Cathedral of Guatemala City © Elisabeth Schomaker (KNA)
He was the most important investigator of the civil war crimes in Guatemala. Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi had to die for it. He was cruelly murdered. The judiciary has not yet managed a comprehensive clarification.
The murderers had been waiting for him. When Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera drove into the garage of his rectory in the center of Guatemala City late at night and got out, they hit him with a heavy stone, again and again – so much so that he could later only be identified by his bishop's ring.
20 years ago, on 26. April 1998, Bishop Gerardi died in his own blood – as a martyr for human rights. To this day, the murder has not been fully solved – because the wheels of justice grind according to their own laws in Guatemala.
REMHI report
Just two days before the cowardly murder, the bishop had presented his famous documentary "Never Again" (Nunca mas) to the public in the capital's cathedral. In this report on the "Recovery of Historical Memory" (REMHI), 50.000 of the more than 200.000 human rights crimes from Guatemala's 36-year civil war documented. Gerardi named horse and rider – signing his own death warrant.
The REMHI report indicates that more than 90 percent of the killings were attributed to the army, paramilitaries and civilian patrols. According to the report, the guerrillas were responsible for about 9 percent of the deaths. For the highland province of Quiche alone, the report cites 31 percent of the population during the civil war.400 arrests, 13.728 dead, 2.157 "disappeared", 3.207 cases of torture and 4.039 assassinations. Most victims are still waiting for compensation.
Open wound in Guatemala's church
Crime is an open wound in Guatemala's church. For only those who did the dirty work were in prison: Military leaders Byron Disrael Lima Estrada (released in 2012), his son Byron Lima Oliva (murdered in prison in July 2016) and Jose Obdulio Villanueva (murdered in prison in 2003) were each sentenced to 30 years in prison, and priest Mario Orantes, who had shared ministry with Gerardi in his San Sebastian parish, was sentenced to 20 years; he was released in January 2013 – for good behavior.
With Orantes, at least one priest, very probably even a second one – the late Prelate Efrain Hernandez – was involved in the murder. From the day of the crime, rumors were spread, ranging from a "crime of passion" among homosexuals to murder plans within the church truth commission.
Even in church circles there were rumors and doubts. The informants from supposedly "well-informed circles" always achieved their goal of insecurity and defamation.
A trial against 13 military officers, who are suspected of being behind the murder, is still pending. Her persecution drags on at a cripplingly slow pace in a country that continues to be marked by violence even after the end of the civil war. In many streets of the capital, drug lords set the tone and decide over life and death; the vast majority of perpetrators remain unchallenged.
Move by John Paul II. without effect
In August 2017, it was reported Hollywood star George Clooney (56) was acting as producer and narrator on a documentary about Gerardi's assassination. Meanwhile, Guatemala's church is trying, under difficult conditions, to continue Gerardi's reconciliation work to overcome the civil war: for example, with truth commissions at the local level, where countless villages were razed to the ground during the civil war and people disappeared by the thousands.
Many survivors of the violence have not spoken until today. The traumas of torture, murder and rape run too deep – or the mistrust of those neighbors who were among the perpetrators at the time runs too deep.
A move by Pope John Paul II. remained without effect in the end.
He appointed the brother of the "butcher of the Indians," dictator Efrain Rios Montt, of all people, to succeed the murdered Gerardi as auxiliary bishop of the capital. But even the Lazarist Father Mario Enrique Rios Montt (86) could not prevent his brother from remaining unmolested until his death on Easter Sunday 2018.