me of staging my own abduction, said that my torture was a hoax and that I burned my own back during a lesbian love affair...
...Their mutilated, charred remains are only now beginning to emerge from secret mass graves...
...I demand the right to a resurrection, a future built on truth and justice...
...A year ago, President Clinton issued a government-wide investigation of cases of U.S...
...Most of these violations were visited upon the Mayan population...
...On behalf of all of us...
...This is the text of the speech she save at&ie start other vigil...
...How many other Alejan-dros are there out there, supervising the torture of innocent people...
...He also made it a point to tell me that he could release the footage to the public and to the press...
...I want to know who Alejandro was...
...After Alejandro spoke to me of forgiving my torturers, I asked him what would happen to the other people I heard screaming and saw tortured before my eyes...
...He claimed it was an honest mistake...
...I understand that this type of investigation cannot be concluded overnight, but what I do not understand is this attitude of secrecy...
...He refused to answer, but asked why I wanted to know...
...I was tortured and raped repeatedly...
...As he did, I asked him if he was a North American...
...In spite of the memories of humiliation, of the pit, that this form of psychological torture recalled, I stand with the Guatemalan people...
...ambassador himself had "assured" him that Ortiz was "well" and that she had not been abducted and tortured but simply "had problems with her nerves...
...I will not be alone on this vigil, for I know that those who have lost their lives or their beloved family members and the thousands who have been tortured will be with me in spirit...
...As President Clinton and his Administration sleep peacefully, many of us fight to stay awake-—to protect ourselves from the recurring visits from our torturers...
...He is a pivotal piece of my past and3fc,symbol of the very real and daily fact Of my continuing torture—the torture of silemee and secrecy...
...I can only respond with a^fcestkra: How long will the U.S...
...I asked him how they could have mistaken me for a woman who did not resemble me in any way...
...He kept telling me to forgive my torturers, insinuating that I was to blame for my torture because I had not paid heed to the threats that were sent to me...
...He avoided my questions...
...How much longer must I wait...
...A short time later I learned the U.S...
...Like a knight in shining armor, Alejandro seemingly came to my rescue...
...He helped me on with my clothes...
...He told me not to concern myself with them and to forget what had happened...
...The content of the envelope—which had no return address, an old address for me glued to the front, and a green stamp that said care-mail—was something unexpected: either dog or human waste...
...More than two a week are tortured...
...And I had no choice...
...Last April, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request, and as of today, I have not received one shred of paper pertaining to my case, nor have I been given anything that I consider of any value...
...Likewise Lew Anselem, the human-rights officer at the embassy, told a Congressional aide at a cocktail party at the American embassy in December 1990 that my abduction and torture were the result of a lesbian love affair gone bad...
...After hours of torture, I was returned to the room where the interrogation initially occurred...
...He kept telling me in his broken Spanish that he was sorry about what had happened to me...
...A candle will burn day and night as a reminder to President Clinton and his Administration that there is a presence in the park—a presence that represents those victims and survivors whose flame will never die...
...I want out of this nightmare, out of this past, out of this room with Alejandro and my torturers...
...The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS has my case and many others under its consideration...
...The key is the truth...
...I believe this was an obvious threat...
...What about in the United States...
...Why is the U.S...
...A judgment for damages was entered against General Gramajo in the U.S...
...I demand the right to know...
...Like so many Guatemalan victims, I have lived through the agony of not being believed, of being branded a crazy person or even a liar...
...citizen present at my torfgfe...
...The scope of this investigation included my case and that of other Coalition "Missing" members...
...A year has gone by, and I'm not any closer to learning the truth behind the nightmare of November 2, 1989...
...I pleaded with him for declassification...
...Why were the threatening letters I had received addressed to Madre Dianna and not to Veronica Ortiz Hernandez...
...Gramajo told La Republica on April 17 that the U.S...
...We're investigating...
...Like the people of Guatemala, I want to be free of these memories...
...embassy, to talk to a friend who would help me leave the country...
...I want ihe full truth about Guatemala...
...Alejandro cursed in unmistakable American English and ordered them to stop the torture, since I was a North American nun and my disappearance had become public...
...Some 440 Mayan villages were wiped off the map...
...IPeople ask how long I will be in front of till White House...
...In an earlier torture session, the men had said that if I didn't cooperate, they would have to turn over a videotape and photographs they had made of me to Alejandro, their boss...
...government information related to human-rights abuses in Guatemala, from 1954 to the present, and that the Intelligence Oversight Board release the full text of its report, not just a summary...
...I cannot forget those who suffered with me and died in that clandestine prison...
...The torture continues on a more active level, as well...
...They took me to a clandestine prison where other Guatemalans were being horribly tortured...
...govern-dMt keep the truth from me...
...citizens abused, killed, or disappeared in Guatemala since 1984...
...Was he a CIA agent...
...On February 7, I wrote to President Clinton, outlining how the experience of torture continues to affect me, even now...
...Alejandro told me to forgive my torturers because they had confused me with Veronica Ortiz Hernandez, the woman in the photos I was shown during my interrogation...
...It was in this room that I met Alejandro, a tall man with a light complexion...
...Alejandro professed that he was concerned about the people of Guatemala and consequently was working to liberate them from communism...
...As my torturers began to rape me again, my torturers said to him in Spanish, "Hey, Alejandro, come and have some fun...
...The memories of what I witnessed and experienced that November day haunt me day and night...
...For the duration of the trip, I spoke to him in English, which he understood perfectly...
...I can hear the piercing screams of other people being tortured...
...The truth, in Guatemala, is beginning to be unearthed...
...W^need and demand this information so tbSt we can insist on change, insist that tbf se terrible realities never be repeated...
...More than six people a week, on average, are killed for political reasons...
...This staggering death toll is far higher than that of the dirty wars in Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador...
Vol. 60 • June 1996 • No. 6
