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 husband,
disappeared guerrilla leader Efrafn
Bimaca Velisquez, over to the
courts [see Newsbrief, p. 2]. But
from a wider optic, her hunger
strike was a quiet success. In a
well-organized, focused campaign,
Harbury, an attorney and author,
was able to direct U.S. media and
government attention to Guate-
mala’s dismal human rights
record-something that U.S.
activists have been hard-pressed to
achieve.
Harbury’s action followed in the
footsteps of TransAfrica executive
director Randall Robinson’s equal-
ly successful hunger strike in the
spring. Robinson stopped eating for
27 days, in an attempt to pressure
the Clinton Administration to stop
the summary repatriation of Haitian
boat people. Randall’s media-inten-
sive hunger strike was a key factor
in the Administration’s decision in
May to redouble its efforts to dump
the military dictatorship.
Both Harbury and Robinson were
able to impact U.S. foreign policy
by taking advantage of the U.S.
media’s overvaluation of U.S.-
preferably prominent, middle-class
and professional-lives. As Nation
columnist Alexander Cockburn
once mordantly put it, in the calcu-
lus of the U.S. media, one dead,
raped U.S. nun equals 1,000 Sal-
vadoran peasants, and one U.S. net-
work TV reporter killed on camera
equals 30,000 Nicaraguan peasants.
Harbury and Robinson showed that
two hunger-striking U.S. profes-
sionals could garner more media
sympathy than the thousands of
ordinary Guatemalans and Haitians
slaughtered by their respective gov-
ernments. By putting their bodies
and lives on the line for their
beliefs, the two activists were able
to use this double standard to pres-
sure their government to take steps
that might benefit people without a
voice in U.S. policymaking circles.
Harbury camped out day and
night for over a month in
the plaza in front of the
National Palace in Guatemala City.
She insisted she would not eat until
the government handed her hus-
band over to the Guatemalan justice
system, as required by both interna-
tional law and the global human
rights accord signed in March by
the government and the
Guatemalan National Revolution-
ary Unity (URNG). She accuses the
army of holding B.maca in a clan-
destine detention center as part of
an indoctrination program to torture
captured rebels into becoming
long-term informants. Astutely,
Harbury demanded only that
Bdmaca be given a fair trial and not
that he be released.
Guatemalan activists rallied
behind Harbury. The Guatemalan
Mutual Support Group for Families
of the Disappeared (GAM) kept a
constant vigil with her in front of
the Palace. Hundreds of ordinary
Guatemalans, without the interna-
tional attention that protects Har-
bury, privately voiced their admira-
tion and gratitude for her actions.
They came by the palace with bot-
tles of water, flowers, and hand-
written notes of encouragement.
While Harbury’s campaign was
ostensibly directed toward the
Guatemalan State, her actions in
the final analysis were squarely
aimed at the United States. U.S.
Ambassador Marilyn McAfee,
notably cozy with Guatemalan offi-
cialdom, was pressured into asking
the Guatemalan government for
information about Bdmaca’s
whereabouts. National Security
Advisor Anthony Lake and Richard
Nuccio, the State Department’s
senior advisor on inter-American
affairs, made pilgrimages down to
Guatemala.
U.S. solidarity activists-coordi-
nated by the Washington-based
Guatemalan Human Rights Com-
mission-launched a sweeping
telephone and postcard campaign
directed at key officials in the U.S.
State Department, White House,
and U.S. Embassy in Guatemala.
Activists were encouraged to
demand that Guatemala’s trade
privileges be suspended until
human rights were respected.
Edmond Mulet, Guatemala’s
ambassador in Washington, was
besieged with telephone calls to his
office from U.S. solidarity activists,
prompting him to warn his govern-
ment that the negative publicity
might jeopardize Guatemala’s trade
benefits under the Generalized Sys-
tem of Preferences (GSP).
People Magazine, National Pub-
lic Radio and “60 Minutes” all
reported on the hunger strike. Even
the New York Times-as usual a
follower, not a leader on stories of
this type-ran two articles about
Harbury’s campaign.
Harbury ended her fast even
though the Guatemalan government
had not released Bdmaca, nor pro-
vided her with his body (they claim
that he died in battle). The U.S.
government did not impose trade
sanctions. Making the argument
that it routinely makes when it
serves its interests, the United
States says it believes in “evolu-
tion” where human rights are con-
cerned. Nonetheless, Harbury
should consider herself victorious.
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.
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