Jennifer K. Harbury (born 1951) is an American lawyer, author, and human rights activist. She has been instrumental in forcing the revelation of the complicity of the United States CIA in human rights abuses, particularly in Guatemala and other countries of Central America during the 1980s and 1990s. Initially, she was trying to discover the fate of her husband Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, a Mayan guerrilla leader who was "disappeared" in March 1992 by the Guatemalan military.
After her three hunger strikes, the death of her husband at the hands of the army in 1993 was revealed, together with CIA complicity in his case and other Guatemala Army human rights abuses. Declassified US files revealed that he was tortured and killed by high level intelligence officials in the Guatemalan army, who were also working as paid informants of the CIA. CIA payments to them continued throughout her husband's torture. As a result of her efforts, Congress forced the end to a CIA program.[citation needed] In 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered the declassification of decades of documents related to US activities in Guatemala and other Central American countries, and apologized for US contributions to human rights abuses there while on an official visit to Guatemala.[1]