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MEDIA: Guatemalan Wins Press Freedom Award
By Stephen Leahy
TORONTO, Nov 7, 2003 (IPS) - A Guatemalan journalist awarded an international press freedom prize Thursday says the recognition will not change things in his country but might empower others to "reveal the truth".
Luis Alberto Perez Barillas won the 2003 International Press Freedom Award from the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) for his reporting on the alleged involvement of current senior government officials in the killings of 200,000 citizens between 1978 and 1984.
The award, which honours journalists who put themselves at great risk in pursuit of the news, comes days before Sunday's presidential elections in the Central American country.
Perez Barillas received the award, along with two others, at a banquet here with over 500 people mainly affiliated with the Canadian media and hosted by CJFE, an association of more than 400 journalists, students and others working to preserve and promote press freedom and freedom of expression in Canada and around the world.
''Receiving the award will not change things in Guatemala but it will empower others to continue to reveal the truth,'' Perez Barillas told IPS in an interview through a translator.
'It lets them know that there are people outside the country who are paying attention to what we say."
Perez Barillas is a radio and print reporter in the small town of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz department, 150 kms north of Guatemala City. One-quarter of it the town's mainly Mayan population was massacred during civil conflicts between 1981 and 1983.
The United Nations-sponsored truth commission, the Commission for Historical Clarification (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico - CEH) called it genocide against the Mayan people.
Last June Perez Barillas reported live on radio an extraordinary scene where hundreds of local people carrying exhumed coffins of their relatives confronted Gen Jose Efrain Rios Montt, who was the country's dictator in 1982.
Unbelievably, Rios Montt was holding a political rally the same day the town was holding a mass funeral for those who had "disappeared" during his rule. Although accused of killing up to 70,000 Guatemalans, Rios Montt heads the right-wing party FRG (Guatemalan Republican Front) and is running for president in Sunday's national election.
Perez Barillas's live reports and articles in the highest circulating national news daily, 'Prensa Libre', and its sister publication, 'Nuestro Diario', about the confrontation and subsequent riot drew national and international attention.
Not long after, the journalist's house was firebombed while he slept and members of his family threatened with death. He has been in hiding since July..
Perez Barillas had been previously threatened and beaten for reporting on rampant local corruption.
On Oct. 26 four other reporters from 'Prensa Libre' were kidnapped and beaten by former paramilitary fighters while on their way to cover another rally by Rios Montt, reported the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
The reporters were released after 50 hours. The CPJ considers Guatemala the most dangerous place for journalists in the Western Hemisphere.
There is a lot of overlap between crime and government in Guatemala, says Grahame Russell of Rights Action, formerly known as Guatemala Partners, a small non-governmental organisation (NGO) supporting land rights and human rights in Central America.
''Amnesty International calls is it a 'corporate mafia state'," adds Russell, whose organisation helped Perez Barillas hide and travel to Canada.
But it is the crimes of the past, such as the allegations against Rios Montt, which are most contentious. The U.N.-sponsored investigations have uncovered a great deal but those in power do not want the results publicised, says Russell.
''There's a fair amount of freedom of the press but few reporters are willing to name names."
Perez Barillas became a journalist after training as an accountant due to a strong desire to make the public aware of what was really going on in Guatemala.
"What most satisfies me (as a reporter) is that I can serve as a channel of communication for all of those people in my country who suffer poverty and repression, and who can't otherwise have their stories told."
Currently in Canada, he will be speaking at various events over the next few weeks. He does plan to return home and continue his work.
As for the national elections, Perez Barillas says: "I think that things will not change but I'm giving the elections the benefit of the doubt."
Xu Wei of China also received an International Press Freedom Award but it currently in prison. Xu, a recent college graduate and reporter with Xiaofei Ribao ('Consumer Daily') used the Internet to circulate articles related to political and social reform.
Arrested on Mar. 13, 2001 and held for two years, he was then sentenced to 10 years for putting two essays on the Internet - 'Be a New Citizen, Reform China' and 'What's to be Done?'
The Tara Singh Hayer Memorial Award, honouring Canadian journalists in the cause of press freedom, was awarded to Zahra Kazemi, a freelance photojournalist who was killed while in an Iranian jail last July.
Kazemi was arrested Jun. 23 outside a notorious Tehran prison for taking photos of the building's exterior. She suffered head injuries and died Jul. 10. An Iranian national security official is currently on trial for her death.
(END)
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