While serving as a missionary in Guatemala, during its civil war, she was abducted on November 2, 1989 by members of the Guatemalan military, detained, raped, and tortured for 24 hours before being released.

[1] She filed a case against the Guatemalan Minister of Defense, General Héctor Gramajo, who was in power at the time of her abduction, arguing that he had command authority.

These showed that a Guatemalan colonel paid by the CIA was implicated in the deaths of the American Michael DeVine in 1990 and guerrilla leader Efraín Bámaca Velásquez [es] in 1993.

[5] She joined sisters already working with the indigenous population in San Miguel Acatán and other small villages throughout the department of Huehuetenango.

[7] According to her account, in late 1988 the Bishop of Huehuetenango received an anonymous typed document accusing Ortiz and the other sisters in San Miguel of planning to meet with "subversives".

This was followed in 1989 by written anonymous threats directed and delivered to Ortiz personally, while she was staying in more than one location, showing that she was under continued surveillance.

[8]She 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.

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

[13] The United States intervened on behalf of Guatemala when the military forces there were abusing a number of human rights at the time of Ortiz's kidnapping.

[15] The U.S government claimed that the allegations were false, stating that "items which were later found were intentionally placed in the garden to provide greater realism to the story of the kidnapping".

The administration was held accountable for the atrocities perpetrated against Ortiz since they linked more violent activities on behalf of Guatemalan citizens to officials in the government.

[20][21][22] According to an article on Pamela Brogan's report The Torturers' Lobby (1993), published by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), Guatemala was among several nations known to commit torture and human rights abuses and that had paid U.S. lobbying firms high fees to help keep U.S. funds going to it and "to gloss over its wretched human rights reputation".

The U.S. pressed the Guatemalan government to solve his murder; when that did not happen by the end of the year, Congress prohibited more military funding, then worth about $2.8 million.

[24] In April 1996, Ortiz was fasting outside the White House and joined by other protesters; she was seeking a release of CIA papers related to her abduction and the U.S. government's investigation.

Her protests had been preceded by those of Jennifer Harbury and members of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, seeking U.S. action on learning the fates of many "disappeared" in the country.

Harbury's husband Efraín Bámaca Velásquez [es], a Mayan guerrilla leader, had "disappeared" in 1992 and was presumed dead.

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.

While there was no confirmation of Ortiz's claim that an American national had been directly involved in her case, the papers revealed that a Guatemalan colonel on the CIA payroll ordered the 1990 killing of DeVine [24] and the 1993 murder of Bámaca Velásquez by a death squad.

[25] As a result of revelations, Clinton ordered the United States Intelligence Oversight Board to conduct a year-long review of operations of the CIA in Guatemala.

[27] Richard Nuccio, a State Department analyst, told a Congressional contact that the CIA had been funding Guatemala military operations, despite the 1990 prohibition.

[28][29] Sister Dianna 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.

[7] It noted that a domestic case had quickly been filed with the National Police in the department where the sisters were working, and that Ortiz had cooperated with the investigation, but in six years the government had made no progress on it.

[7] Given the difficulty of victims prosecuting torture and human rights cases, including murders, under military dictatorships, plaintiffs have begun to pursue civil suits.

The first were filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), which had been passed soon after the American Revolutionary War to deal with commercial issues.

Their case was heard in federal court in Massachusetts in combination with Ortiz v. Gramajo, which was decided under the Torture Victim Protection Act (1992), the first to make use of the new law.

"[1] In its ruling, the judiciary said that "[Gramajo-Morales] ... was aware of and supported widespread acts of brutality committed under his command resulting in thousands of civilian deaths.

In 1998, while working at the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA, Ortiz founded the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC) as a project of GHRC/USA.

[35] It provides support particularly to survivors living in the U.S., as many refugees had come from nations in Central and South America where states had sponsored terrorism against citizens.

Congress approved this legislation after the U.S. Supreme Court held that the George W. Bush administration's military commissions, set up only under executive branch authority, were unconstitutional.

[39] After speaking with and interviewing torture victims all across the world, Ortiz was inspired and felt driven to start an advocacy organization.