Today, June 7TH  2013, the GUATEMALAN UNION, INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT MOVEMENT –MSICG- presented  A COMPLAINT AGAINST the Minister of Labor and Social Prevision, CARLOS FRANCISCO CONTRERAS SOLÓRZANO; the general labor inspector, JESÚS AUGUSTO ARBIZÚ HERNÁNDEZ; the Secretary General of the Ministry of Labor and Social Prevision,  CLARA PAOLA MANRIQUE GARCÍA and the principal of the Tributary Administration Superintendent’s Office –SAT-, MONICA MICHELLE CASTRO BARILLAS, for the possible commission of the following crimes: ECONOMIC VIOLENCE, DISCRIMINATION, MATERIAL FALSEHOOD, IDEOLOGICAL FALSEHOOD, CONCUSION, COLLUSION, ABUSE OF AUTHORITY, CONSPIRACY, RESOLUTIONS THAT VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION, DENOUNCE OMMISION AND ILLICIT ASSOCIATION, among others.

As a consequence of this, two courts have ordered investigations after setting in their records the acts that the Public Prosecutor’s office had ordered officiously without taking any investigation step, these being the cases of the former Tributary Administration Superintendent and of the General Labor Director of the Ministry of Labor and Social Prevention.

These deeds were committed to prevent free Access to union freedom by the workers that tried to constitute the SITRAPVSAT and the SIPROSAT, an effort that ended with the denial by the Ministry of Labor and Social Prevision to register the union organization, and the use of these acts by the Tributary Administration Superintendent’s Office to achieve impunity regarding the dismissal of the workers that took part in these processes.

MSICG highlights that, although it was always suspected that there existed structures inserted into the public administration to grant impunity for labor rights violations, specially union freedom; it was not until now that a series of elements make such structures and their operative mechanisms evident, as well as the fact that these operate at the highest levels of the Ministry of Labor and Social Prevision.

Therefore, independently of the actions that are already on their way at a national and international level  for these cases, MSICG deems it vital that criminal responsibilities for these actions are determined and that through this, the aforementioned structures may be disarticulated, thus guaranteeing full compliance with the Rule of the Law.

In this sense, MSICG expects the Public Prosecutor’s Office to act with the due diligence and abandon its policies of dutiful defense, shown in the cases of the former Tributary Administration Superintendent and the General Labor Inspector.

MSICG also denounces that yesterday, June 6th 2013, around 12:17 hours; that is, shortly after the end of Press Conference in which these measures were announced to the media, companion Lesbia Guadalupe Amézquita Garnica received in her cell-phone a call from the number 2422-2520, in which a lady informed her that the Vice-minister of Labor Administration, ELSA MARINA AVALOS LEPE, was in Geneva, and that she had requested that MSICG should inform her from which country did MSICG receive funding, an anomalous situation that we are denouncing, as well as the presence outside the offices of MSICG in Guatemala City of people wearing vests with the identification of the DEIC (Specialized Division of Criminal Investigation) of the General Sub-Direction of criminal Investigation of the National Civilian Police.


Finally, MSICG regrets that Mr. CARLOS CONTRERAS SOLÓRZANO is presently at the 102nd International Labor Conference together with State Ministers that act in compliance with ILO’s Agreements 87 and 98, as well as their national laws, while Mr. Contreras incurs in actions that go against rights to guarantee that Guatemalan workers may not enjoy this fundamental right.

Guatemala, June 7TH 2013.

POLITICA COUNCIL
GUATEMALAN UNION, INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT MOVEMENT
MSICG