The rally in support of Garzón. Photo Reuters.

Thousands of protesters, led a group of prominent writers, actors, and activists, took to the streets in Madrid this weekend to express their indignation at the persecution of Judge Baltasar Garzón. Meanwhile, an increasing number of judicial and human-rights experts in Spain and elsewhere fear that the three Supreme Court cases against the judge are having a devastating effect on the worldwide fight against impunity, victims’ rights, and the reputation of Spain’s judicial system. For extensive English-language coverage, see Giles Tremlett in the Guardian, the BBC, and the Associated Press,

Exactly one year after the release of our film Granito: How To Nail A Dictator at the Sundance Film Festival, the ex-dictator of Guatemala, General Efraín Ríos Montt, was brought up on charges of genocide in a Guatemalan court and placed under house arrest.

The culmination of decades of work by human rights advocates, forensic scientists and survivors of the Guatemalan genocide forced former dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt to appear in court Thursday after 30 years of impunity, for a hearing to decide whether there was enough evidence to take him to trial on charges of genocide.  This was a major event in Guatemala with hundreds of Maya people coming down from the highlands to gather in front of the courthouse, holding a candle vigil for the their murdered family members.

The prosecution spent hours presenting overwhelming evidence in the form of military documents,  exhumation reports, photos and footage from our film Granito: How To Nail A Dictator, linking Ríos Montt directly to hundreds of deaths and disappearances. Surviving family members, Ixil Maya in traditional dress, crowded the standing room only courtroom in stunned silence. Some wept. Outside the courthouse, in an open area now named Human Rights Plaza, hundreds more watched the proceedings on a huge screen.

The defense argued that Ríos Montt did not have command responsibility over his Army officers in the highlands, and that he was not responsible for the massacres.  This is belied by a clip from Granito that the prosecution and the Guatemalan media used to show the general taking command responsibility, saying that “If I don’t control the army, then who does?”

Judge Carol Patricia Flores deliberated for hours and returned her decision to prosecute Ríos Montt on charges of genocide, place him under house arrest, and set bail for USD $65,000. People hugged, cheered and set off firecrackers outside when the Judge read her decision stating that “the extermination of the civilian population was the result of military plans, and that these plans were executed under the command of Ríos Montt.”

NYU has consistently denied the charges, as have the corporate sponsors, who have a long history supporting programs at the university. In an editorial today, El País states that “This one is, surely, the weakest and most nonsensical of the cases against Garzón, and Marchena’s brief only increases the size of the nonsense.”

Curiously, Marchena is part of the tribunal that is currently deciding Garzón’s fate in the case of the alleged illegal wiretaps of suspects in a political corruption case, whose trial concluded last week. A second trial, in which Garzón is charged with knowingly breaking the law when ordering an investigation of Francoist crimes, is resuming on Tuesday.

Garzón on trial at the Spanish Supreme Court. Photo AFP.

The trial against Garzón “is fueled by domestic political vendettas rather than substantive legal arguments,” Dan Kaufman writes in today’s New York Times, “and it could dramatically set back international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable for their crimes.”

The Supreme Court’s zeal to try him has little legal basis; rather, it reflects Spanish elites’ widespread unease with applying international legal principles to Spain’s conflicted history and a deep-seated animosity toward Judge Garzón that is as much personal as political.

More here. Garzón’s trial began on Tuesday and was promptly adjourned for a week, as both the defense and the prosecutor requested that the case be closed, and Garzón absolved, in light of the severe irregularities in the handling of the case by Judge Varela, and his processing of the charges brought by two small, extreme right-wing organizations (see “Revise and Resubmit”). For extensive previous ALBA coverage, see here.

Judge Baltasar Garzón’s 1998 attempt to extradite General Pinochet from Britain to face charges of human rights abuses relating to the 1973 coup in Chile brought two judgments from the law lords allowing his extradition, and sparked a similar round of cases in Santiago. His pursuit of thugs from Argentina‘s 1976-83 junta forced that country’s courts to open their own investigations. The judge is today the target ofthree private prosecutions alleging he abused his powers – one over an investigation into the deaths of Spaniards executed by Franco’s men. If successful, the only man to have been punished for Franco’s crimes would be Judge Garzón himself. This smacks of political vendetta. It would be a travesty of justice if Spain‘s most famous judge were unable to work in his own land.

More coverage today from the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.

Judge Garzón delivers his acceptance speech after receiving the 2011 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism. Photo Len Tsou

Judge Garzón’s first trial before Spain’s Supreme Court has started. Garzón is accused of knowingly going against the law (“prevarication”) when ordering allegedly illegal wiretaps while investigating a corruption ring involving the regional leadership of the conservative–and now governing–Partido Popular. The trial, which is expected to last three days, involves seven magistrates from the Supreme Court (which has some eighty magistrates in total), three of whom are considered to be liberal and four conservative. The Spanish and international media are following the trial closely. For continuous coverage, see El País and Público. In the English-language media, the news is covered today by CNN, the Guardian, Washington Post, and the BBC (which profiles the Judge here), among others. In his spoken column today for El País, the widely respected senior journalist Iñaki Gabilondo denounced the trial as a farce, a clear personal vendetta against Garzón from a judiciary that “never accepted him.” A second trial, in which Garzón is again accused of prevarication when initiating an investigation of crimes against humanity committed under Franco’s rule, is set to open next week. See previous Volunteer coverage here.

Judge Baltasar Garzón. Photo by Richard Bermack.

The international media are gearing up for the upcoming two trials of Judge Baltasar Garzón. “Is it Crash and Burn Time?” Daniel Woolls asks, writing for the Associated Press:

On Tuesday, Garzon goes on trial for allegedly ordering illegal jailhouse wiretaps in a domestic corruption probe. A week later he appears in court to face charges he overstepped his authority in the Civil War case. Supporters say he’s the victim of a witchhunt by courthouse colleagues jealous of his fame and of arch-conservatives angered by his attempt to revisit Spain’s war-time past. … Garzon doesn’t face jail time if convicted in either trial. But he can be removed from the bench for up to 20 years, which at his age — 56 — would in effect end his career as an investigating magistrate at the National Court.

Meanwhile, support for the embattled judge is building, from manifestations in Spain to Human Rights organizations. More here.

Ruz said, however, that it would be premature to notify the former U.S. officials named in the former detainees’ complaint that they are under investigation. Those officials include former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and two former Guantanamo commanders, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert and retired Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller. Ruz said the complaint had yet to tie any of them to specific acts. He said he would ask Spanish prosecutors to determine who in the United States should be informed of the probe so that they could offer exculpatory evidence. … Ruz ruled that under international law the United States has no right to declare itself immune from international prohibitions against torture “even in times of war or the fight against terrorism.” He also rejected U.S. claims that Guantanamo detainees had no right to protection under the Geneva conventions. The roots of the Spanish torture case, in a twist, were a request from the Bush administration that Spain prosecute Spanish detainee Lahcen Ikassrien on terror charges upon his release from Guantanamo. Spain did and initially found him guilty. But Spain’s high court threw out that case, saying his statements while being interrogated at Guantanamo were unreliable because he had been tortured. … The Spanish judge said he decided to proceed with the case because the United States had never responded to a July 2009 question from the Spanish government about whether an investigation would be launched into the allegations.

More here.

Baltasar Garzón in New York City, 14 May 2011. Photo Richard Bermack

A group of prominent Spanish intellectuals including the poet Luis García Montero and filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar  have rallied to the support of Baltasar Garzón, the crusading Spanish magistrate who last year received the first ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism. So have Human Rights organizations worldwide. In the next two weeks, Garzón will face two trials  in Spain’s Supreme Court: one for allegedly 0rdering illegal wiretaps in the investigation of a wide-ranging corruption scandal of the conservative Partido Popular, and one for allegedly exceeding his judicial authority when, in 2008, he initiated a judicial investigation of crimes against humanity committed under the leadership of long-time dictators Francisco Franco–a cause now picked up by the Argentine judiciary. Pending these trials, Garzón has been suspended from his post at the National Criminal Court since May 2010. If convicted, Garzón faces disbarment. Ironically, he would be the first person to be convicted for Franco’s crimes and in relation to the political corruption ring he investigated.

“The upcoming trial of the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón for investigating abuses from Spain’s past threatens the concept of accountability in Spain and beyond,” Human Rights Watch said yesterday in a press release. “What bitter irony that Garzón is being prosecuted for trying to apply at home the same principles he so successfully promoted internationally,” said Reed Brody, HRW’s counsel. “Thirty-six years after Franco’s death, Spain is finally prosecuting someone in connection with the crimes of his dictatorship – the judge who sought to investigate those crimes.”

Garzón is “Franco’s last victim,” according to the Spanish newspaper Público, reporting on the protest by the group “In Solidarity with Garzón,” which yesterday issued a statement arguing that a conviction of Garzón would constitute “an irreparable blow and an enormous step backward in the consolidation of Spanish democracy”.

Garzón’s groundbreaking work has left an impressive legacy that has made possible the prosecution worldwide of human rights abusers, including former military commanders, political leaders, and terrorists. Just today, El País reports that Garzón’s successor at the National Criminal Court, Judge Pablo Ruz, has sent the prosecutor a 19-page brief reactivating the investigation of human rights abuses and war crimes at the detention facility in Guantánamo Bay. Given the lack of judicial action on the part of the US and British authorities, Ruz argues that his court has jurisdiction to pursue the case against Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, among others.

For previous Volunteer coverage of the Garzón cases, see here.

On Friday 17th, Hugh Purcell, whose work on Tom Wintringham, The Last English Revolutionary: A Biography of Tom Wintringham 1898-1949 (Sutton Publishing, 2004) has been revised and extended for re-publication in May, will be offering the talk ‘Wintringham: Love and War in Spain’, at 18:30 in the CAUM, Plaza Tirso de Molina, 8. The timing of Hugh Purcell´s talk is particularly fortunate, as Tom Wintringham’s own book English Captain (Un Capitán Inglés, Akron, 2009) has recently been translated into Spanish.

Preceeding this talk there will be a short presentation on Christopher Caudwell by David Margolis.

The Jarama Memorial March on the site of the battle will take place on Saturday 18th (leaving at 0900 from Hotel Agumar, Calle Infanta Cristina, 7). On the battlefield we will follow in the footsteps of the XV International Brigade and see some of the main landmarks of the battle of Jarama. During the walk Nils Wintringham will read his grandfather’s great poem ‘Monument’. After a relaxed 3 hour walk we will go to Morata de Tajuña for lunch at the Mesón El Cid, where we will also be able to visit the museum set up by Goyo Salcedo which has a display of artifacts from the battlefield.

On Sunday morning there will also be the opportunity to go to Ciudad Universitaria to visit this other key battlefield in the defence of Madrid in the winter of 1936-1937, as well as to see the memorial recently inaugurated to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the formation of the International Brigades (visit starting at 10:30 from Ciudad Universitaria).

The cost for the coach to the battlefield and restaurant in Morata de Tajuña on Saturday will be 12-15 euros per person and the lunch at the Mesón El Cid 25 euros.

For further information and to book a place on the bus, at the lunch on Saturday, and/or on the walking tour in the Ciudad Universitaria on Sunday, please contact: jarama2012@gmail.com