Amnesty International is concerned at reports of an axe attack on Alberto Godinez, a former member of the Guatemala National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) and local leader of the Committee of Peasant Unity, by former members of the now disbanded Voluntary Civil Defence Committees. The attack occurred at 1am on 11 May 1997 when the men forced him out of his home in the hamlet of El Chorro, near Colotenango, department of Huehuetenango, and beat him with an axe and with sticks. There remains serious concern for his safety, as the night before the attack he had been threatened with death, and three of his assailants are still at large.
