35 Facts About Dianna Ortiz

Dianna Mae Ortiz was an American Roman Catholic sister of the Ursuline order.

Dianna Ortiz pursued her case in a Guatemalan court and in a United States civil court.

Dianna Ortiz filed a case against the Guatemalan Minister of Defense, General Hector Gramajo, who was in power at the time of her abduction, arguing that he had command authority.

Dianna Ortiz filed a case with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.

Dianna Ortiz was born on September 2,1958, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the middle of eight children born to Ambrosia and Pilar Dianna Ortiz, a homemaker and uranium miner, respectively.

Dianna Ortiz attended San Jose Elementary School and Sierra Vista Elementary School.

Sister Dianna Ortiz worked at the Ursuline Order for 43 years.

Dianna Ortiz's parents were immigrants from Mexico and they spoke Spanish eventually through them she learned to speak Spanish.

Dianna Ortiz's father worked as a miner, while her mother worked around the house.

Dianna Ortiz joined sisters already working with the indigenous population in San Miguel Acatan and other small villages throughout the department of Huehuetenango.

Dianna Ortiz was abducted on November 2,1989, from the garden of Posada de Belen.

Dianna Ortiz said her captors were police officers who took her to a secret prison at a police academy in Guatemala City.

Dianna Ortiz said a man named Alejandro was among her torturers, and that she heard him speak English with a North American accent.

Dianna Ortiz wrote in her memoir that her torture stopped.

Dianna Ortiz was taking her to a friend when she escaped.

Dianna Ortiz said he told her she had been mistaken for a guerrilla with a similar name, Veronica Ortiz Hernandez.

Dianna Ortiz knew this woman, an indigenous Guatemalan, and said she did not resemble her.

Dianna Ortiz saw a doctor in Guatemala and another after she returned to the United States; both later submitted testimony that she showed evidence of torture, including extensive cigarette burns.

Dianna Ortiz suffered greatly from her experience; like other torture victims, she lost many of her memories from the period before she went to Guatemala.

Dianna Ortiz was placed in a Catholic psychiatric asylum, where she would be under intense care.

When Dianna Ortiz's abduction took place, Guatemala was experiencing a civil war that lasted 36 years since the early 1960s and mostly targeted Mayan people.

The methods employed by the military and administration of Guatemala made it possible for Dianna Ortiz to be kidnapped.

Dianna Ortiz said it was done by right-wing paramilitary forces in the country.

Dianna Ortiz explicitly mentions that General Hector Gramajo, and General Carlos Morales told press that her abduction was a hoax.

Dianna Ortiz eventually won her case against General Hector Gramajo and it was ruled that he would never be allowed to enter the US.

Roberts implied that Dianna Ortiz was lying about the entire episode, despite the fact that Dianna Ortiz later won a lawsuit against a Guatemalan general she accused in the case.

Dianna Ortiz's protests had been preceded by those of Jennifer Harbury and members of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, seeking US action on learning the fates of many "disappeared" in the country.

Dianna Ortiz went on a five-week hunger strike in protest.

Dianna Ortiz anticipated being the voice for others who could not openly comment on human rights abuses because they sought political refuge, despite dropping 10 pounds over the first three weeks of the hunger strike.

Sister Dianna Ortiz filed a case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 1990 based on her abduction and torture by agents of the Guatemalan government in 1989.

Dianna Ortiz was the first to file a suit under this law, arguing that it was retroactive to the time of her torture.

The civil case of Ortiz was combined by her legal representative, the Center for Constitutional Rights, with Xuncax v Gramajo, in which eight Kanjobal Indians had filed a US civil suit against General Hector Gramajo, Minister of Defense in Guatemala under the Alien Tort Claims Act.

GHRC's director, Sister Alice Zachmann, had advocated for her release from clandestine detention in 1989 and had invited Dianna Ortiz to give the keynote address at GHRC's 1992 International Conference on Torture in Guatemala.

Dianna Ortiz's experiences prompted her to seek justice for herself and others in the midst of the political violence.

Dianna Ortiz died of cancer on February 19,2021, while under hospice care in Washington, DC.