A warm hello to my family, friends, and mentors (in many combinations)! Since early October, I have been living in Guatemala City working as an international human rights accompanier with the organization NISGUA (Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala). Along with accompaniers from several other international organizations, we make up a team that provides a dissuasive physical presence at the request of Guatemalan individuals, communities and organizations that are at risk for their activism. This activism typically falls into two categories: justice for crimes of the past, and the defense of life and territory. Essentially, accompaniment work can entail attending court hearings in cases against former military members guilty of crimes committed during Guatemala’s 36-year Internal Armed Conflict, or making regular visits to regions where Indigenous communities are resisting transnationally owned mega-development projects such as mines and hydroelectrics dams. (You can read more about how accompaniment functions here.) In addition to monitoring the conditions of human rights defenders in Guate, we utilize the platforms available to us to disseminate this information. In doing so, accompaniers can hold the Guatemalan government and private powers accountable to an international audience, as well as educate others around the world about the grassroots movements here. And that’s where this email update––called a “Friends and Family letter”––comes into play. These updates are part keeping in touch, part educational, and part call to action. At the root of it all, I want to keep you in the loop because I care deeply about this work and I care deeply about you. The Internal Armed Conflict To understand the current context in Guatemala, it is essential to understand the basics of Guatemala’s 36-year armed conflict. This conflict––which ended officially in 1996 with the signing of the Guatemalan Peace Accords––grew out of a struggle for land and resources, and was further fueled by Cold War era fears of communism, as well as virulent racism towards Guatemala’s majority Indigenous Maya population. Let’s begin in the 1950s, when Guatemala’s democratically elected president began a campaign of agrarian reform benefitting hundreds of thousands of poverty stricken Guatemalan campesinos, or rural farmers. In response, the CIA orchestrated a military coup in 1954 to instate a ruler who would protect the United States’ economic interests––mainly, the United Fruit Company's control of the vast majority of Guatemala’s farmland, only a sixth of which the corporation actually used to cultivate. (It’s notable that the U.S. Secretary of State as well as the director of the CIA at the time––brothers John Foster and Allen Dulles––both had extremely close ties to the United Fruit Company.) An Internal Armed Conflict soon broke out across the country as several left-wing guerrilla groups formed to oppose the new oppressive regime. This conflict lasted 36 years, during which a sequence of dictatorships, claiming to wage war against guerrilla insurgents, unleashed horrific violence against civilians, murdering an estimated 200,000 people. The majority of these victims were Indigenous Maya. During the most brutal years of the conflict––in the early 80s under the leadership of Fernando Romeo Lucas García and Efraín Ríos Montt––the Guatemalan military implemented a strategy called the ‘scorched earth campaign,’ which supposedly aimed to target guerrillas by cutting off their access to resources. In reality, this meant murdering entire populations of villages, burning houses and crops to the ground, killing livestock, and patrolling the area to prevent the return of any survivors. Torture, sexual violence, and forced disappearances were also common tactics used against civilian populations. Over the course of the conflict, the Guatemalan military committed 626 massacres across the country, wiping hundreds of villages completely off the map. Furthermore, over one million people were displaced from their homes. By attempting to destroy Indigenous Maya communities and cultures, the Guatemalan military engaged in a policy of genocide. Many of the racist attitudes and practices that fueled these genocides remain relevant today. Legacies of the Conflict: Continued Repression, Unending Resistance If you look at a map marking the sites where the Guatemalan military carried out massacres against civilian populations in the 1980s, and then look at a map marking the locations of current mega-development projects around the country (the blueprints of which were elaborated in the 1970s), they are almost identical. Essentially, the desire to appropriate and exploit Guatemala’s land and natural resources, in combination with a total disregard for Indigenous lives and cultures––the same desire and disregard espoused by Spanish conquistadors five centuries ago, and by the United Fruit company only decades ago––led to the murder and displacement of over one million people. After the Guatemalan Peace Accords were signed in 1996, the Guatemalan government essentially gave foreign companies the green light to begin constructing mega-development projects in territories where Indigenous resistance had now been weakened. Such construction, however, carried out in the name of ‘development,’ violates the inherent right of Indigenous communities to give or withhold free, prior, and informed consent to the building of these projects on their territory––a right acknowledged and guaranteed in both the Peace Accords and the International Labor Organization’s Convention No. 169, which Guatemala’s government ratified in 1989. For decades, Indigenous and campesino human rights defenders have organized in resistance to such intrusive and destructive mega-development projects. However, this resistance has been met with escalating repression as the Guatemalan government and private powers utilize tactics of criminalization and other forms of violence to curb such activism. Just this past year, “26 members of mostly Indigenous campesino organizations have been killed” due to their work (read or listen to this recent NPR report here). Nonetheless, across the country, human rights defenders continue fighting in defense of life and territory, campaigning for justice for the both the crimes of the present as well as the past. Making connections: My Experience as an Accompanier My work over the past few months has deepened and concretized my understanding of these connections between past and present. I’ve had the opportunity to accompany the plaintiffs in a case of transitional justice, as well as accompany Indigenous community leaders who are currently being criminalized for their efforts to protect their ancestral territory. These both have been powerful experiences, full of setbacks and victories, and a wide range of complicated emotions. Justice for Crimes of the Past: The Dos Erres Massacre Case During the beginning of my time here, I attended numerous court hearings in the Dos Erres massacre case. This case involves a massacre committed in 1982, during which Guatemalan special forces murdered nearly every inhabitant of the now non-existent village of Dos Erres. (For more information about these events and the subsequent battle for justice, you can read, listen, or watch.) For several weeks, I regularly made my way to a very tall and imposing building in the heart of Guatemala City, passing through three security checkpoints and climbing thirteen flights of stairs to the courtroom where ex-special forces soldier Santos López Alonzo stood trial for his role in the massacre. He was accused of crimes against humanity, the murder of 171 people, and crimes committed specifically against Ramiro Antonio Osorio Cristales––the young boy López Alonzo abducted from Dos Erres during the massacre, illegally registered as his own son, and subjected to years of abuse. As I recall my experience accompanying this case, certain moments of the trial stand out to me. I remember sitting behind a row of witnesses––older campesino men who had all lost multiple family members in the massacre––as they playfully tapped each other on the opposite shoulder, chuckling at the confusion that followed, and then trying the same trick on their neighbor. And I remember during long days of heartbreaking testimonies, every few hours one of the witnesses would leave to buy candies, then tiptoe around the room to pass them out. A chorus of plastic crinkling followed by muffled laughter would always ensue. In these moments I reflected on community healing, the importance of moments of levity when reliving trauma, and the solidarity that can be built by navigating the legal system together––no matter the outcome of such proceedings. I experienced confusing moments too. Such as when the daughter of López Alonzo––who himself is from a poor rural town––testified in his defense. The judge reminded her that as a family member of the defendant, she was not obligated to testify. She responded innocently, Would it help? And I remember the cage-like area López Alonzo was kept in during hearings, and how reporters would press their cameras up against the bars, as if taking pictures of an animal at the zoo. It was incredibly confusing to recognize the humanity of López Alonzo and thus feel sorry for his dehumanization, when he himself had committed the most unimaginable atrocities. López Alonzo was ultimately convicted of crimes against humanity and 171 counts of murder, carrying a prison sentence of 5,160 years. In fact, he is the sixth person convicted in the ongoing Dos Erres massacre case. He was acquitted, however, of the crimes committed specifically against Osorio Cristales. (For Spanish speakers, here is an article I wrote with more details about the trial.) López Alonzo’s conviction was ultimately a bittersweet victory. First of all, his guilty verdict lacked justice for Osorio Cristales, now an adult living in Canada for his safety. Secondly, the same court that sentenced López Alonzo to a lifetime in prison subsequently denied the plaintiffs’ principal petitions for reparations. While legal recognition of crimes of the past is hugely important, reparations are arguably even more impactful for massacre survivors who have lost not only family members, but also their homes, their lands, their crops, and all of their possessions. Furthermore, these losses have intergenerational impacts, as it is immensely difficult to recoup after losing everything built over the course of a lifetime. In fact, just the day after López Alonzo’s sentencing, I accompanied survivors of another 1982 massacre committed in the village of Chichupac as they held a press conference to denounce the Guatemalan government’s failure to comply with reparations ordered two years earlier by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. As it happens, the same court produced a similar ruling in 2009 regarding the Dos Erres massacre––a ruling with which the Guatemalan government has also failed to comply. And as evidenced in the case brought against López Alonzo, family members of those who perished in the Dos Erres massacre are still fighting for these same reparations a decade later. It struck me that even as Guatemalan courts hand down guilty verdicts to those responsible for crimes of the past, survivors of violence committed during the Internal Armed Conflict are continuously denied meaningful and comprehensive justice. Defense of Life and Territory: The Corozal Arriba Case Shortly after accompanying the plaintiffs of the Dos Erres massacre case, I began accompanying the defendants of a different case. It was the case of several Maya Ch’orti’ men from the town of Corozal Arriba––including two of the village’s Indigenous authorities––who are active in the struggle to defend their ancestral territory against wealthy landowners. This group of men had been sentenced to 6 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, and were thus appealing their sentence. As I mentioned before, criminalization is a common strategy used to halt the work of human rights defenders. Often, targets of this tactic are accused of crimes that require preventative prison as they await their trials. Those trials are subsequently dragged out and stalled, maximizing the time human rights defenders spend behind bars. Whether they are ultimately convicted on trumped up charges or eventually freed due to insufficient evidence, these activists often spend years behind bars. Meanwhile, their families suffer emotionally and financially in their absence. Furthermore, their criminalization is intended to incite fear amongst other human rights defenders doing the same work. In this particular case of blatant criminalization, the 6 year sentence of these Maya Ch’orti’ human rights defenders was lowered drastically during the appeals process. Since these men had already spent almost two full years in prison, this new ruling meant their liberation. But again, it was a bittersweet victory. Their conviction was not technically reversed. Furthermore, several other members of their community currently face arrest warrants for the same false accusation, and would likely be similarly convicted once captured and tried. Furthermore, the court failed to acknowledge the systematic purposeful targeting of Indigenous authorities.*
Closing Reflections I’m still learning how to utilize the despair I feel when reflecting on the injustices of the world to motivate me rather than immobilize me. And I’m still learning how let myself contemplate the sheer scale of it all, while continuing to value the importance of every step forward. And I’m still learning how to celebrate the bittersweet victories––fully embracing their gains while not losing sight of the work that still needs to be done. A few weeks ago, I was sitting outside a courthouse with several community members from Corozal Arriba, waiting for a hearing to begin. We had all woken up before dawn to travel several hours to the town where this case was being heard. Elodia, the Indigenous mayor of another Maya Ch'orti' town near Corozal Arriba, prepared us for the disappointing possibility that this hearing would be suspended. She reminded us, it is never a waste of time when hearings are postponed, because time is never wasted on the path to justice. Suspended hearings are just another step on that path. And if we don’t open and follow that path, who will? Elodia’s words perfectly illustrate the perseverance and dedication we all need as we forge the path to create and sustain a more just, conscientious, and transparent society. In the spirit of celebrating victories, take a look at NISGUA’s end-of-the-year report highlighting accomplishments of 2018 here. And in the spirit of taking action, sign a petition to stand in solidarity with Indigenous communities defending community consultations. (Community consultations are an ancestral decision-making practice used as a consensus-building and organizing tool––often to resist the construction of mega-development projects––which is currently under threat by the Guatemalan government.) Check out more ways to take action in regards to other urgent issues in Guate here. And if you want to share this email with others, feel free to forward it along, as well as this sign-up link for future updates. I hope 2019 has been off to a fulfilling start, and I’m wishing you continued nourishment in the months ahead! In solidarity, Tal *A section from fellow accompanier Olivia Pandolfi’s Friends and Family Letter, further elaborating on this issue: Indigenous authorities . . . are already marginalized both in society at large and specifically by the Guatemalan state, which often refuses to recognize Indigenous leaders, decisions, and legal systems. Many Mayan communities have retained ancestral governments and legal structures that operate from a cosmovision of justice, property, and leadership distinct from that of the state system. . . . At times, the state and Indigenous frameworks can exist simultaneously without conflict, but more often, where they overlap, the police and the Ministerio Público (a rough equivalent to the US Attorney General’s office) criminalize the actions of Indigenous authorities rather than recognizing their legitimacy.
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