President Alvaro Colom offered today to give economic compensation to those Guatemalans infected with syphilis, gonorrhea and chancres in medical experiments carried out by the United States between 1946 and 1948.
Colom said in a press conference, that after receiving the report given to him by the Presidential Committee, which investigated the events and was chaired by vice president Rafael Espada, the step that follows is to reimburse those affected.
“Compensation will be given because Guatemalans participated,” said the chief of state, although he clarified that no amount has been decided.
Colom also announced that the representatives of the commission will meet up in the near future with the investigators from the U.S. to evaluate the type of compensation that the U.S. can give Guatemala for those experiments.
Among these, he announced, is the possibility of building an ethics institute with resources from the U.S.
According to the report presented by Espada, a total of 2,082 Guatemalans were infected during the experiments performed by 10 American doctors and 12 Guatemalans.
The vice president also clarified that penal prosecution will not be carried out against the Guatemalan doctors that participated in the experiments between 1946 and 1948 because “they are dead.”
United States ambassador Arnold Chacon, who received a copy of the report, titled “Allowing Harm,” reiterated the apologies offered by U.S. President Barack Obama in Oct. 2010 to Colom for the “abominable practices” that his country engaged in in Guatemala.*
“We extend an apology to all the victims that suffered in these unethical experiments,” expressed the diplomat, who seemed “outraged” because those experiments “were done under medical pretext.”
Chacon said that the report presented today by Guatemala represents development and the work to report human experiments and deduce the responsibilities of some authorities.
The committee concluded in the report that the 2,082 Guatemalan men and women, among them soldiers, prisoners, female sex workers and mentally ill people, were subjected to “inhumane” clinical procedures linked to venereal diseases.
The documents analyzed indicate a bigger number of victims, but the quantity can’t be determined with certainty or exactitude and there’s no evidence that the people were informed about the inoculations, the report indicates.
The records of the victims of the experiments make it possible to establish that the majority of people were exposed, in a cruel and inhumane manner, to venereal diseases causing severe damage to their body, even death, according to the report.
“Racism, with its load of prejudice, contempt and discrimination, was present all along the process of the experiments in an explicit and consistent manner,” which constitutes “an aggravating circumstance against the victims and the dignity of the country,” says the document.
“The experiments represent a glaring and deliberate violation of the fundamental right to health, life and protection of people,” it adds.
The committee recommends that the governments of Guatemala and the U.S. identify the survivors and the families of the infected, establish the impact that the experiments had and set the mechanics of repair and institutional and individual compensation for those affected.
*Editor’s Note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.
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