Rogelia Cruz

Infobox Person
name = Rogelia Cruz Martínez


image_size = 110
birth_date = 1940
birth_place = ,Guatemala
death_date = death date|1968|1|11|mf=y
death_place = Escuintla, Guatemala

Rogelia Cruz Martínez (1940 - January 11, 1968) was a Guatemalan left-wing activist, the 1958 "Miss Guatemala Universe", and a contestant in the 1959 Miss Universe pageant. She was murdered by a paramilitary death squad at the age of 27, reportedly due to her political orientation.

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. [cite book
last = Wilkinson
first = Daniel
authorlink = Daniel Wilkinson
coauthors =
title = Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala
publisher = Houghton Mifflin
date = 2002
id = ISBN 0618221395] She was kidnapped in December 1967, and was found dead on January 11, 1968 near a bridge near Escuintla, Guatemala. [cite journal
last = Gall
first = Norman
authorlink = Norman Gall
title = Slaughter in Guatemala
date = May 20, 1971
journal = The New York Review of Books
volume = 16
issue = 9
url = http://www.normangall.com/guatemala_art1.htm] 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. [cite book
title = Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XXXI, South and Central America; Mexico
publisher = United States Department of State
date = 2004
url = http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxxi/
id = Department of State Publication 11152 ] 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. [cite web
title = Chronologie des attentats terroristes depuis 1945
url = http://www.mediasnews.com/chrono/chrono1968.php
accessdate = 2007-01-06 ] The Guatemalan military responded by assassinating Johnson.

References