Post Number Two regarding Guatemala:

The political situation here...  Hmmmm...

Well, I guess I´ll start with the war.  There was a civil war that went on for about 35 years.  During these years, all of the presidents were military officers, most of them Generals.  The war ended in 1996 when el Fondepaz (Fuente de la Paz: Fountain or Source of Peace) was signed.  The army disbanded and the fighting stopped.  However, I´ve been told that since the war ended crime has gotten worse and worse.  There is a sentiment among those who are educated about politics and the causes of the war that the ex-military don´t know what else to do with themselves after years of massacres.

So, what about the causes of the war?  As has been the case in many countries in Central America, poor workers wanted to be paid better for their hours of labor.  The farmers in the country sides were tired of the extreme poverty they lived with after centuries of being pushed off their land by powerful Spanish land ¨holders.¨ The poor working class and the hungry indigenous, who have been pushed further and further up the mountainsides as the valleys have been taken over by haciendas, realized that their struggle was the same struggle and began to unite.  They demanded better wages, better healthcare, safer working conditions.  They wanted the government´s help to give them a humane quality of life.  The government, however, chose to represent the interests of big business.  It is said that 23 Spanish families own most of Guatemala.  There are also many factories owned by Japanese companies.  And of course, the United States has a great interest in maintaining an oppressed working class here as well. 

As people began to unionize, the government sent the army to kill them.  Anyone who spoke publicly about the injustice of their extreme poverty was tortured and killed.  Community leaders, including priests and teachers, were publicly tortured and killed in order to scare everyone from continuing their struggle for basic amenities like running water or electricity.  If there were demonstrations, crowds would be shot.  People began fleeing the towns for the mountains, camping, in order to hide from the army.  In the mountains, small bands of civilian militia began to form to try to protect people from these murders and massacres.  This is the army that we call the guerillas, which is Spanich for "little wars."  Guerillas fight little wars, small, surprise attacks, rather than big battles, like big armies prefer.

As the guerrillas gained momentum, the army began massacring villagers in the mountains, in order to discourage these people from supporting the guerrillas.  This is how the war went on for thirty-five years.  Many people fled to Mexico, and still live as refugees there.  Their land, deserted, has been taken over by the huge hacienda farms. 

Because people were killed for speaking about the injustices of their extreme poverty, because people were killed for educating others about the power they had when they organized, and because most of this killing happened in small indigenous communities, there are still many people in Guatemala who don´t know why there was a war.  Nobody talked publically about why the guerillas were fighting, out of fear for their lives.  Unless you were a part of the community of people who needed the services they were being denied, there was no way for you to know why these people were fighting.  On top of that, the government used propaganda to tell the television watching, big city dwelling public that the guerrillas were just criminals, thieves, murderers from whom the army was protecting them.  Add racism to the mix, and you find here a place lost in a fog of misunderstanding and pain.

Since the war has ended, there have been important developments in many parts of the country.  Roads have been built and slowly people are getting the electricity and running water that they need.  But today, one of the two most popular candidates for president is an ex-General, Otto Perez, who directed many of the massacres, and is connected to Rios Mont, the bloodiest of the military dictators that oppressed the Guatemalan public during the seventies and eighties.  I´m told that many people don´t know this.  Illiteracy is a huge problem here and many people living in the countryside don´t have televisions to see reports, even if this kind of information is reported.  There is also the problem that even the ¨educated¨ public has been educated to believe that the civil war was a case of the army protecting the good, working people from those they racistly believe to be greedy, lazy, indigenous campesinos. 

Since the army disbanded, there has been more and more violent crime.  Many of the army´s veterans of this civil war are now wondering the countryside ransacking houses, mugging people in the streets, and it is said, at times they kill for sport.  Many people who were never affected by the civil war that was happening in the small pueblos and in the mountain indigenous communities are now experiencing frightening violence in their cities. This has led to the opinion that Guatemala was safer when Generals were in charge.  Many people want to go back to the days when an army was keeping them safe from these violent crimes, as they perceived it, as the government told them it was.

The other popular candidate is Alvaro Colom.  He is an engineer with no apparent ties to the military.  Most people I talked to believed that he would win.  And I certainly hope so given that the second runner up right now is a war criminal.

I´ve heard two personal stories regarding the state of things today.  One is the story of a family whose home was invaded by a band of criminals.  Grandma, her three daughters, the husband of one of the daughters, and her granddaughter were in the house when five men with guns, at least one of them ex-military, came into the house to rob them.  They had no money and the men shot everyone.  They also raped the youngest of the young women before killing here.  One of the women survived, as well as the two year old granddaughter, the niece of the surviving woman.  Tragically, stories like this are not uncommon anymore, here in Guatemala. 

The other personal story that was shared with me is the story of a woman who worked as a social worker-therapist with the indigenous women in the mountains after the war ended.  She was helping them to process the extreme trauma of having witnessed massacres, tortures, of having buried loved one´s alive, of having been raped repeatedly.  She began to write a book that included information about Otto Perez and his involvement in these atrocities.  Then, she began receiving death threats and she has since fled to Mexico.

I guess all I can say in summary, is that there is much work to be done.  This country feels to me like a body torn to pieces.  Everyone is bleeding and noone knows exactly why.  At the same time, as is often the case, there is an incredible spirit of hope and faith here.  People want to heal and many exciting things are happening all the time, to move the country forward, toward wholeness and wellness...


Posted on 8/17/07; 9:25:02 AM