Rogelia Cruz
| Rogelia Cruz Martínez | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
August 31st., 1941 Guatemala City, Guatemala |
| Died |
January 11, 1968 Escuintla, Guatemala |
Rogelia Cruz Martínez (1940 - January 11, 1968) was a Guatemalan left-wing activist, the 1958 Miss Guatemala Universe winner, and Guatemala's representative in the 1959 Miss Universe pageant. She was murdered by a paramilitary death squad at the age of 27, reportedly due to her political activities.
Cruz, a student of Architecture, was a member of the Juventud Patriotica del Trabajo (JPT) party and the girlfriend of Guatemalan Party of Labour (PGT) commander Leonardo Castillo Johnson.[1] She was kidnapped in December 1967, and was found dead on January 11, 1968 by a bridge near Escuintla, Guatemala.[2] Her association with Johnson was the most likely cause for her murder.
Cruz's murder was quite visible to the world and resulted in a series of retaliatory murders. She was originally arrested for a traffic violation, but was released due to threats made by the PGT and the Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR) on the judge presiding over the case.[3] She disappeared after being released, and was not seen again until her naked corpse was found. She had been brutally tortured and raped. The PGT retaliated by attacking a group of US military personnel, killing two and wounding a third.[4] The Guatemalan military responded by assassinating Johnson.
References
- ↑ Wilkinson, Daniel (2002). Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-22139-5.
- ↑ Gall, Norman (May 20, 1971). "Slaughter in Guatemala". The New York Review of Books. 16 (9).
- ↑ Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XXXI, South and Central America; Mexico. United States Department of State. 2004. Department of State Publication 11152.
- ↑ "Chronologie des attentats terroristes depuis 1945". Archived from the original on 2006-11-10. Retrieved 2007-01-06.