From Envio magazine via Mirada Global:
In the morning of the 15th of May 1984, young Carlos Cuevas Molina was riding his motorbike to the historical center of Guatemala City when he was intercepted by two cars driving against the traffic. Witnesses who recorded the license plates numbers saw how his body was beaten and disappeared behind the heavy doors of the police van. Nobody ever heard of his whereabouts. His wife, María Rosario Godoy, had no doubts about what his fate: “They will either bring Carlos back again or they’ll take me as well”. She was murdered on Holy Thursday the following year. The unprecedented cruelty of her captors was such that they even tortured her little boy who was barely two years old, in order to bring more suffering to one of the bravest women in Guatemala has ever had, and who has been recognized by the Latin American Church as Martyr of Fraternity.
The kidnapping of Carlos marked the beginning of a tragic week; between the 15th and the 21st of June of that year, other six members of the Asociación de Estudiantes Universitarios, of which he was the executive secretary, suffered the same fate....
Long and winding steps had to be overcome, one by one, in order to get to that morning of June 2nd. In the patio of the Plaza de la Paz (Peace Square), in the heart of the presidential palace, a democratically elected president, yet bound by the structures of power which have consolidated a State within a State for decades, got up from his chair to solemnly apologize to the families.
Also available in Spanish.
Tim Reidy
