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In the 36 years of conflict in Guatemala, more than 200,000 people
were killed, most of them victims of the military, which completely
wiped out 626 separate indigenous communities
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Guatemala has recently emerged from four decades of conflict. After 17
June 1954, when an armed coup, financed by the United States,
overthrew the elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, the population was
subjected to a bloody state-sponsored campaign to exterminate all
opposition. Four years later, this brutal regime led to civil war. The
Oslo Agreement, signed in 1994, led to the 1996 Definitive Peace
Accord between the Guatemalan state and the guerrilla organisation
Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG). This put an end to
the military conflict and was the beginning of a healing and national
reconciliation process.
A Historical Clarification Commission was set up under the auspices of
the United Nations. This commission, following the end of hostilities,
was given the task of accomplishing its work of investigating four
decades of genocide and human rights abuses in only a year, and it was
prohibited from naming those responsible for the atrocities. In the
end, the investigation ran for 18 months.
In October 1994, the Catholic Church primate in Guatemala, Archbishop
Próspero Penados del Barrio, established the Recovery of Historical
Memory (REMHI) project, a church initiative to study human rights
violations. The pastoral teams of eleven dioceses and indigenous
leaders conducted this study. The search for information concentrated
on rural communities, whose physical inaccessibility and linguistic
diversity complicated the task. Their final report, titled ``Guatemala:
Never Again'', documenting the testimonies of thousand of people who
were bereaved, injured, and widowed during the 36-year war in
Guatemala, was presented in April 1998. Just two days later, the
project coordinator, Bishop Juan Gerardi, was assassinated.
Guatemalan president Alvaro Arzú's government rejected suggestions
that Gerardi's killing was political, but human rights organisations
have a very different opinion. As one human rights official said: ``The
killers were those backward sectors in society who do not want to
clarify the past and whose aim is to terrorise the population.''
Roberto Tepaz López, an indigenous Quiché speaker from Guatemala who
worked with Bishop Gerardi on the REMHI report, was in Dublin on
Wednesday 17 November for the launch of the English-language edition
of the church report. ``The old people in our villages say that only
those who conquer the past will be able to conquer the future,'' he
said. ``When we started this work, people from the communities said to
us: `We want our sons and daughters to remember. We hope that our
youth and future generations know our stories and learn from it, so
they never go through the same'.''
Before REMHI started their job, they contacted the Truth Commissions
in South Africa, Argentina, and also El Salvador, ``so we could share
their experiences, which were very valid'' although he explained that
the Guatamalan situatioin also differed significantly.
In the 36 years of conflict, the Guatemalans experienced new methods
of extermination and human rights violations. More than 200,000 people
were killed, most of them victims of the military, which completely
wiped out 626 separate indigenous communities. But the total number of
those slaughtered is still unknown, Roberto explains. ``We only
officially registered 35,000 dead. The Historical Clarification
Commission increased the number of victims, but there are exhumations
being carried out at the moment, and the people in these clandestine
cemeteries were never accounted for in any of the reports.''
From Roberto's point of view, it was important that people who had
suffered violence and repression would be able to express their
feelings, ``that people themselves were allowed to explain their truth
and their stories, and that in telling the truth they were also able
to come to terms with what had happened to them and their relatives''.
To facilitate their work, REMHI simply asked the people from the rural
communities to help them. ``In Guatemala, most of the people are
illiterate. So, our interviewers, peasant women and men, were also
illiterate. But these people enjoyed confidence and credibility within
the community, as they were also victims of the violence. The
interviews were carried out in secret locations. When the interviewer
and the interviewee sat down, there were some people who just sat
silently, unable to speak, others wept for hours, some talked nonstop
for hours.'' All the statements were taken in the Mayan language. The
Mayan communities were the most affected by repression and violence.
As the Historical Clarification Commission points out on its report,
titled Guatemala, Memory of the Silence, ``there was a massive
extermination of the Mayan population, including women, children and
old people, using methods the cruelty of which would horrify the moral
conscience of the civilised world''. The report pointed out that the
worst cases of human rights violations took place between 1978 and
1983, during the so-called ``counter-insurgency operations'' against
Mayan communities organised by the Efraín Rios Montt government.
The truth is surfacing, but Roberto has no great hopes that those
responsible for the massacres and human rights violations in his
country will be ever prosecuted. ``There was an amnesty in Guatemala
for those responsible for human rights violations during the war.
Also, we have a justice system which nobody trusts and where impunity
reigns. And the people still fear reprisal if they speak out. There
have been some cases taken to the courts, but just concerning low
ranking army personnel. When questioned, the colonels in the army
always reply that they ever, never, fired a bullet. The army is still
very influential in the justice system in Guatemala right now. Perhaps
in ten years time we will be able to tell a different story.''
The possible extradition of Chilean former general and dictator
Augusto Pinochet to Spain to be tried for his responsibility for the
killings and tortures carried out under his regime has created a
certain expectation that ``it can be done to all the dictators in the
world, and that will include Lucas García and Ríos Montt, who are
responsible for the worst human right violations in Guatemala,'' says
Roberto.
``But we will have to talk about his after 26 December, after the
results from the second round of Guatemala's general election are
announced, because after the first round the party that was once led
by Ríos Montt has actually ended up with the largest representation in
the congress. This is a very uncertain time for us. I do not know what
we will be doing next year because I do not know what we will be
allowed to do.''
Children's Rights
While the world celebrated International Children's Day on Saturday,
20 November, UNICEF, the United Nations organisation responsible for
Children's rights and welfare, released some very grim statistics,
revealing that over 300,000 children are used as soldiers taking part
in conflicts throughout the world and at least 250 million children
are part of the workforce. A further million are forced into
prostitution every year. UNICEF also highlighted the fact that nearly
12 million children will die this year due to the lack of basic
medical attention.
United States
Leading US Democratic Party politician, the Reverend Jesse Jackson,
was recently arrested during a street protest at the gates of the
Eisenhower high school in Decatur, a small industrial town in central
Illinois. The protest was part of a campaign aimed at reinstating six
black students expelled from the school. The six students Jackson was
defending were expelled for two years after taking part in a dangerous
touchline brawl during a school football game on 17 September last.
Jackson says the case exemplifies how the ``zero tolerance'' regimes
fashionable in American schools bear down mostly on black and ethnic
minority students. Of the 1,700 students expelled or suspended last
year by school authorities in Decatur, 60% are black, though the
African-American population only makes up 12% of the town's
population.