The ceremonies are the initial phase of fulfillment of an agreement reached in March between the government of Guatemala and the Inter American Press Association through the mediation of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Flaquer, aged 42 at the time, was kidnapped from a street corner on Seventh Street in the Zona 1 neighborhood of Guatemala City on October 16, 1980. It is this location that will now bear her name. She was abducted in reprisal for articles she had written about political repression and human rights violations in the Central American country. Her son Fernando, 24, was killed in the incident.
Flaquer started work as a journalist in 1970 and a year later began publishing a controversial opinion column titled "Lo que otros callan" (What Others Dont Say), first in the daily newspaper La Hora and later in La Nación.
IAPA President Danilo Arbilla described as "enormously significant" the achievements that the hemisphere free press organization had made in the Flaquer case within the framework of its battle against the impunity that surrounds the murder of numerous journalists. "We are beginning to see the fruits of a systematic effort that we initiated five years ago" with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, said Arbilla, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, news weekly Búsqueda. "We are demonstrating that even if it takes time we can encourage governments to apply justice as a means of persuasion for those who would resort to violence that they must respect the work of journalists and in this way freedom of the press and the peoples right to be informed will be strengthened."
IAPA Impunity Committee Chairman Alberto Ibargüen, publisher and chairman of The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, said that "this decision of Guatemalas hopefully opens the way for other countries such as Colombia, Brazil and Mexico also to solve the so-far unpunished murders of journalists that are being dealt with by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, whose support has been fundamental in ensuring that the victims be honored, those responsible be bought to justice and their family members find closure."
In addition to the ceremony naming a stretch of Seventh Street in Guatemala Citys Zona 1 neighborhood, to be conducted by Mayor Fritz García Gallont, a bronze plaque commemorating Flaquers journalistic integrity will be added to the monument in the Guatemalan capital to deceased journalists and a Roman Catholic memorial Mass will be held by Father Ricardo Bendaña at the Metropolitan Cathedral. The date of the ceremonies, September 5, was chosen by the IAPA because it was Flaquers birthday.
A special delegation from the IAPA, headed by Rafael Molina, chairman of the organizations Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and editor of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, magazine Ahora, will take part in the ceremonies. It has also scheduled a meeting with Guatemala President Alfonso Portillo and plans to hold other public activities promoting press freedom.
Following the IAPAs own investigation into the case of Flaquers abduction and disappearance and its subsequent adoption by the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, President Portillo issued a decree on August 9 last year accepting his nations responsibility in a number of prior cases of violation of civil liberties, as well as that of Irma Flaquer.
The "amicable agreement" between the government of Guatemala and the IAPA included the creation of what was called an Impetus Committee to be responsible for coordinating the activities to pay homage to Flaquer. Among such activities are efforts to speed up inquiries by the Public Prosecutors Office to identify who may have been ordered Flaquers abduction and presumed death, locating her remains, providing monetary restitution to her family members, setting up a scholarship and university chair in her name, and compiling and publishing her writings.
In addition to Molina, the IAPA delegation will
be made up of former Presidents Andrés García Lavín, Novedades
de Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico; James McClatchy, McClatchy Newspapers,
Sacramento, California; 2nd Vice President Andrés García Gamboa,
Novedades de Quintana Roo, Cancún, Mexico; Regional Vice Chairman for
Guatemala Gonzalo Marroquín, Prensa Libre, Guatemala City, Guatemala;
Press Freedom Coordinator Ricardo Trotti, and Chapultepec Project Lawyer Jairo
Lanao.
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