Impunity - Guatemala

IMPUNITY-GUATEMALA WHEREAS the Guatemalan news media remains under threat, as evidenced over the past six months by the bombings, murder of journalists and other equally serious incidents that have put at risk the investigation into unpunished crimes against journalists and in general the practice of independent journalism the Guatemalan judiciary has extended the deadline for submission of evidence in the Carpio Nicolle case since 1980 successive Guatemalan governments have not conducted any investigation into the case of journalist Irma Flaquer, kidnapped and presumably murdered in October 1980, and the present government has not responded to an IAPA request for an investigation the pending Guatemalan peace agreements will take into account a proposallikely to result in a general amnesty for those who committed crimes against humanity before a certain date THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to ask judicial authorities to provide adequate support and security so that all new facts about the Carpio Nicolle case can be presented in court to call upon the government of Alvaro Arzú to take all possible steps to stop the acts of violence against journaiists and create aclimate conducive to the investigation of unpunished crimes against journalists to urge the Guatemalan government to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation into the disappearance and presumed death of Irma Flaquer and to take all possible steps to locate her body to ask the peace process negotiators not to endorse any amnesty that would allow the killers and those behind the murders of journaiists to go unpunished.