Feature Story: Fighting for Truth and Justice in Guatemala
By: Sean O’Brien
Assistant Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights
The night they killed the bishop – April 26, 1998 – Mario Domingo knew that his own life would never be the same.
Just 48-hours before, Domingo—currently a student enrolled in Notre Dame’s LL.M. (master of laws) program in international human rights law at the Center for Civil and Human Rights (CCHR)—had been in the National Cathedral in Guatemala City with the bishop, Monsignor Juan Gerardi. Bishop Gerardi was the director of the Archbishop’s Office of Human Rights in Guatemala (ODHA) and the occasion was the official release of the landmark report “Guatemala: Never Again!” The report contained the testimonies of thousands of Guatemalans, detailing in their own words the impact of decades of state-sponsored killings, disappearances, and torture. At the time, Domingo served as director of ODHA’s legal team.
To the thousands in attendance— including current CCHR Director Douglass Cassel (an international observer sent by the American Bar Association)—Bishop Gerardi announced, “We are collecting the people’s memories because we want to contribute to the construction of a different country. This path was and continues to be full of risks, but the construction of the Kingdom of God entails risks, and only those who have the strength to confront those risks can be its builders.”
Two nights later, the Bishop was found dead in his garage, bludgeoned to death by a chunk of concrete. “I knew immediately that it was a political crime, an assassination meant to send a message of fear to the Guatemalan people” recalls Domingo.
But the message – and the dozens of death threats which followed – was also directed at Domingo and the rest of the ODHA staff. Domingo, however, stayed focused on the bishop’s message to seek truth as a means of building the “Kingdom of God.” In the investigation and trials that would follow, he represented the Catholic Church as a co-plaintiff (Guatemalan law allows private lawyers to serve as “co-prosecutors” in criminal cases.).
Domingo’s focus paid off. Despite the murder of more than 10 individuals associated with the case and the exile of an even greater number of witnesses, prosecutors and judges, Domingo’s skilled and courageous lawyering resulted in the conviction of three military officers for their roles in the bishop’s murder. The officers were linked to the feared “Estado Mayor Presidencial” – the Guatemalan Presidential Guard.
The convictions were a historic first: until then, no military officers had ever been convicted for human rights atrocities in Guatemala.
Novelist Francisco Goldman covered Domingo and the trial of the military officers for New Yorker magazine in 1998. He has since published an acclaimed book on the trial titled “The Art of Political Murder.” Reflecting on Domingo, Goldman says “No one exemplifies more than he the courage and tenacity of those who have fought to achieve justice in this case, as well as the profoundest conviction about the importance of strengthening and fighting for the rule of law in Guatemala’s emerging democracy.”
After graduating in May, Domingo will return to Guatemala to continue the fight for truth and justice. “Ten years after the bishop’s killing, the intellectual authors of the crime remain free,” says Domingo. “The truth about their role in the killing must be told.”
