A setback for judicial independence in Guatemala reveals the limits of U.S. influence in Central America, as the region slides toward authoritarianism.
Dianna Ortiz, Catholic nun whose abduction and torture in Guatemala shone a light on US meddling abroad – obituary
She caused an international sensation with her claim that her abductors had been helped by an American
Sister Dianna Ortiz: American officials questioned her account
Credit: The Washington Times/Avalon
Sister Dianna Ortiz, who has died aged 62, was an Ursuline nun abducted and tortured by Guatemalan security forces in 1989; later she gave a graphic account of horrors inflicted, making headlines with the claim that her tormentors had been supervised by a mysterious “Alejandro”, who, she said, spoke halting Spanish “with a thick American accent”. His English, she insisted, “was American, flawless, unaccented”.
Ursuline Sr. Dianna Ortiz (Courtesy of the Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph)
Sr. Dianna Ortiz, who not only survived kidnapping and torture but used the experience to become a voice for torture victims everywhere, died of cancer Feb. 19. She was 62.
An Ursuline Sister of Mount St. Joseph, Kentucky, Ortiz was working as a missionary in Guatemala in 1989 when she was kidnapped by Guatemalan security forces because of her work with Indigenous people. She was taken to a secret detention center in the capital and tortured for 24 hours until she was able to escape.
She returned to her family in the United States but was so traumatized, she had no memory of her life before the abduction and was unable to recall family members or her Ursuline sisters. She spent years pursuing justice, but no one was ever charged, and her memory never fully returned.
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Dianna Ortiz, American Nun Tortured in Guatemala, Dies at 62
She became a champion of survivors of torture and helped compel the release of documents showing U.S. complicity in decades of human rights abuses in Guatemala.
Sister Dianna Ortiz in 1996. After being raped and tortured in Guatemala, she helped focus attention on the 200,000 people who were killed or disappeared during that country’s 36-year civil war.Credit.Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Dianna Ortiz, an American Roman Catholic nun whose rape and torture in Guatemala in 1989 helped lead to the release of documents showing American involvement in human rights abuses in that country, died on Friday in hospice care in Washington. She was 62.