Taking Note
DM
One Woman Against State-Sponsored Terror On November 11, 1994, U.S. citizen Jennifer Harbury called off her 32-day hunger strike. In the end, Harbury failed to get the military to turn her...
...media and government attention to Guatemala's dismal human rights record-something that U.S...
...Working closely with Guatemalan human rights groups, she cast intense scrutiny on continuing repression in Guatemala, and gave Central American solidarity activists a reawakened sense of mission and purpose...
...They came by the palace with bottles of water, flowers, and handwritten notes of encouragement...
...The U.S...
...media, one dead, raped U.S...
...Hundreds of ordinary Guatemalans, without the international attention that protects Harbury, privately voiced their admiration and gratitude for her actions...
...While Harbury's campaign was ostensibly directed toward the Guatemalan State, her actions in the final analysis were squarely aimed at the United States...
...In a well-organized, focused campaign, Harbury, an attorney and author, was able to direct U.S...
...government did not impose trade sanctions...
...The Guatemalan Mutual Support Group for Families of the Disappeared (GAM) kept a constant vigil with her in front of the Palace...
...Activists were encouraged to demand that Guatemala's trade privileges be suspended until human rights were respected...
...solidarity activists-coordinated by the Washington-based Guatemalan Human Rights Commission-launched a sweeping telephone and postcard campaign directed at key officials in the U.S...
...solidarity activists, prompting him to warn his government that the negative publicity might jeopardize Guatemala's trade benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP...
...Harbury ended her fast even though the Guatemalan government had not released Bdmaca, nor provided her with his body (they claim that he died in battle...
...professionals could garner more media sympathy than the thousands of ordinary Guatemalans and Haitians slaughtered by their respective governments...
...Guatemalan activists rallied behind Harbury...
...activists have been hard-pressed to achieve...
...Ambassador Marilyn McAfee, notably cozy with Guatemalan officialdom, was pressured into asking the Guatemalan government for information about Bdmaca's whereabouts...
...Robinson stopped eating for 27 days, in an attempt to pressure the Clinton Administration to stop the summary repatriation of Haitian boat people...
...Making the argument that it routinely makes when it serves its interests, the United States says it believes in "evolution" where human rights are concerned...
...She insisted she would not eat until the government handed her husband over to the Guatemalan justice system, as required by both international law and the global human rights accord signed in March by the government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG...
...policymaking circles...
...Harbury camped out day and night for over a month in the plaza in front of the National Palace in Guatemala City...
...Harbury's action followed in the footsteps of TransAfrica executive director Randall Robinson's equally successful hunger strike in the spring...
...People Magazine, National Public Radio and "60 Minutes" all reported on the hunger strike...
...State Department, White House, and U.S...
...Astutely, Harbury demanded only that Bdmaca be given a fair trial and not that he be released...
...foreign policy by taking advantage of the U.S...
...Both Harbury and Robinson were able to impact U.S...
...Nonetheless, Harbury should consider herself victorious...
...National Security Advisor Anthony Lake and Richard Nuccio, the State Department's senior advisor on inter-American affairs, made pilgrimages down to Guatemala...
...nun equals 1,000 Salvadoran peasants, and one U.S...
...But from a wider optic, her hunger strike was a quiet success...
...Even the New York Times-as usual a follower, not a leader on stories of this type-ran two articles about Harbury's campaign...
...media's overvaluation of U.S.preferably prominent, middle-class and professional-lives...
...Edmond Mulet, Guatemala's ambassador in Washington, was besieged with telephone calls to his office from U.S...
...In the end, Harbury failed to get the military to turn her husband, disappeared guerrilla leader Efrafn Bimaca Velisquez, over to the courts [see Newsbrief, p. 2...
...network TV reporter killed on camera equals 30,000 Nicaraguan peasants...
...Embassy in Guatemala...
...She accuses the army of holding B.maca in a clandestine detention center as part of an indoctrination program to torture captured rebels into becoming long-term informants...
...By putting their bodies and lives on the line for their beliefs, the two activists were able to use this double standard to pressure their government to take steps that might benefit people without a voice in U.S...
...Randall's media-intensive hunger strike was a key factor in the Administration's decision in May to redouble its efforts to dump the military dictatorship...
...Harbury and Robinson showed that two hunger-striking U.S...
...As Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn once mordantly put it, in the calculus of the U.S...
Vol. 28 • January 1995 • No. 4
