Eight rights activists killed last year in Guatemala.
| Autor | Reynolds, Louisa |
One of the most high-profile human rights killings in Guatemala during the past year was the abduction of sociologist Emilia Quan, was who found dead last December.
"Happy, jovial, creative, and intelligent" is how co-workers describe 33-year-old sociologist Emilia Margarita Quan Stackmann, who was found dead on Dec. 8, 2010, in an area known as La Cruz de Canalix, between the municipalities of Chiantla and San Juan Ixcoy, in the northern department of Huehuetenango.
Quan had worked for the Centro de Estudios y Documentacion de la Frontera Occidental de Guatemala (CEDFOG) for five months when she was kidnapped together with her driver Victor Manuel Palacios on Dec. 7.
A report by the Juzgado de Paz, in the municipality of Barillas, said Quan and her driver were travelling in a Toyota Land Cruiser when they were stopped at 7 a.m. by armed men between the village of Paquix, Chiantla, and San Juan Ixcoy.
Palacios was later found alive--beaten and with his hands tied behind his back--close to Quan's body. He says that two heavily armed men got into the car and abducted them without giving any details on why they were being kidnapped.
As soon as the kidnapping was reported to the Policia Nacional Civil (PNC), a roadblock was set up in an area known as La Blockera, at the entrance to Barillas.
At 11:30 a.m., the police stopped a vehicle with the same characteristics as the one in which Quan was reportedly travelling. Two men were forced to step out: 36-year-old Evelio Aristides Rivas, who was arrested, and 18-year-old Jorge Hernan Lopez, who managed to escape.
Both men came from the departmental capital of Huehuetenango, and Rivas had a criminal record that included grievous bodily harm, drug trafficking, illegal possession of firearms, and property damage.
Lopez was later detained in Barillas and transferred to the municipality of Santa Eulalia because of fear that locals would attempt to lynch him, as word of Quan's abduction had already spread like wildfire. However, these efforts proved futile, as a furious mob of around 2,500 villagers stopped the police vehicle, forced the helpless agents to hand him over, and then set him on fire.
Three hours later, the mob, armed with machetes and sticks, gathered in front of the Barillas police station, where Rivas was detained, dragged him out, and lynched him.
To date, the Huehuetenango police insist that Quan's abductors were trying to steal the Land Cruiser, not to kidnap Quan. "This wasn't a...
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