Dianna Mae Ortiz (September 2, 1958 – February 19, 2021) was an American

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

sister of the

Ursuline order The Ursulines, also known as the Order of Saint Ursula (post-nominals: OSU), is an enclosed religious order of consecrated women that branched off from the Angelines, also known as the Company of Saint Ursula, in 1572. Like the Angelines, they ...

. While serving as a missionary in

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by Hon ...

, she was abducted on November 2, 1989, by members of the Guatemalan military, detained, raped, and tortured for 24 hours before being released. After her release, Ortiz reported that an American was among her captors. This part of her account could not be confirmed. Ortiz pursued her case in a Guatemalan court and in a United States civil court. In the latter, she was the first to seek civil damages under the

Torture Victim Protection Act The Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA; ) is a statute that allows for the filing of civil suits in the United States against individuals who, acting in an official capacity for any foreign nation, committed torture and/or extrajudicial ...

passed in 1992. She filed a case against the Guatemalan Minister of Defense, General Héctor Gramajo, in power at the time of her abduction, arguing that he had command authority. In 1995, she was awarded $5 million in damages. She also filed a case with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. In 1996, as a result of protests by Ortiz and others, as well as revelations of unauthorized

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

funding of the Guatemala military, which had been prohibited by

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

in 1990, U.S. President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...

ordered the release of CIA papers associated with her case. Clinton also ordered the declassification of decades of documents related to U.S. relations with Guatemala. These showed that a Guatemalan colonel paid by the CIA was implicated in the deaths of the American Michael DeVine in 1990 and guerrilla leader in 1993. Congress closed down the CIA program. It also showed decades of United States support of Guatemala during its genocide of its rural indigenous people. The

Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a

represented Ortiz in her civil case and before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, which found in 1997 that the State of Guatemala had violated numerous articles of the

American Convention on Human Rights The American Convention on Human Rights, also known as the Pact of San José, is an international human rights instrument. It was adopted by many countries in the Western Hemisphere in San José, Costa Rica, on 22 November 1969. It came into for ...

in regard to Ortiz. It recommended that the government complete its long-delayed investigation and that it provide compensation to Ortiz.

Early life and education

Ortiz was born on September 2, 1958, in

Colorado Springs, Colorado Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

, the middle of eight children born to Ambrosia and Pilar Ortiz, a homemaker and

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

miner, respectively.Julia Lieblich
"Pieces of Bone"
''Agni'', July 1998 Wanting the religious life from the time she was a child, Dianna entered the

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

at age 17 at the Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph in Maple Mount, western Kentucky. Upon completion, she was accepted as a sister of the

Ursuline Order The Ursulines, also known as the Order of Saint Ursula (post-nominals: OSU), is an enclosed religious order of consecrated women that branched off from the Angelines, also known as the Company of Saint Ursula, in 1572. Like the Angelines, they ...

.Donna Minkowitz, "Review: Dianna Ortiz, ''The Blindfold's Eye''"
, ''Salon.com'', November 19, 2002

Career

As a Catholic sister, Ortiz went to Guatemala in the 1987 for a two-year assignment to work with the poor and teach children to read. She joined sisters already working with the indigenous population in

San Miguel Acatán San Miguel Acatán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated ...

and other small villages throughout the department of Huehuetenango. According to her account, in late 1988 the Bishop of Huehuetenango received an anonymous typed document accusing Ortiz and the other sisters in San Miguel of planning to meet with "subversives". This was followed in 1989 by written anonymous threats directed and delivered to Ortiz personally, while she was staying in more than one location, showing that she was under continued surveillance. In October 1989, she went to the retreat center of Posada de Belen in Antigua, Guatemala.

Abduction and torture

Ortiz was abducted on November 2, 1989, from the garden of Posada de Belen. She said her captors were police officers who took her to a secret prison at a police academy (later identified as the ''Antigua Escuela Politécnica'') in Guatemala City. There she was tortured and raped repeatedly under questioning. She said a man named Alejandro was among her torturers, and that she heard him speak English with a North American accent. She wrote in her memoir that her torture stopped

when a man with an American accent entered the room and said in English, "Shit." Then he said, in Spanish, to the torturers, "You idiots! Leave her alone. She's a North American, and it's all over the news." To Ortiz he said, "You have to forgive those guys, ... they made a mistake.

He was taking her to a friend (to be taken to the American embassy) when she escaped. She said he told her she had been mistaken for a guerrilla with a similar name, Verónica Ortiz Hernández. Ortiz knew this woman, an indigenous Guatemalan, and said she did not resemble her. When she questioned him about that, she said that Alejandro "insinuated that I was to blame for my torture because I had not heeded the threats that were sent to me."Speak Truth To Power Defender
She returned to the U.S. from Guatemala within 48 hours of her escape. After being released, Ortiz later said:

The nightmare I lived was nothing out of the ordinary. In 1989, under Guatemala's first civilian president in years, nearly two hundred people were abducted. Unlike me, they were "disappeared, gone forever". The only uncommon element of my ordeal was that I survived, probably because I was a U.S. citizen, and phone calls poured into Congress when I was reported missing. As a U.S. citizen, I had another advantage: I could, in relative safety, reveal afterwards the details of what happened to me in those twenty-four hours. One of those details: an American was in charge of my torturers.

She saw a doctor in Guatemala and another after she returned to the United States; both later submitted testimony that she showed evidence of torture, including extensive

cigarette burns Cigarette burns are usually deliberate injuries caused by pressing a lit cigarette to the skin. They are a common form of child abuse and torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such ...

. Ortiz suffered greatly from her experience; like other torture victims, she lost many of her memories from the period before she went to Guatemala. After returning to the U.S., she had to be reintroduced to her family. It took her a long time to rebuild her trust in people. In addition, she later recounted, she learned she was pregnant from the rapes. Overwhelmed by the treatment she had received, she got an abortion. This added to her survivor's guilt and emotional burden.

U.S. official denials of involvement

According to a ''

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon ( ...

'' reviewer of Ortiz's 2002 memoir, "federal investigators and State Department officials made an active effort to cover up her ordeal and to discredit her – understandably, as the United States is the major source of funding for the Guatemalan military." Former U.S. ambassador to Guatemala Thomas F. Stroock (1989–1992) said in 1995 that Ortiz's claims amounted to an allegation of U.S. involvement in her torture, which he denied. He said it was done by right-wing

paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

forces in the country.

Guatemalan media lobby

In a 1996 widely recounted interview with Ortiz on the TV news program ''

Nightline ''Nightline'' (or ''ABC News Nightline'') is ABC News' late-night television news program broadcast on ABC in the United States with a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. Created by Roone Arledge, the prog ...

'', American journalist

Cokie Roberts Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne "Cokie" Roberts (née Boggs; December 27, 1943 – September 17, 2019) was an American journalist and author. Her career included decades as a political reporter and analyst for National Public Radio, PBS, ...

contested Ortiz's claim that an American was among her captors. Roberts implied that Ortiz was lying about the entire episode, despite the fact that Ortiz later won a lawsuit against a Guatemalan general she accused in the case. It was later revealed that

Patton Boggs Squire Patton Boggs is an international law firm with 42 offices in 20 countries. It was formed in 2014 by the merger of multinational law firm Squire Sanders with Washington, D.C. based Patton Boggs. It is one of the 30 largest law firms in the ...

, the law firm of Roberts' brother Tom Boggs, was paid by the Guatemalan government to promote a more positive image of the regime, which was widely criticized internationally for human rights abuses. According to an article on Pamela Brogan's report ''The Torturers' Lobby'' (1993), published by the

Center for Public Integrity The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) is an American nonprofit investigative journalism organization whose stated mission is "to reveal abuses of power, corruption and dereliction of duty by powerful public and private institutions in order to c ...

(CPI), Guatemala was among several nations known to commit torture and human rights abuses and that had paid U.S. lobbying firms high fees to help keep U.S. funds going to it and "to gloss over its wretched human rights reputation".Julie Gozan
"The Torturers' Lobby"
''Multinational Monitor'', April 1993, accessed June 14, 2013 For instance, in 1991, the major lobbying firm of Patton, Boggs, & Blow in Washington, DC, was paid $220,000 by Guatemala. Based on the CPI report, Clinton prohibited any member of his administration from representing foreign governments after leaving the federal government. (It is generally common practice for political appointees to work later for lobbying firms to capitalize on their connections.) In June 1990, Michael DeVine, an American innkeeper who had been living and working in Guatemala for 20 years, was found killed. The U.S. pressed the Guatemalan government to solve his murder; when that did not happen by the end of the year, Congress prohibited more military funding, then worth about $2.8 million.

Ortiz hunger strike

In April 1996, Ortiz was fasting outside the White House and joined by other protesters; she was seeking a release of CIA papers related to her abduction and the U.S. government's investigation. Her protests had been preceded by those of

Jennifer Harbury Jennifer K. Harbury (born 1951) is an American lawyer, author, and human rights activist. She has been instrumental in forcing the revelation of the complicity of the United States CIA in human rights abuses, particularly in Guatemala and other cou ...

and members of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, seeking U.S. action on learning the fates of many "disappeared" in the country. Harbury's husband , a Mayan guerrilla leader, had "disappeared" in 1992 and was presumed dead. Numerous CIA papers were released in May 1996. While there was no confirmation of Ortiz's claim that an American national had been directly involved in her case, the papers revealed that a Guatemalan colonel on the CIA payroll ordered the 1990 killing of DeVine and the 1993 murder of Bámaca Velásquez by a death squad.Max Obuszewski
"Some CIA Mistakes..."
''Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel'', June 7, 1996, accessed June 14, 2013 As a result of revelations, Clinton ordered the United States

Intelligence Oversight Board The President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) is an advisory body to the Executive Office of the President of the United States. According to its self-description, it "provides advice to the President concerning the quality and adequacy of ...

to conduct a year-long review of operations of the CIA in Guatemala. Its 1996 report included a review of Ortiz's case but reserved its conclusions:

e IOB believes that Sister Dianna was subjected to horrific abuse on November 2, 1989, but U.S. intelligence reports provide little insight into the details of her plight. Because the Department of Justice is still conducting an extensive reinvestigation of the incident, we do not draw any conclusions on the case at this time.

Richard Nuccio Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...

, a

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

analyst, told a Congressional contact that the CIA had been funding Guatemala military operations, despite the 1990 prohibition. As a result, Clinton ordered declassification of records going back to 1954 (when a CIA-sponsored military coup overthrew the government). Analysis has revealed longstanding U.S. support for the Guatemala military through its years of

state terrorism State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111. Definition There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...

and civil war.

Prosecution of her case

Sister Dianna filed a case with the

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme'', ...

in 1990 based on her abduction and torture by agents of the Guatemalan government in 1989. The commission ruled in 1997 that the state of Guatemala had violated Articles 1, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 16 and 25 of the

. It found that Ortiz had been placed under surveillance, was threatened, then kidnapped and tortured. It made a judgment against the state of Guatemala, with remedies suggested.''Dianna Ortiz v. Guatemala'', (1997), Case 10.526, Report No. 31/96, Inter-Am.C.H.R., OEA/Ser.L/V/II.95 Doc. 7 rev. at 332 (1997)
Human Rights Cases, University of Minnesota It noted that a domestic case had quickly been filed with the National Police in the department where the sisters were working, and that Ortiz had cooperated with the investigation, but in six years the government had made no progress on it. The commission noted that high-ranking officials of the National Police, Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense had immediately denied Ortiz's statement and tried to denigrate her account before any investigation was done. Given the difficulty of victims prosecuting torture and human rights cases, including murders, under military dictatorships, plaintiffs have begun to pursue civil suits. The first were filed under the

Alien Tort Claims Act The Alien Tort Statute ( codified in 1948 as ; ATS), also called the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), is a section in the United States Code that gives federal courts jurisdiction over lawsuits filed by foreign nationals for torts committed in viol ...

(ATCA), which had been passed soon after the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

to deal with commercial issues. In the late twentieth century, this law began to be used in human rights cases. Trying to enable victims' seeking justice after not being able to gain it in countries that used torture, Congress passed the

(1992). Ortiz was the first to file a suit under this law, arguing that it was retroactive to the time of her torture. The court agreed, saying "torture had been universally condemned prior to Ortiz's ordeal." The civil case of Ortiz was combined by her legal representative, the

Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a

, with ''Xuncax v. Gramajo'', in which eight Kanjobal Indians had filed a U.S. civil suit against General Héctor Gramajo, Minister of Defense in Guatemala (1987-1990) under the

(ATCA). They contended that he had command responsibility for the

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

against the Maya, which resulted in the deaths of most people in their village, as well as responsibility for other abuses. Their case was heard in federal court in Massachusetts in combination with ''Ortiz v. Gramajo'', which was decided under the

(1992), the first to make use of the new law.
''The New York Times'' The Center for Constitutional Rights filed against Gramajo when he was in Massachusetts doing graduate work at the

Harvard Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the public policy school, school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in p ...

. The ATCA "allows Americans and foreigners to file suit for violations of

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

while the defendant is in the United States"."US Judge Orders Ex-Guatemala General to Pay 47.5 Million"
''The New York Times'', April 13, 1995, accessed June 14, 2013 The court agreed with the plaintiffs on Gramajo's responsibility, saying the former general "devised and directed the implementation of an indiscriminate campaign of terror against civilians", including the nine plaintiffs. The judge ordered Gramajo to pay each of the Guatemalans $1 to $9 million each, and Ortiz $5 million. The general said he had no money. Later that year, he was barred from future entry into the U.S. under immigration laws. "The Xuncax court also added

summary execution A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...

extrajudicial execution An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...

and arbitrary detention (as differentiated from prolonged arbitrary detention) to the list of torts cognizable under the ATCA. "Numerous other cases have now reaffirmed the responsibility and civil liability of commanders and those in authority for the actions of their troops and subordinates." In its ruling, the judiciary said that " ramajo-Morales... was aware of and supported widespread acts of brutality committed under his command resulting in thousands of civilian deaths."''International Law Reports''
Cambridge University Press Ortiz recounted her experience in formal testimony several times. Raul Molina Mejía in his article, "The Struggle against Impunity in Guatemala", ''Journal of Social Justice'', vol. 26 (1999), describes Ortiz's abduction and treatment as an example of

state-sponsored terrorism State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terrorist ...

based on

impunity Impunity is avoidance of punishment, loss, or other negative consequences for an action. In the international law of human rights, impunity is failure to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice and, as such, itself constitutes a d ...

. He writes: "impunity as concrete legal or 'de facto' actions taken by powerful sectors to prevent investigation or prosecution, such as amnesty laws, pardons, thwarting investigations, the hiding of documents, and tampering with legal samples were abundant in Guatemala." He also notes the unsolved killing of Michael DeVine,"Slaying Prompts U.S. to Halt Guatemala Aid"
Associated Press, ''The New York Times'', December 22, 1990, accessed June 14, 2013 the El Aguacate massacre, and the 1990 surge of killings at the National University of San Carlos. Molina Mejía writes that the "political/psychological" aspect of this impunity, is "a dimension resulting from state terrorism, by which political options in a polity are restricted and controlled through the state's manipulation of fear".Raul Molina Mejía, "The Struggle against Impunity in Guatemala", ''Journal of Social Justice'', vol. 26 (1999)

Human rights work

In 1994, Dianna Ortiz began working at the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC). GHRC's director, Sister Alice Zachmann, had advocated for her release from clandestine detention in 1989 and had invited Dianna to give the keynote address at GHRC's 1992 International Conference on Torture in Guatemala. Dianna's work at GHRC involved advocacy work, public speaking, and help with all aspects of the small organization. While at GHRC, Dianna conducted her hunger strike and vigil in front of the White House. In 1998, while working at the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA, Ortiz founded the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC) as a project of GHRC/USA. TASSC received its 501(c)3 status in 2002, becoming the only organization in the U.S. founded by and for survivors of torture. It provides support particularly to survivors living in the U.S., as many refugees had come from nations in Central and South America where states had sponsored terrorism against citizens. During the 2000s, TASSC became involved in issues related to treatment of detainees at the U.S. base of Guantanamo, where reports of torture had been made. In addition, TASSC tried to gain repeal of the

Military Commissions Act of 2006 The Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The Act's stated purpose was "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of ...

, by which Congress authorized a system outside the U.S.'s existing civilian and military justice systems to prosecute detainees being held at Guantanamo. Congress approved this legislation after the U.S. Supreme Court held that the

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

administration's military commissions, set up only under executive branch authority, were unconstitutional.

Death

Dianna Ortiz died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

on February 19, 2021, while under

hospice Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by ...

care in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

References

External links

Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International

Campaign to Repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006
* Roger S. Gottlieb
Review
''The Blindfold's Eyes'', ''Tikkun'', March 1, 2003
Interview with Dianna Ortiz
''Democracy Now'', May 10, 2012 (Available in transcript, audio, and video) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ortiz, Dianna 1958 births 2021 deaths Anti-torture activists American torture victims American human rights activists Women human rights activists Ursulines American Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Guatemala Female Roman Catholic missionaries Kidnapped American people People from Colorado Springs, Colorado People from Grants, New Mexico 20th-century American Roman Catholic nuns Catholics from Colorado Catholics from New Mexico 21st-century American Roman Catholic nuns Activists from New Mexico Deaths from cancer in Washington, D.C.