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Sister Dianna Ortiz

 
There are 5 links to video about Sister Ortiz
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sister Dianna Ortiz 
 

 Thirteen years ago, Ursuline Sr. Dianna Ortiz was abducted and brutally tortured while working as a missionary among the K’anjobal-speaking Mayans of San Miguel, Guatemala. Her unremitting fight to identify the torturers and to focus a spotlight on torture practiced as an instrument of policy by the Guatemalan government is already widely known through her appearances on such shows as “Nightline,” “The Today Show” and “60 Minutes,” and interviews in leading newspapers in many countries. Now she has brought the entire sordid story together in a book that fascinates and troubles.

What is most fascinating is the detailed account of the long-term effects of torture on the victim: the sleepless nights, the flashbacks triggered by words or situations, the vomiting and, above all, the inability to trust even one’s intimate friends, the amnesia about all that had occurred before in one’s life.

“The only vivid memories,” she writes, “are those of being burned, being raped, being tortured.” A doctor who examined her back found 111 second-degree cigarette burns.

Part of the torture was a gang rape by three torturers, which resulted in a pregnancy. Horrified, she arranged an abortion, only to add to her anguish when she reflected on what she had done and decided she had committed an unforgivable sin. She would not even open her Bible, fearing she would find words of judgment and reproach. “I would hear God -- a God I believed in just enough to fear -- telling me I was evil.”

Torture is calculated to destroy trust and the ability to communicate. Even now, after years of professional rehabilitation, Ortiz remains ambivalent about her level of trust. “As I improve, I have faith, hope and trust again, on my good days. But even on my good days, the smell of cigarette smoke reminds me of the burns the torturers inflicted on me. The sight of a man in uniform reminds me of the Policeman [one of the torturers]. I jump if someone runs up behind me, and if someone stands too close or stares at me, I back away. I sleep with the light on. I ask people not to smoke, not to stare, not to talk about torture tactics in front of me, and not to invite me to movies that are violent. …

“On my bad days, I still say I should have died back in that prison, before I had to be used to inflict pain, because I had to make a choice about another human being’s life or death. I still wish I had died. … But no one ever fully recovers -- not the one who is tortured, and not the one who tortures. Every time he tortures, the torturer reinforces the idea that we cannot trust one another, and that we cannot trust the world we live in.”

Ortiz has a mission, and this book is an expression of it. She wants to create an awareness of the pervasiveness of torture in today’s world and the widespread acceptance of it as inevitable, even useful. “As I write this, attorneys and journalists are advocating the legalization of torture in the United States.” According to Amnesty International’s statistics for 2001, more than 150 governments engage in torture or ill-treatment, up from 114 just two years earlier.

Is the United States one of these? At least, Ortiz claims, it encourages its allies to use torture, and it cooperates actively with their efforts to silence those who protest. “The U.S. government funded, trained and equipped the Guatemalan army’s death squads -- my torturers themselves. The United States was the Guatemalan army’s partner in a covert war against a small opposition force -- a war the United Nations would later declare genocidal.”

This is a serious charge, but the evidence she offers to support it is overwhelming. It provides moral certainty, the kind of certainty that allows a jury to free or condemn the defendant in a court of law.

The most telling evidence comes from a large number of documents released to her under the Freedom of Information Act. U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Thomas Stroock and other officials spread rumors calculated to discredit her statements. A jealous lesbian lover might have caused her injuries. A love affair with a seminarian might have produced the fetus she aborted. There are inconsistencies in her story -- first she says the room where she was tortured has a high ceiling, then that it had a low ceiling. Was she supposed to be calculating the height of the ceiling while she was being tortured?

Sr. Dianna Ortiz, seen here with Fr. Roy Bourgeois at SOA protest is a US born survivor of torture in Guatemala.  She began her presentation by lighting a candle to remember persons tortured, past and present, and to pray for those who do the torturing, and those who give orders to torture or manufacture arms of torture. …. “May their own blindfolds fall away.”   She is a nun of the Ursaline order. She is a native of the state of New Mexico in the United States. While serving as a missionary in Guatemala in 1989, she was abducted by right-wing forces and brutally tortured. Among other torments she was gang raped and suffered over 100 cigarette burns. Sister Ortiz chronicled her experience and recovery in her book (co-written with Patricia Davis) The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth.

Sister Ortiz founded the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC), the only organization in the United States founded by and for survivors of torture. TASSC's current policy campaign is dedicated to repealing the Military Commissions Act of 2006 what the survivors of torture at TASSC call the US Torture Law.

For the last 12 years Sr. Dianna has thought of little else but torture, not as an obsession, but as a responsibility to those she promised never to forget. Why she survived her abduction and torture by the Guatemala military in November 1989 and others did not, she cannot answer. That she has a new ministry which chose her is very clear. She is the Executive Director of TASSC International, the only organization founded by torture survivors. The mission of TASSC is to abolish torture wherever it occurs. 

 

Victims of Torture Worldwide Speak Out in USA
 
This is a portion of an excellent production by Torture Abolition & Survivors Support Coalition or TASSC - the organization Sr. Ortiz founded -   dealing with the international problem of Torture.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

FACT

*       At this time more than 150 governments are engaged in torture

*       There are more than 500,000 survivors of torture in the US

*       Not only could you be living next door to a survivor of torture, you could be living next door to a torturer. (Estimates of torturers currently living in the US range from 1,000 to 10,000)
Sr. Dianna spoke of the need to rebuild shattered lives.
Torture is a form of terrorism. For survivors it is a living beast, constantly menacing one’s daily existence. Survivors never have the freedom to forget the past. SURVIVING IS FAR WORSE THAN THE TORTURE ITSELF’”

Sr. Dianna read from her book The Blindfold’s Eyes to approximately a hundred persons gathered in the church of SJA. I felt fear and horror as the story of her experience unfolded. The stillness in the church told me others were also deeply involved. She stopped reading, overcome by tears.

Regaining her composure, Sr. Dianna challenged the audience members to guard against the madness of thinking that they can do nothing about torture. She asked for support in the work of TASSC, seeking to rebuild shattered lives. She referred to the black blindfold each attendee received with the name of a country whose government is engaged in torture. My blindfold said Peru. Sr. Dianna encouraged each person to learn about the torture in their particular country and the role of the US government in assisting in the torture.

Sr. Dianna concluded, “Thank you for being a pillar of hope for those of us who have suffered torture. You have renewed my hope in the human family.”

Sr. Dianna Ortiz, OSU Powerfully Shares Her Story at Hudson High's Human Rights Gathering
On September 29, 2004 students at Hudson Regional Catholic High School gathered to hear the powerfully moving story of Sr. Dianna Ortiz, OSU. Her desire to help the people of Guatemala led to horrific and dehumanizing mistreatment. The account on the assembly's' reaction that follows was written by Mr. Terry Matthews the Director of Admissions and Public Relations at Hudson.

As I watched the tiny woman climb the stairs to the stage, I was struck by her frailty. The mercury lights in the gym seemed to magnify the whiteness of her skin. Flat, black shoes led up to a black, calf-length dress. A shock of black, close-cropped hair surrounded a face whose fine features were arrestingly beautiful. If not for the gray sweater around her shoulders, she would have been the perfect balance of black and white, the living symbol of unity. But the sweater gave it away. The sweater told us that this was a woman who has worked in the gray areas of life. The areas where beauty and ugliness; good and evil; right and wrong become less distinct. But still, there was the frailty.

As she reached the stage, the cavernous backdrop, appropriately enough, black, seemed to swallow her up. Standing, alone, she was dwarfed by the podium and the microphone seemed immense in her tiny hand. The multicolored paper chains that were strung across the stage for effect seemed oddly out of place in this woman's world of black. There was no room for color here. The burden she bore every moment of her life was apparent for all to see. This tiny, alabaster creature clad in black was disappearing in the cavernous stage upon which she stood, upon which she was forced to live her life over and over again. She seemed so frail.

And then she spoke. The voice was soft and each syllable seemed to be accentuated. Guatemala was pronounced Gua-tee-ma-la, as if the word itself hurt to pronounce. As if the mere mention of the place was a long, painful process. She journeyed through the word itself, and then she took us on the journey with her. She began, "As I sat, naked, with my back against the concrete wall…" All eyes were riveted on the little black and white figure who spoke into the oversized microphone. And as she took us back to Gua-tee-ma-la, words such as "rape" and "torture" spilled forth from the innocent face. Six hundred people, mostly young men in their teens, sat transfixed as she uttered words that weren't supposed to come out of the mouth of a nun. That weren't supposed to come out of the mouth of anyone. That weren't supposed to happen. She didn't seem frail any longer.

As she spoke, a strange thing happened. The cavernous stage grew smaller and the microphone disappeared. She towered over the podium. In fact, she towered over the entire gymnasium. Strapping young boys in the prime of their life shrunk in their seats. Gone were the silly smiles of adolescence. As the little nun clad in black repeated the words "rape" and "torture", the audience, both young and old, tried to look away. But it was impossible to turn away from the tower of strength that dominated the gym. Even when she broke down, you knew that the tears were for all those who suffered, not just for herself. The quiet dignity of that piece of onyx, standing with face buried in hand, wiping away the tears of remembrance was overwhelming. "I was burned over 111 times…" she said, and suddenly she was naked again for all to see on the stage. "I was burned over 111 times. I was gang-raped." And still, she no longer looked frail.

She stared out at the audience and demanded attention. Not through words, but simply by standing there, alone. Standing with the collective pain and suffering of torture victims all over the world. But standing. Standing and bearing witness to the incredible strength that she carried inside. Standing and bearing witness to the incredible love she carried inside. Standing and sharing both as she found the courage to open herself to a gymnasium full of strangers who may not have shared her pain, but most assuredly share the responsibility of trying to prevent further pain. Her voice rose and she seemed to gain strength as she demanded accountability from the Guatemalan government; from the American government: from every government around the globe. The little nun wearing the black dress who had been raped and tortured because she wanted to help people, challenged the entire gymnasium, challenged the entire world, to accept the responsibility of humanity. Sister Dianna Ortiz, who was beaten, and raped, and burned over 111 times, just may be the strongest person I have ever had the privilege to meet. I wonder how frail we are.

From all the trickery and lies to which these officials resorted to confuse Ortiz and persuade her friends and the public that she herself had caused her problems, it seems clear that our government was hiding something. Was Alejandro, the American who gave orders to the torturers, an agent? What was our government hiding?

These questions remain unanswered. And Ortiz continues her search. “I guess if I were entirely logical, I would despair. But the lesson of my torture didn’t stick; I was supposed to have learned despair. But I can’t help hoping. I have faith in the unexpected, the miraculous, the power of people working together and of God working through us.”