HARBURY LINKS ARMY OFFICERS TO BISHOP'S MURDER

Guatemala City, June 27. In the midst of snail-paced investigations into
the assassination of Monsignor Juan Jose Gerardi, U.S. lawyer Jennifer
Harbury has dropped a bombshell that has the Guatemalan military scrambling
for cover.

In a press conference in Washington two day ago, Harbury -- widow of
guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez who was allegedly captured and
killed by the Guatemalan military in 1992 -- declared that she has
information on who may have killed the elderly cleric. She accuses 23
military officers who she says make up the notorious death squad Jaguar
Justiciero, or Jaguar of Justice.

Harbury takes as a starting point for her charges a letter delivered
recently to a mayoral candidate in Chimaltenango province. In it, the
letter's authors threaten the candidate with death and also claim
responsibility for Gerardi's murder. "JJ -- Jaguar Justiciero" appears at
the bottom.

"Given the Jaguars' desire to claim credit, I decided to give them full
credit in person," Harbury explained in a message to her supporters.

According to Harbury, the names of the officers she identified were
provided by a witness who she said "was for many years in close contact
with this death squad" and whose "information is first hand." Harbury
refused to identify the informant, citing concern for his safety.

"These military people... either murdered Bishop Gerardi or they know who
did," she said in the conference. "And they have much to say about many
many other victims as well."

Guatemalans working on the Gerardi case seem to agree. Case prosecutor Otto
Ardon said he would investigate each man on the list, and called on the
army to provide their service records. "I don't rule out the possibility of
contacting Harbury to ask for more information," he added.

But the army denies the list of names has any validity, pointing to the
death four years ago of one of the officers named as proof. "It's
astonishing that these declarations stain the memory of Maj. Carlos
Cardenas Sagastume, who died tragically June 16, 1994," a statement by the
Army Department of Information (DIDE) reads. Nonetheless, army officials
did provide minimal information on some of the other men, saying that three
are with military intelligence, five are without assignment, and five are
posted at different bases and institutions. Two captains could not be
identified, DIDE stated.

In response to Harbury's accusations, President Alvaro Arzu said only,
"Unfortunately, that's the way democracy is. Anyone can say what they
think, whether they're right or not."

A number of the named officers are not new to the Guatemalan public. The
news magazine Cronica reported two years ago that Col. Edgar Ricardo
Bustamonte Figueroa and Lt. Col. Guillermo Oliva Carrera -- who is
currently facing charges for the 1990 murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack
- -- worked for G2 military intelligence under the last three governments,
and that Bustamonte had headed the notorious Archives branch of the
Presidential Military Guard (EMP) during the Ramiro de Leon administration.
Human rights groups say that during the civil war the Archives was the
nerve center of the state's repressive apparatus in the capital.

In anonymous memos, the phantom group "For the Reclaiming of the Guatemalan
Army" (PREGUA) has linked six others on the list to assassinations and
other crimes.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)