In March, a delegation of members of the Italian Senate...

In March, a delegation of members of the Italian Senate and of Hands off Cain went to Guatemala to have the Government confirm that it would abstain on the resolution for a moratorium on executions to be voted on by the UN Commission on Human Rights. The delegation, composed of Senators Ersilia Salvato, Francesca Scopelliti, Cesare Salvi, Pietro Milio and Athos de Luca, and Secretary of Hands off Cain Sergio d'Elia, met with the First Deputy Leader of the Congress Salvador Rodas Soto, the Archbishop of Guatemala Monsignor Prospero Penados del Barrio, Human Rights Ombudsman Julio Arango, the Chair of the Human Rights Committee of the Archdiocese Monsignor Mario Rios Montt, and Nobel Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchu Tum. Only one person has been put to death since the end of the war, and that was in February 1998, when Manuel Martinez, a 42-year-old farmer, was executed by lethal injection. "No executions are planned in the next few months," said Julio Arango. "But our main problem is death squads, forced disappearances, torture and threats."