Fire at Home

On January 5, a firebomb destroyed the car of José Pertierra in Washington, D.C. Pertierra, an immigration and human rights lawyer, is the attorney for activist Jennifer Harbury who undertook hunger strikes last year in order to find out what the Guatemalan military had done with her husband, guerrilla commander Efraín Bámaca Velásquez.

The next night, several shots were fired at Assisi Community, a Washington religious household where Harbury stays and several other workers for justice in Guatemala live. No one was hurt in either attack. Though the FBI is downplaying any connection between the two incidents, they are investigating the possibility that the acts are associated with Harbury's current attempts to recover her husband's body from a military base in Guatemala.