Giorgio Trucchi
Hernán Guevara Gutiérrez is 82 years old and is a survivor of the “House of Terror”.
Though memory is beginning to fail him, those days in 1982 when Honduras applied the National Security Doctrine, imposed by the United States, are marked on his soul.
Hernan’s family was well to do. They had several properties and a lot of land.
Following the example of his father, he “decided to be on the side of the poor” something that the oligarchs and the military have never liked.
He got involved in agrarian reform. He visited the campesinos frequently and began to organize them to reclaim land and to defend their rights.
He always offered his workers dignified living and work conditions. When the government expropriated part of his lands, Hernán preferred to donate them directly to the workers.
This attitude resulted in a lot of problems. The land owners in the zone and the ultra-conservative government colluding with the military, began to label him as a communist.
“I was not a communist. I simply put into practice what my father taught me” said Hernán Guevara in his testimony given to La Rel.
Kidnapped and imprisioned
In 1982, Hernán was kidnapped.
Agents deceived him saying that he was accused of having crashed a vehicle. When he entered the police station, he was captured, tied up, blindfolded and taken to an unknown location.
His family began to search for him. His mother went to the police station, sent letters, but to no avail.
Hernán was in a house in Amarateca, 30 km from the capital, property of a high ranking military officer that had been converted into a place of torture and death.
Three decades later, he would help Cofadeh to find the place where his worst nightmares occurred.
“They kept me locked in a bathroom, blindfolded and naked. They hardly gave me any food and the only water was what I drank from the toilet. Every day they beat me, they threw to the floor and kicked me. They also put a fan on high speed to dehydrate me more quickly”, he remembers.
The house and yard were full of people suffering all forms of torture and humiliations.
There were many Salvadorans. Hernán remembers that all of a sudden they would put them in vehicles or trucks and that was the last sign of them.
“I spent over a month in those conditions. I had lost hope and I only hoped that they would do away with me. I almost got to the point of asking them to do it because I couldn’t withstand so many beatings, so much suffering,” he added.
¡Finally Free!
One night armed guards arrived and made him put on the bloodied clothes of another prisoner and to get into a vehicle. Hernán knew that they were going to kill him.
It was a long trip. They turned onto a dirt road and finally stopped the vehicle on the outskirts of Ocotepeque. They threw him to the ground with a hard kick.
It was precisely in that moment when he heard a man’s voice.
“I didn’t understand what was happening, but this man ordered the guards not to touch me again and to set me free. They obeyed and they left. Some time later I found out that it was a military officer of higher rank called ‘Coyote’, a friend of my brother Juan. He saved my life!’ remembers Hernán Guevara.
Without strength and very traumatized, Hernán came back to life. He walked and walked until he came to a village where he was offered food.
After a long journey to avoid military checkpoints, a friend recognized him and sent word to his family in Choluteca. He was in hiding for some time and then fled the country.
Museum of Memory
Although it is painful to relive so much pain and suffering, the testimony of Hernán and of so many other survivors was fundamental to locating the exact location of the house in Amarateca.
That house now belongs to Cofadeh, and they want to convert it into a Museum of Memory.
Cofadeh continues to demand justice for 184 disappeared in Honduras and for thousands of people who were murdered in the 70’s and 80’s. The impunity is total and absolute.
Honduras was the first state to be condemned by the Inter American Court of Human Rights for the forced disappearance of social movement leaders.
“This history marked me forever. The saddest thing is to see that almost nothing has changed. What is happening today is practically the same as what happened during those years” concluded Hernan.
