[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 58 (Wednesday, March 29, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4755-S4756]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    CIA LINKS TO GUATEMALAN MURDERS

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am deeply troubled by new information 
reported in the New York Times and elsewhere linking the CIA to those 
responsible for the murders of United States citizen Michael DeVine and 
Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, the Guatemalan husband of United States 
citizen Jennifer Harbury. At this point, we do not have all the facts 
necessary to get a full picture of what occurred, but these preliminary 
reports raise serious questions.
  For most of the last 30 years, systematic human rights violations 
have been committed with impunity against Guatemalan civilians. The 
political repression and deplorable practices of the Guatemalan 
military--extrajudicial killings, political kidnappings, and death 
threats--have taken the lives of at least 100,000 citizens since the 
early 1980's.
  It is because of Guatemala's miserable human rights record that I 
have closely followed the cases involving U.S. citizens, including the 
case of Jennifer Harbury's husband and Michael Devine. Over the last 2 
years, I have taken several steps to find information regarding the 
whereabouts and status of Mr. Bamaca, Mr. DeVine and others who have 
disappeared or been murdered in Guatemala. I have written letters or 
inquiry to the President, the National Security Council, and to the 
President of Guatemala, Ramiro De Leon Carpio, expressing my concern 
with these cases. Last year, I also introduced legislation urging the 
need for greater protection of human rights in Guatemala.
  Throughout these efforts, and specifically on the case of Jennifer 
Harbury, I have been told that every attempt was being made to 
investigate her case, so that she could finally know the fate of her 
husband. Likewise, Congress has pressed time and again to resolve the 
questions surrounding the killing of Michael DeVine, an American 
innkeeper who was brutally murdered in Guatemala in 1990.
  And now it is being reported that a Guatemalan Army colonel linked to 
the deaths of Michael Devine and Jennifer Harbury's husband was, in 
fact, employed by the CIA and twice trained by the United States Army.
  According to Thomas Stroock, who served as United States Ambassador 
to Guatemala from 1989 til 1992, our Embassy, having investigated Mr. 
DeVine's murder, came to the conclusion that Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez 
was behind it. Reportedly, Ambassador Stroock then told his staff at 
the Embassy that they were to have nothing more to do with the colonel. 
Nonetheless, reports indicate that the CIA station chief in Guatemala 
keep Col. Alpirez on the payroll for nearly 2 more years. The reports 
go on to indicate that much later the CIA, in 1992, paid Alpirez a lump 
sum of $44,000 for intelligence work done for the Agency, nearly 46 
times the average yearly income in Guatemala. If these reports are 
true, it is difficult to understand how and why the policy carried out 
by the CIA was so clearly at odds with the policy established years 
earlier by the U.S. Ambassador. How could the CIA justify providing 
U.S. taxpayer dollars to this criminal? And whom did the CIA station 
chief answer to, if not the U.S. Ambassador?
  The Clinton administration must continue to push the Guatemalan 
Government to prosecute Alpirez and any others who were involved in 
these murders. And if the reports I have described here are true, the 
CIA must be held accountable for their deeply troubling involvement.
  It is equally of concern to me that Col. Alpirez evidently oversaw 
the killing of Michael DeVine just 6 months after Alpirez had graduated 
from an elite course for senior officers at the School of the Americas, 
a U.S. Army School in Fort Benning, GA. It was the second time that 
U.S. taxpayers paid to train Col. Alpirez, who evidently then went on 
to thank this country by ordering the murder of one of our own 
citizens.
  [[Page S4756]] It remains unclear how long and for what reasons the 
CIA knew information related to the fate of Jennifer Harbury's husband, 
and withheld it from those within the administration who had explicitly 
sought it.
  Serious questions have been raised about the CIA's involvement in 
both of these cases, and a full accounting is in order. Congressman 
Torricelli, in making information related to these cases public, has 
said, ``This is the single worst example of the intelligence community 
being beyond civilian control and operating against our national 
interest.''
  A central United States objective in Guatemala is to contribute to an 
improved human rights environment in that troubled nation. If the 
reports of recent days are true, then clearly the CIA has failed to 
embrace this goal and may, in fact, be part of the problem in 
Guatemala. Mr. President, Congress and the taxpayers deserve answers to 
all of these questions.


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