'Many forms of rights violations'.

Violence and disappearances were an alarming feature of the current scene in Guatemala, says a report on the situation of human rights in that country by Viscount Colville of Culross, a Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights (E/CN.4/1985/19). The report was reviewed by the Commission during its 1985 annual session held at Geneva from 4 February to 15 March.

"A great variety of people are affected, but members of political parties, staff and students at, particularly, the University of San Carlos and trade unionists are among the victims", the report said. "Whoever may be responsible, many forms of human rights violations are involved."

The Government, the report stated, should urgently seek to prevent those occurrences and to bring to justice those who had perpetrated such acts in the past. The three-man Commission charged with investigating disappearances should act with "full vigour" and should be given full cooperation, "not least from the DIT and BROE units of the police and the G2 unit of the army against whom many of the allegations are made". Families of the disappeared should supply the Commission--consisting of the Attorney-General, the minister of the Interior (Gobernacion) and the Vice-Minister of Defence--with all information in their possession.

Allegations about disappearances from various sources indicated four broad groups as being responsible: the security forces, the guerrillas, common criminals and "some types of private organizations consisting of police and military when off duty and/or right-wing political groups".

The report said "very many" refugees remained in Mexico and were in the process of being moved away from the immediate vicinity of the border. (In MArch 1984 there were 46,000 officially recognized refugees from Guatemala in Mexico.) A "certain number" of those refugees had returned to Guatemala and were being resettled. Smaller numbers, who showed little inclination to return, were to be found in Honduras and Belize. Internal refugees--displaced persons--continued to come out of hiding and were being resettled. Amnesties had been continued and were still current. About 8,000 persons had taken advantage of them since they were started. Refugees in all the surrounding countries, but particularly in Mexico, should be supplied with "full and trustworthy" information, on a continuing basis, about the situation in Guatemala. That would enable them freely to decide whether they wished to return to the country.

Not very many cases of violations of human rights in individual cases had been "cleared up", the report observed. An attempt was made to set up an organization called the Commission for Peace that might have played a useful part in helping to resolve allegations concerning those cases, but it had so far "completely failed to function". The Special Rapporteur recommended that the Commission--whose importance was its independence from government--should proceed with its task. The Constituent Assembly should be encouraged to set up an "autonomous and powerful" body to watch over the human rights situation and insist upon the investigation and "correction" of any violations.

Among the Special Rapporteur's recommendations were the following:

* The process of a return to a democratically elected Government should be given every support. The terms of the new Constitution should be drawn up so as to guarantee the range of human rights contained in the two International Covenants.

* The Constitution could, with advantage, ensure that positions of power and responsibility at every level of central and local Government would be in civilian hands. It should also establish independence for the judiciary.

* An improvement in the climate of violence was urgently needed if a wider range of political parties was to be persuaded to participate in the next elections. Parties of every political complexion should be encouraged to take part.

* Urgent consideration should be given to improve the working of the criminal courts.

* Trade union activity should be encouraged, protected and given due recognition "as a valuable contribution to the freedom of society".

[Guatemala said it was inadmissible that, although the Special Rapporteur had confirmed that there had been substantial improvements in human rights in Guatemala, he had not explicitly recognized those improvements in his conclusions. The prevailing spirit was one of condemnation and castigation, offensive to a country which had opted for democracy and the achievement of an honest improvement in the area of human rights.]