Over five weeks ago, I stood in Lafayette Park, along other with other survivors of torture in Guatemala, along with others whose lives had been torn apart by the violence there. The tulips were only clips of leaves, patches like open hands. Together, we called for truth: who was responsible for our life-shattering losses? Who was involved in the hundreds of thousands or disappearances and assassinations carried out by the Guatemalan death squads over the past three decades? What was the role of our Own government in these atrocities? We asked, not out of idle curiosity, but because only by learning the truth can we heal and only by learning the truth can we prevent these terrible realities from recurring.

In the five weeks of my silent vigil, during two of which I have fasted, I have lost twenty five pounds. I have suffered the wind, and the cold, and the rain. But that is nothing. In Guatemala, approximately ten people have been tortured since the tulips budded and bloomed. Around thirty more hove been murdered for Political reasons.

The United Nations mission in Guatemala has found that that vast majority of these abuses are committed by forces connected to the state, and the impunity these murderers and torturers enjoy is the main obstacle to human rights. The people or Guatemala want peace. They want to reconstruct their society, prosecute the abusers, break the cycle or impunity that allows the violations to continue. So, once again, I call on the United States government to declassify all Information related to human rights abuses in Guatemala, from 1954 to the present. Allow the Guatemalan people to heal.

Our Government has taken the first step In the necessary declassification of files on Guatemala. Last Friday, the State Department released several thousand pages of documents. Those given to me are disappointing. I have asked repeatedly for information on the American present at my torture, whom my torturers referred to as their boss. I have always believed if I could identify Alejandro, I could also learn who my Guatemalan torturers were. On April 4, First Lady Hillary Clinton told me that any information related to Alejandro, even classified information, would be released to me. She did not rule out the possibility that Alejandro was a present or past employee of a US agency.

The documents I have received, however, do not reveal the identity or Alejandro nor shed any light on the Identities of my Guatemalan torturers. What the documents do reveal is a pronounced bias against me from the very beginning, on the of the US embassy in Guatemala.

As most of you know, on November 2, 1989, I was abducted from the back yard of a religious retreat and taken to a clandestine prison, where I was interrogated, tortured, and brutally raped. At one point my torturers told me that I not cooperate, they would have to turn a videotape they had of me over to Alejandro, their Boss, and he would release the tape to the public and the press. The tape showed me engaged in an act I was ashamed of, an act I was forced to commit. I have finally spoken publicly about this: I was forced to stab another woman whom the torturers had taken prisoner.

Several hours later, I came face to face with Alejandro, the boss. As my torturers were beginning to rape again, I became aware of the presence of someone else in the room. - a man had cursed in unmistakable, American English. Then, in broken, heavily accented Spanish, he shouted that I was a North American nun and that my disappearance had become public. He ordered my torturers to stop. He took off my blindfold, which I had been forced to wear at various points in the torture, and helped me on with my clothes. I asked him directly, in English, if he were an American. He refused to answer but put me into a jeep and told me he was taking me to a friend at the American embassy who would help me leave the country.

For the duration of the trip, I spoke to him in English, which he understood perfectly. In his broken Spanish, he told me he was working to liberate the Guatemalans from communism. He added I should forgive my torturers. He said my torturers had confused me with Veronica Ortiz Hernandez, a member or the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity. I reminded him that the death threats I had received were addressed to me. There was no mistake involved. Alejandro then told me in English -- perfect American English -- to remember that he had access to the videotape and the photographs that been made of me.

Since I did not trust Alejandro and did not know where he was really taking me, I jumped out of the jeep when it was stopped in heavy traffic. I made my way, eventually, to the Maryknoll house and then was taken to the Papal Nunclo for safety. The US Ambassador and another embassy official arrived and wanted to speak with me, but I refused to be alone them, and I was too traumatized to talk to them about my experience. They seemed to accept this, They were told about the cigarette burns on my back, which the Archbishop and others had examined and they could see the bruise and abrasion on the left side of my face where my torturers had hit me.

As I have recently learned from the State Department documents, however, the Ambassador did not patiently and impartially await my testimony. He did not ever intend to undertake a serious, impartial investigation. I left almost immediately for the United States, and within a week of my abduction and escape, before any serious Investigation had been conducted and before I had submitted any formal testimony, Ambassador Stroock had drawn his conclusions about what he referred to as my "alleged disappearance and subsequent reappearance:

"Her refusal to speak to US government representatives, either here or in the US and the insistence by those around her on maximum publicity via press releases and phone conversations with congressional staff and religious groups in the US leads us to question the 'motives and timing behind the story: apparently a debate is scheduled in Congress this week on aid to Guatemala."

In other words, according to Ambassador Strook, I was never abducted, but with the help of US priests and nuns and the Guatemalan Archbishop, I simulated an abduction as a political strategy to end US funding of the Guatemalan military. The insinuations on the part of US embassy officials continued, no matter how illogical or contradictory. In a report to the Secretary of State, Ambassador Stroock says, "Human rights is a legitimate topic for discussion, a mainstream political issue. The topic is no longer the exclusive preserve of communists. It is now OK to be for human rights." But in a report to the Secretary of State dated April 1992, Stroock describes part of a visit I had made to Guatemala to testify court:

"Her press conference, while undoubtedly high on drama and very moving to most of those personally present and many television viewers, was patently political. Sister Diana read in Spanish from a prepared statement which was later published in a full-page ad in the newspaper. Unlike in her previous declarations, which were confined to what happened to her, this statement was a political manifesto in which she said she is pursuing her case on behalf of all victims of torture and injustice in Guatemala.

I was willing to return to Guatemala four times to testify in the Guatemalan courts. To give you an idea of the ambiance the courtroom, in 1992 the presiding Judge told US embassy officials, "When there was a question she did not know how answer (such as how many bodies ware in the pit into which you were thrown?) she broke down and cried, and then requested recess during which time she went into the bathroom with her therapist. Upon returning to the courtroom, Ortiz provided answer." This. according to the Judge, was an example of how I was parroting information given to me by others.

The same month, embassy official Sue Patterson remarks, One of our crosses to bear here in Guatemala is the Sr. Dianna Ortiz case. (It's a] big political problem for the Government of Guatemala because everybody believes a nun more than they do the Government of Guatemala, On this case, however, I don't, nor does anyone else who knows the case well -- too many inconsistencies in her accounts. .. . I write this informally because we have to be so very careful in this case in order not to be accused of being partial or disbelieving.

The fact is, I have been consistent in my account since the beginning. The US embassy was inconsistent and, in fact, deceptive, paying lip service to the need to find the truth in my case and secretly undercutting me, slandering me, and trying to prevent the truth from emerging.

Stroock,who from the beginning had expressed concern about "the potential damage to US interests resulting from this ~ incident," wrote several letters to the State Department In 1990, arguing that my request to meet with the State Department desk officer to explain the sequence or events and answer questions should be denied: "If the department meets her," he writes, "pressure from all sorts of people and groups will build on the department to act on the information the provides... I am afraid we are going to get cooked on this one...." The documents released to me by the State Department reveal that the US embassy never investigated the possibility that an American with a contact in the embassy was present at my torture. Instead, an embassy officials engaged in intimidation. The day I escaped, an embassy official told a nun at the Maryknoll house that such a charge would damage the credibility of my story. In a March 1990 meeting with my lawyers, Ambassador Stroock said the statement that an American with ties to the embassy was present at my torture was "an insult to every mission employee." In a letter to my lawyer, he accused me of breaking the eighth commandment: bearing false witness against my neighbor.

The enraged attitude of Embassy officials, their immediate unwillingness to investigate seriously, and their slanderous characterizations of me as a liar, a political strategist, or -- according to a congressional aide who conversed with embassy official Lew Anselem at a cocktail party in December 1990 - a lesbian involved in a lover's quarrel, suggest that there. was indeed something about my abduction and torture that the embassy wanted to hide.

Of all the documents I received from the State Depart. only one, dated 1990, contains a significant reference to Alejandro. It reads as follows: "VERY IMPORTANT: We need to close the loop on the issue of the 'North American' named by Ortiz as being involved in the case. The EMBASSY IS VERY SENSITIVE ON THIS ISSUE, but it is an issue we will have to respond to publicly....." Two completely redacted (blacked out) pages follow.

I can only hope that full declassification of documents belonging to other agencies, such as the Pentagon, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency, will reveal more than the State Department's disclosure has.

Numerous US congressional representatives have assured me of their commitment to pressuring for a full, agency-wide declassification of the files on Guatemala. Last Thursday representatives Porter and Lantos presented me with a letter to President Clinton, asking for the declassification of all US government information on human rights cases in Guatemala since 1954. It was signed by 103 members of Congress, including Representative Nancy Pelosi, Representative Connie Morella Representative Lynn Woolsey, Representative Robert Torricelli. and Representative Xavier Bercerra.

I cannot adequately express my gratitude for their promise to assist the victims and survivors of human rights abuses in discovering the truth. The hundreds of thousands of people in Guatemala who have lost loved ones to torture and murder, who are struggling to recover from heinous forms of torture, and who are desperately trying to prosecute human rights violators need this information. Justice is the only measure that will end the decades of torture, murder, and repression in Guatemala,

Given the assurance that members of Congress will vigorously take up the struggle for declassification, I will now suspend my fast and my vigil. I want to thank all the people who sat with me through the hot days and cold nights in this park in front of the White House. I would like to thank all the people throughout the country who conducted fasts and vigils in solidarity with the request for declassification of documents on Guatemala. I especially want to thank those who stood on the White House sidewalk, singing hymns and reading Scripture, then allowing themselves to be arrested one by one as a testament to that solidarity and to the seriousness of our request. Over a hundred people were arrested last week for civil disobedience in front of the White House, including Bishop Thomas Gumbleton., of Detroit, Dan Ellsburg. and Phillip Berrigan.

The struggle for truth and Justice in Guatemala needs to be taken up by all of us, on all fronts. Because I need and demand the truth, for myself arid for the people of Guatemala, today I am filing a law suit against the United States agencies to which I submitted requests for documents over a year ago. (My lawer Michele Arrington, will speak more about this.)

I am leaving the park, but my vigil continues. I hope the candle I lit on March 31, which has burned day and night in the park as a reminder to President Clinton of the hundreds or thousands of us who have suffered in Guatemala, now burns within you. We must all ask together, Who is Alejandro?

That question has gone for so long unanswered. But I always hope. By chance I met, when I appeared on the Today Show, forensic artist Jean Boylan. She offered to help me, and the past four days I have had the opportunity to work with her to produce these four sketches. I would like to unveil the three Guatemalan torturers first. .

This is Alejandro, the man whom my torturers referred their boss- -the man who gave explicit orders to my torturers, the man who had access to a clandestine prison in Guatemala: the Escuela Politecnica, or Old Military School, in Guatemala City.

This is Alejandro. He is not a figment of my imagination, he is real I am presenting these sketches to the Intelligence Oversight Board and the Department of Justice to assist them in their investigation. But I'm also seeking help from people throughout the world. If you have any information about these men, please contact Michele Arrington, at 202-383-6722 or Pat Davis, at the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (202-529-6599). I want to ask all of YOU for your help, for myself and for the people Guatemala -- for the innocent students, church workers, journalists, human rights advocates, and others typically targeted for disappearance, torture, and murder because they work for truth and justice In a society characterized by inequality and oppression. I believe that together, we can bring the torture to an end.

For more information on -how to assist Dianna and the people of Guatemala in their search for truth, please call Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA
(202) 529-6599; FAX (202) 526-4611
3321 12tb Street, NE - Washington, DC 20017
email: ghrc@igc.apc.org