HLS Grad Ends Hunger Strike

Harvard Law School graduate Jennifer K. Harbury broke off her 31-day hunger strike last Friday after the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City acknowledged that her husband, guerrilla leader Enfrain "Everado" Velasquez, was captured alive in 1992 by the Guatemalan military.

Harbury ended her strike, during which she maintained a vigil outside the Guatemalan presidential palace in Guatemala City, with a meal consisting entirely of fruit juice. Her strike was intended to pressure officials into providing a more complete account of her husband's whereabouts.

In a telephone interview yesterday from her parents' home in New Hampshire, Harbury said a statement from the U.S. embassy holds out the possibility that her husband is still alive.

"The embassy statement said that based on the evidence they had, Everado was captured alive by the Guatemalan military in 1992," Harbury said. "Everado was slightly but not seriously injured and the U.S. government knew he was in the army's hands for several weeks but they have no information after that."

Harbury said she will meet with National Security Advisor Anthony Lake '61 today in Washington D.C. to discuss her husband's case. Although Harbury refused to comment on the details of the meeting, she did say she hoped to "see what [Lake] can do to save my husband's life."

Harbury said she believes her husband, the highest ranking member of the military wing of the United Front of Guatemalan Guerrillas, is still alive. "Everado is part of a special group of prisoners the [Guatemalan] government hopes it can break with torture and psychological abuse," she said. "Many people have seen him alive."

Everado disappeared on March 12, 1992, after the group of rebels he was leading ran into a Guatemalan army patrol.

The Guatemalan government had maintained that Everado committed suicide to avoid capture.

Last Thursday, the Guatemalan government exhumed what they believed to be Everado's body in Coatepeque, Guatemala Harbury said. "The graves were opened and two people were found, both of whom were not my husband," she said. "Everado did not have capped teeth."

This is the second time the Guatemalan government has exhumed a body for Harbury. In August 1993 a judge there ordered the exhumation of Everado's body but Harbury's forensic specialist found the corpse belonged to an 18-year-old male. Everado was 37 in 1993.

Harbury claimed that the Guatemalan government is harassing her by exhuming body after body. "The prosecutor tried to wear me out physically, I hadn't eaten for 31 days," she said. "[The Guatemalan government] is trying to give a semblance of an investigation without really doing anything."

Harbury said she intends to file criminal charges against the Guatemalan military officials responsible for her husband's disappearance.