National security adviser makes late-night visits to protesting nun

c. 1996 Religion New Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-National Security Adviser Anthony Lake left the White House at about 10:30 last Wednesday night (April 10) and walked across the street to Lafayette Square, where a handful of homeless men were weathering the cold. For the third time that week, he stopped at an encampment of umbrellas covered […]

c. 1996 Religion New Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)-National Security Adviser Anthony Lake left the White House at about 10:30 last Wednesday night (April 10) and walked across the street to Lafayette Square, where a handful of homeless men were weathering the cold.

For the third time that week, he stopped at an encampment of umbrellas covered with plastic sheets and inquired about the welfare of the woman inside: Sister Dianna Ortiz, 37, a North American nun who was raped and tortured in Guatemala.


It was day 11 of her silent vigil to demand that the U.S. government release the results of its investigation into her 1989 abduction-and any information about “Alejandro,” a man present at her torture who she believes may have had U.S. government ties.

“Are you with the Secret Service?” a supporter of Ortiz asked Lake.

“I work over there,” Lake replied, pointing across the street. “I’ve been checking on her every other day to make sure she’s fine.”

The sudden interest begs the question: Why is the administration paying so much attention to a nun who suggests U.S. complicity in the torture of its citizens?

Lake would not comment on Ortiz’s case. But Deputy National Security Adviser Nancy Soderberg said the administration wants to “underscore that people at high levels of the White House are following (her case) closely, and that we are trying to get her the information she is seeking as fast as we can. We’re trying to get to the bottom of her case and find Alejandro if we can.”

Although Bush-appointee Thomas Stroock, the former U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala, has publicly challenged Ortiz’ account of her abduction, particularly the presence of the controversial “Alejandro,” Soderberg said the Clinton administration has no doubt she is telling the truth.

“We have absolutely no reason not to believe her,” she said.

The Rev. Joseph Nangle, a founder of the Washington-based religious community in which Ortiz resides, believes that the first lady and national security adviser have genuine concern for Ortiz; and Nangle appreciates Lake’s late night visits.

“I think he feels human and religious compassion for Dianna. He is a man of faith and a thoroughly good person,” said Nangle.


But Nangle suspects political motivation as well: “We may be on the verge of a huge scandal that will show that some officials, operating within or parallel to the U.S. embassy, are involved in some really nasty stuff in Guatemala.”

The Clinton administration can only gain, he said, from making public events that occurred under the Bush administration. “They will make wonderful points with the American people of being an administration that promotes human rights around the world.” And supporting a Catholic nun, Nangle said, can only help with the Catholic vote.

Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton of Detroit sat with Ortiz on Friday (April 12).

Ortiz, of Grants, N.M., went to Guatemala in 1987 to teach poor Mayan children in the highlands. On Nov. 2, 1989, armed assailants abducted her from a convent in Antigua, where she was on retreat, and took her to a clandestine cell. For 24 hours she was repeatedly raped, burned 111 times with cigarettes and lowered into a pit filled with dismembered corpses. Just last week did she reveal publicly for the first time the worst of her ordeal: Her assailants, holding their hands on hers, forced her to use a small machete to kill another woman prisoner.

During the torture, Ortiz reports, a tall, fair-skinned man with a North American accent, whom the assailants referred to as “boss” and “Alejandro,” arrived and ordered the men to stop. Ortiz was a North American, he said, and her disappearance had become public. He said he would drive her to the U.S. embassy, where she would find help. But she bolted from the vehicle before they arrived.

For most of the six years that followed, Ortiz, whose religious order is the Ursulines of Mount St. Joseph in Maple Mount, Ky., received little positive attention from high-level government circles. Then last year President Clinton authorized the Intelligence Oversight Board to conduct a government-wide inquiry to find out what the CIA and other federal agencies knew in her case and others. The U.S. District Attorney’s Office is also “investigating allegations made by the sister,” said Kevin Ohlson, a Justice Department spokesman, who would not comment further on the case.

So far Ortiz hasn’t received any information. And waiting, she says, “has been another form of torture.”


Now, says Ortiz’s lawyer, Anna Gallagher, Hillary Clinton has agreed to try to get Ortiz documents before the release of the Intelligence Oversight Board report, due this June. Last week Hillary Clinton invited Ortiz and her lawyer into the White House.

Mrs. Clinton met with her because she “wanted to express her sympathy and indicate that we are going to do everything we possibly could to get the information she was seeking and get some answers,” said her press secretary, Lisa Caputo.

Gallagher is hoping for a complete report, but she worries the investigation could prove fruitless if the government fails to produce documents about U.S. involvement to avoid implicating the CIA and other government agencies. “The cost,” she said, “may be too high.”

Meanwhile, Ortiz waits for an answer, wrapped in sleeping bags and covered in plastic.

“It’s not funny to be out in this weather,” said a homeless man in the park, peering at Ortiz’s makeshift tent. And the nun, he said, “was not the kind of kid to be out in this weather.”

MJP END LIEBLICH

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