Please note that the above-mentioned political party is also refered as the Union for the National Center (Political Parties of the Americas 1992, 345) or the National Center Union (Central America Report, 9 July 1993, 1). For general information on this party, please consult the attached excerpt from Charles D. Ameringer's Political Parties of the Americas. Other than Response to Information Request GTM9582 of 8 November 1991 on the relationship between the UCN and the military or G-2, no specific information on the treatment of this party's members by the army or government could be found among the sources consulted.

The attached Central America Report and Guatemalan Human Rights Update provide relevant information on the assassination of Jorge Carpio Nicolle and attacks on the individuals involved in the prosecution of the case. Civil Security Forces (FSC) police commissioner Cesar Augusto Medina Mateo, who had been assigned to investigate the

assassination of Carpio Nicolle, was the victim of an extrajudicial execution (GHRU, 11 Nov. 1994, 3). The person designated as prosecutor of the case is refered as Abraham

Méndez García (ibid.). However, Country Reports 1996 states that:

There was no significant progress in the case of the 1993 murder of newspaper publisher and former presidential candidate Jorge Carpio. In November the prosecuting attorney announced he was quitting and going into voluntary exile because of continued threats and harassment. At year's end, the case continued under a different attorney (Feb. 1997, 456).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

References

Guatemalan Human Rights Update [Washington DC]. 11 November 1994. No. 22.

Immigration and Refugee Board Documentation Centre (IRBDC), Ottawa, 8 November 1991. Response to Information Request GTM9582.

U.S. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996. February 1997.

Attachments

Central America Report [Guatemala City]. 28 October 1994. Vol. 21, No. 41. "Guatemala: Human Rights Cases Target Army," p. 5.

_____. 22 July 1994. Vol. 21, No. 27. "Guatemala: Political Violence Casts a Growing Shadow," pp. 4-5.

_____. 3 June 1994. Vol. 21, No. 20. "Guatemala: Slow Justice," pp. 6-7.

_____. 25 February 1994. Vol. 21, No. 7. "Guatemala: Structural Violence Intact,"

pp. 1-3.

_____. 11 February 1994. Vol. 21, No. 5. "Guatemala: The Neverending Issue," pp. 4-6.

_____. 9 July 1993. Vol. 20, No. 25. "Guatemala: Noted Politician Killed," pp. 193-194.

Guatemalan Human Rights Update [Washington DC]. 11 November 1994. No. 22. "Witness to Carpio Nicolle's Murder Abstain from Hearing," p. 1.

_____. 11 November 1994. No. 22. "Police Commissioner Investigating Carpio Case Killed," p. 3.

Political Parties of the Americas, 1980s to 1990s: Canada, Latin America, and the West Indies. 1992. Edited by Charles D. Ameringer. Wesport: Greenwood Press,

pp. 345-346.