Jennifer Harbury

A U.S. woman's three-week hunger strike here to protest what she claims is the illegal detention of her guerrilla husband is putting a strain on Guatemala's relations with the United States. Jennifer Harbury, a 43-year-old Harvard Law School graduate who married guerrilla commander Efrain Bamaca in 1991, says she will continue her protest until her husband, missing since a battle in March, 1992, is handed over to the courts.

The FBI took the Guatemalan death threats against Jennifer Harbury so seriously that the bureau sent two agents to knock on her door in Austin, Tex., recently to warn her that her life was in danger. Right-wing elements of the Guatemalan military, angered by Harbury's stubborn refusal to shut up about the torture-killing of her husband, had put out a contract on her after her testimony before Congress on the case.

The FBI took the Guatemalan death threats against Jennifer Harbury so seriously that the bureau sent two agents to knock on her door in Austin, Tex., recently to warn her that her life was in danger. Right-wing elements of the Guatemalan military, angered by Harbury's stubborn refusal to shut up about the torture-killing of her husband, had put out a contract on her after her testimony before Congress on the case.

Re "CIA Linked to Guatemala Killings, Lawmaker Alleges," March 23: We applaud the media and Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.) for their recent reports on the cases of Efrain Bamaca Velazquez and Michael DeVine. Yet we are also compelled to point out that information on underlying covert U.S. support for a literally genocidal government in Guatemala has been in distribution for several years. In this instance, Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez was linked to the Bamaca case by Santiago Cabrera Lopez two years ago in testimony to the OAS. Our government obviously had access to such information also, independently of the classified reports and directives it generated.

Harvard law graduate Jennifer Harbury leaped across the widest of cultural divides when she married a Guatemalan guerrilla commander, a peasant who grew up hungry and illiterate on a coffee plantation. But rather than turning into a happily-ever-after tale, it has become a heartbreaker: Harbury has not heard from her husband, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, since March 12, 1992, when he disappeared during a firefight with a Guatemalan Army unit. Harbury says he's alive, and claims to have witnesses to prove it. To press her case, she has begun a hunger strike in front of the National Palace in Guatemala, threatening to starve herself to death unless the Army owns up to what she sees as a 2 1/2-year record of unbroken deceit.

Re "CIA Linked to Guatemala Killings, Lawmaker Alleges," March 23: We applaud the media and Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.) for their recent reports on the cases of Efrain Bamaca Velazquez and Michael DeVine. Yet we are also compelled to point out that information on underlying covert U.S. support for a literally genocidal government in Guatemala has been in distribution for several years. In this instance, Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez was linked to the Bamaca case by Santiago Cabrera Lopez two years ago in testimony to the OAS. Our government obviously had access to such information also, independently of the classified reports and directives it generated.

Guatemala apologized to U.S. lawyer Jennifer Harbury for the torture and slaying of her guerrilla husband by state security forces in the 1990s. The government took responsibility for the disappearance of Maya rebel leader Efrain Bamaca at an official event at the National Palace, where in 1994 Harbury went on a 32-day hunger strike to push for information about her husband's death.

The United States has concluded that top Guatemalan officials and other leaders helped cover up the 1990 killing of an American innkeeper there, the New York Times reported. U.S. officials now believe that former presidents Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo and Jorge Serrano, along with two defense ministers and top military officers paid by the CIA, covered up the death of Michael DeVine, the newspaper said. Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.

In other rulings Thursday, the Supreme Court said: The Census Bureau may estimate the size of some households, a small statistical adjustment that added 1.1 million people to the nation's total. It also tipped the last seat in the House of Representatives to North Carolina at the expense of Utah. The justices rejected Utah's challenge (Utah vs. Evans, 01-714). Students cannot sue schools or colleges under a federal educational privacy law.

The odor from Wednesday's Senate hearing on the CIA's handling of two murders in Guatemala is not pleasant. Coming after the Aldrich Ames spy scandal, in which agency brass who botched the case of that Soviet mole escaped without serious penalty, the Guatemala matter suggests this tarnished agency needs a thorough overhaul. Its acting director, Adm. William O. Studeman, admitted serious errors in the case, in which a Guatemalan army colonel on the CIA payroll appears to have been involved.

A U.S. woman's three-week hunger strike here to protest what she claims is the illegal detention of her guerrilla husband is putting a strain on Guatemala's relations with the United States. Jennifer Harbury, a 43-year-old Harvard Law School graduate who married guerrilla commander Efrain Bamaca in 1991, says she will continue her protest until her husband, missing since a battle in March, 1992, is handed over to the courts.

Harvard law graduate Jennifer Harbury leaped across the widest of cultural divides when she married a Guatemalan guerrilla commander, a peasant who grew up hungry and illiterate on a coffee plantation. But rather than turning into a happily-ever-after tale, it has become a heartbreaker: Harbury has not heard from her husband, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, since March 12, 1992, when he disappeared during a firefight with a Guatemalan Army unit. Harbury says he's alive, and claims to have witnesses to prove it. To press her case, she has begun a hunger strike in front of the National Palace in Guatemala, threatening to starve herself to death unless the Army owns up to what she sees as a 2 1/2-year record of unbroken deceit.

An American lawyer who has been on a hunger strike in Guatemala for 32 days said Friday that she is changing her tactics for pressuring Guatemalan authorities for information on her missing husband's whereabouts. Jennifer Harbury, 43, said she will end her hunger strike and seek criminal charges against eight Guatemalan army officers, whom she claims have committed crimes against her husband, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, a Mayan guerrilla commander who has been missing since March, 1992.

In a rare public rebuke to a fellow member of Congress, the Republican majority of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has concluded that Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) made allegations about the CIA's role in two high-profile murder cases in Guatemala involving a U.S. citizen and a rebel married to another American that have proved false.