I dedicate this site to Sister Dianna Ortiz, an American nun who went to work helping poor people in Guatemala in 1989. The people she was helping were thought to be rebels so she received death threats then was kidnapped from a convent garden by agents of the Guatemalan Government and horribly tortured. An American walked into the room she was being abused in and insisted she be released. It was a Guatemalan military centre. He left with her in a car but she took the precaution of escaping from him too. Since her return to the United States she has fought for justice and to have her experience validated. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights investigated thoroughly and concluded she was tortured with rape and other terrors by agents of the Guatemalan government. That government's main response to the Commission's call for investigation has been to slander and smear her reputation. (The Report of the Commission is here
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cases/1996/guatemala31-96.htm )
I heard Sister Dianna on radio a few years ago and wrote to her and she graciously replied to me. We exchanged a few letters. Her pain brings tears to my eyes and her courage inspires me. This wonderful human being lives with memories of horror and still struggles for psychological survival. I want to support all the workers who were beaten but not broken and who are fighting to clean the excrement of abuse from this planet.
