Exploring Volunteering

We received the following press release from CALDH in Spanish 16-07-2007 about the current status of the case against Rios Montt:

Written by Kimberly Kern

These last four months living in Guatemala and working as a human rights accompanier with the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) has already been an amazing experience. The relationships I have formed, with other accompaniers from around the world and especially the families of Santa Maria Tzejá (SMT) have opened my eyes and my heart. I hope that the stories, history and current political information that I send in these letters inspires y’all to action in the fight for justice, not just globally, but in your own communities where you see blatant injustice.

The Story of Marta

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with Marta about children and childbirth. The average age for a woman to become a mother here is 15, so obviously, a 27 year-old woman with no husband or children is very strange. Nine times she has experienced the excruciating pain of giving life, but today she only has seven children. When I asked what happened to them she told me her story¦one of many similar stories:

When the army came that day in 1982, we ran for our lives though the jungle¦ some people had no shoes¦ we couldn’t see anything in the dark¦ the branches tore our skin¦ but we couldn’t stop, it was life or death so we kept moving, she remembers.

For months and months, Marta and the group she travelled with roamed blindly through the mountains of northern Guatemala, escaping many close encounters with the army which was constantly hunting them. Most of the time, they had no idea which direction they were going.

After wandering for weeks and months, she remembers being at an encampment of people who saw the army coming and they decided to move the group, yet again. She was so weak, she couldn’t go.

I decided that I wouldn’t walk anymore¦ I couldn’t walk anymore¦ I was starving. I sat down on the ground with my two babies and said this is where I’m going to die, me and my babies.

She doesn’t know exactly what it was that made her lift herself up and keep moving, but she suddenly found the strength to keep going. The decision to flee to Mexico was a point of conflict among the wandering group. Many people thought the war would end soon or the army would give up searching for them. Many people suffered terribly and two of Marta’s children died in the mountains of malnutrition during those months of indecision.

Her strength to move forward, not just that day in the mountains, but her constant positive activity in her community, is an inspiration to me. She is a woman who was never given the opportunity to receive an education, so she cannot read or write. But she broke away from her expected role as a soft-spoken woman and mother and became a leader in her community. She says, I have a lot of opinions and think they should be heard. She is inspiring to other women in the community as well because she isn’t afraid to stand up and speak, something which she, as in indigenous woman, has worked to overcome her whole life.

Before the massacre, she was married to a man who was physically abusive and never let her get involved outside of their house. He was killed the day of the massacre and as a refugee in Mexico, Marta was introduced to a woman’s organization called Mama Maquin. From this experience, she brought back a wealth of knowledge to SMT and is a strong force in the woman’s union there. In Mexico, she also found a man who is extremely supportive of her community activity and she created a new life and a new family with him.

Rios Montt runs for Congress¦again

Unfortunately Rios Montt, a man who currently has an international genocide case against him in the Spanish Courts, registered to run for the Guatemalan Congress on May 18th. This, of course, is major news here on the ground and work will continue around the national cases against Rios Montt and his military high command. If you have not signed this letter to move the case forward, please take a moment of your time and sign it here.

If you have already signed, it would be helpful to send this link to five people that you think would like to support the people who suffered terribly during a brutal civil war and are fighting for justice.

Another interesting piece of news came out in the national newspaper, Prensa Libre, which undeniably links Rios Montt to several massacres that took place in 1982. This link, called Plan Sofia, is a military document that outlines the plans for the eradication of indigenous communities in the Quiché region of Guatemala. “The documents detailing Plan Sofia clearly illustrate an explicit chain of command, with Rios Montt at its head, through which orders of mass extermination were communicated at the height of the conflict” said Catherine Norris, an organizer with the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) in Washington D.C.

“Since the demands for justice from survivors have yet to compel the Guatemalan judicial system to prosecute those responsible for genocide, we hope such brazen documentation of planning and responsibility for atrocities will prove impossible to ignore and bolster the survivors' case,” Norris told Upside Down World. Another accompanier wrote a detailed article about this plan and the effects of this news on the case.

Consulta Comunitaria (Community Referendum)

On April 20th, a very interesting and exciting action took place here in the Ixcan region of Guatemala: a vote concerning the construction of new hydro-electric dams (namely the Xalala Dam) and the exploration and exploitation of oil by foreign interests. Since a majority of land is owned and utilized by indigenous communities in the Ixcan, a popular vote was taken to see if the people that would be most directly affected by these projects were in favor of them or not. After many information sessions and talk throughout the region, a vote was taken and 91% of the region said NO to the projects.

The day of the Consulta was an inspiring day for SMT. Everyone was very excited to be part of this historical process and have their voice heard. In Guatemala, the government never asks their opinion on anything, so this vote made them feel very empowered.  I felt privileged to be present as an observer.

Semana Santa (Holy Week)

Semana Santa is extremely important here in Guatemala. In SMT, the students that are usually away studying high school or college all return for this one week festival extraordinaire. At first, when everyone was talking about Semana Santa, I thought it was going to be more of a party, but with religion so deeply intertwined in the local culture, I should have known better. I went to Catholic mass more times in the last month than in the last ten years. Other than going to mass and participating in processions of the Stations of the Cross, the two main traditions here in SMT are making bread and spending a day at the river. These two traditions also mirror the traditions of the church. Bread is made early in the week to eat during the time between Good Friday and Easter (many people in the states fast during this time). On Thursday (the Last Supper), everyone goes to the Tzeja River all day with their families and cooks enormous amounts of food.

On the Tuesday of Semana Santa, I was invited to make bread with a family. The bread is prepared in small portions with unique swirls or other decorations. At 7am we stared a fire inside a huge cob oven. It is about 10 feet high with a diameter of about 6 feet. While the oven heated, we mixed large amounts of flour and sugar in a wooden box about 8 feet long. The process, as many of you know, is a long one¦ the dough rises and gets kneaded again and again.

At 8am we started making little balls of dough that eventually turned into little decorative creations with the help of many women. By 10am the wood had become ash and coals inside the oven which was swept to the side to keep the heat in. The bread was put on metal pans and placed into the oven for about ten minutes. From the batch, we produced about 200 portions. The smell of fresh bread is only slightly beat by the taste. While we were outside baking the bread, another family had come to mix their own batch. Only three families have cob ovens, so they are shared with the neighbors.

The tradition is to eat the bread with honey, but there is also another topping called panela which is derived from sugar cane. I prefer the honey, myself.

On Thursday, we packed three horses with pots, pans, watermelons, food and hammocks and headed to the river to relax. When we got there around 8am, we gathered firewood and started making soup which cooked slowly all day. Until then, people ate bread and watermelon, fished in the river, swam and bathed, played games, listened to music and caught up with family member’s home for the holiday. I definitely missed my family a lot during this week, seeing all the smiling, laughing families together. But I am feeling more and more comfortable in SMT and have found people I consider friends to talk to about anything. I miss you all very much and talk about home considerably more than I should. Everyone just loves to hear about Texas¦ which they say, casi es Mexico(it’s basically Mexico.)

Peace,
Kimika

-Listen to Central America After The Wars – “Tale of One Village – Santa Maria Tzeja“
-Read more about the history of Santa Maria Tzeja in the book by Beatriz Manz, “Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror and Hope”, published by Berkeley 2004.

Photo: Jordan Buckley

Hello Friends, Family & Allies,

So, this is my final dispatch; my days of accompanying genocide case witnesses in two Guatemalan highland villages have come to an end.

As I prepare to return home after nearly 11 months here, yesterday’s cover story in the nation’s largest newspaper reiterates once again that my
solidarity work with the AJR is far from finished, however:  Immunity for Rios Montt: Congressional Candidacy Makes even more Difficult the Judicial Process against him.

The most murderous dictator in our hemisphere’s recent history has almost positively secured four more years of impunity for overseeing the army-led killing of some 70,000 Mayans. The courts have okayed his candidacy forSeptember’s elections, thereby granting him immunity from prosecution (as hiswealth, fame and evangelical connections render him a shoo-in).

TELL THEM HOW POOR WE ARE & WHAT WE’VE SUFFERED

Repeatedly in saying goodbyes, Mayan friends and colleagues have either pled or demanded that I relay what I’ve lived and witnessed firsthand back to those in my homeland: the fabled Norte, the land of plenty, the veritable empire that overthrew their democracy in 1954 and propped up genocidal military dictatorships throughout the 1980s.

Tell them how poor we are. Let them know what we’ve suffered. Share our stories with them. All a formidable challenge when most people in the U.S. still don’t know that Guatemala endured a recent genocide and its perpetrators remain free and powerful (not to mention the unspeakably horrific role that otherwise occupied U.S. citizens allowed our government to play here).

FREE DRINKS FOR A GRINGO CEROTE

Earlier this month in Nebaj, my partner Josué and I went to a restaurant/bar for tea before retiring to bed. A somewhat inebriated Ixil man zipped by, cursing us under his breath: gringos cerotes. I called him out, not particularly happy that he had called us big gringo zeroes for seemingly no reason, and told him to repeat it. The room grew silent, all eyes fixed on us, and the tension soared. Immediately, another man slung his arm around my shoulder, apologizing for hisfriend and ordering us drinks on his tab, effectively defusing the potentiallyvolatile moment. The man who insulted us, I soon learned, had recently resignedas governor of the Quiche province where I work and is gunning for Congress withthe FRG party, which is led by none other than Rios Montt.

Later that night, I contemplated how horribly wrong that evening might have turned out and tried to envision the converse of the situation, with a Guatemalan in a U.S. restaurant/bar being insulted. Then I considered an article I had recently read. A few weeks ago, a Republican county official in Utah submitted a resolution labelling immigrants Satan’s minions that hate the U.S.

This was not a bar, it was an official document and, while extreme, folks in the U.S. routinely use vocabulary that insults the human dignity of immigrants and ignores the very real factors that transform these individuals from Guatemalans to immigrants in the first place (many of which are, in fact, undeniably rooted in U.S. policy).

RONALD REAGAN & THE U.S. ARMY ARE ILLEGALS

Take, for example, the term illegals. Unsanctioned immigration is the only crime in the U.S. which saddles its violators with the identity of an illegal. No one calls Enron executives, habitually drunk drivers, tax evaders, or Fundamentalist Mormon polygamists illegals. Meanwhile, the U.S. knowingly funded and trained Guatemalan military dictatorships which were carrying out genocide against the Maya in the 1980s:

* In terms of training, between 1947 and 1991, at least 1,598 members of the Guatemalan Army were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) and 13 Guatemalan Army officials served there as instructors. Following the 1996 Peace Accords, which largely ended the state-led massacring of Mayacommunities, a U.N.-led truth commission singled out the role of the SOA, reporting that its counter-insurgency instruction “had a significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed conflict.”
* Of the three ex-dictators sought in the genocide case, SOA graduates comprised four of eight military officials in the cabinet of Romeo Lucas Garcia, six out of nine under Efrain Rios Montt and five out of 10 under Oscar Mejia Victores. General Benedicto Lucas Garcia, who designed the Scorched Earth campaign that led the army to burn at least 440 Mayan villages to the ground and is also sought in the genocide case, was trained by the SOA in high military command.
* Regarding the Ixil region, where I have lived since July, two declassified CIA documents from February 1982 state that General Lucas Garcia “acknowledged that because most Indians in the area support the guerrillas it probably will be necessary to destroy a number of villages” and that “the army can be expected to give no quarter to combatants and non-combatants alike.” One month later, 96 people from Ilom were mass-executed in the plaza beside our current room.
* That summer, the Reagan administration declared that Guatemala was “not a gross violator of human rights.” In December 1982 – the same month the U.N. passed a resolution condemning the human rights situation in Guatemala – Reagan met with Rios Montt and told The New York Times he was “inclined to believe” that the coup-launching SOA graduate “had been given a bad rap.” A few weeks later, the U.S. State Department granted Rios Montt another $6 million in military assistance.

POVERTY: A SOMETIMES BLOODLESS VIOLENCE

Based on months of conversations with ex-immigrants here, the explanation for their dangerous journey through Mexico and across a treacherous desert, sacrificing years away from their family and loved ones, in a place where people act racist and hateful toward them and ignore their humanity, can be summed up as this: poverty.

At times I wonder if every time someone in Guatemala suffered a hunger pang a droplet of blood were to seep out their navel, would we non-hungry Earth dwellers (that fortunate one-third of the same species) ultimately recognize poverty as violence? Would the crimson stain marking the stomach of every shirt they own (all two or three of them, often enough) flag them as casualties of an invisible, ongoing war?

Is our callousness in denying these individuals a way to feed their families – by funding army-led massacres with our taxes, championing free trade policies that increase their poverty, or constructing a wall to keep them from doing work that sustains both our nation’s and their family’s well being – a de facto extension of genocide?

While countless U.S. citizens may pontificate from air conditioned offices about how Guatemalans need to learn to work harder to emerge from their poverty, I can attest that folks in Ilom do extremely physical work virtually everyday from sun-up to sun-down and the problem is not their deficient industriousness, its about who holds the resources, how they got them and how they kept them.

Following the massacre of 1982, the neighboring plantation La Perla, which voluntarily housed the army during the genocide, stole massive amounts of Ilom’s land. They recently sold much of it to transnational companies who are plundering what they can from it – creating a profitable dam, leveling forests, looking for oil, while their shotgun-wielding guards keep them safe from locals.

Everyone in Ilom had to start from nothing when the army burned down their village, only that afterward they had even less land to work (and, accordingly, food to eat and sell).

Massive immigration is a consequence of the violence of poverty – a poverty the U.S. has brutally exacerbated by funding a genocide and pushing free trade. Neither the Democrats and Republicans understand this; both appear intent on stripping immigrants of their labor rights in order to create a permanent underclass via their worker programs.

I’LL BE HOME TOMORROW

I arrive in Austin tomorrow night and will be there until June 16th when my partner Rebeca and I will embark on a tour to California. We will be giving presentations along the road about the anti-genocide struggle in Guatemala. If you have any friends/contacts in Corpus Christi, TX; Wichita, KS; Lawrence, KS; Kansas City, MO; Denver, CO; Boulder, CO; Albuquerque, NM or San Diego, CA that would be interested, please let me know and I’ll pass them details about the presentation.

While in Austin, I’ll be preparing for the tour up until its launch. If anyone has access to a copy machine, please let me know as I would be forever grateful. (I hope to make a bunch of informative zines – homemade publications – from interviews with AJR members, other stories, photographs, and journal entries to distribute along the tour.)

Thank you for all your support this last year, and I look forward to seeing many of you face-to-face soon!

Jordan

P.S. To receive updates related to Guatemala’s human rights struggles, sign up here: http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/nisgua

Post by Jordan Buckley

Hello Friends, Family and Allies,

This is my next-to-last report from Guatemala about accompanying witnesses in the national genocide case.

Since my last bi-monthly dispatch, activists with whom we work have been threatened, followed home, received alarming anonymous phone calls, had their offices raided and one organizer was even briefly kidnapped. Perhaps because the Ixil – the region where I live – has become the main focus of the genocide case, we have also had our share of local intimidations in the last weeks (see further down).

A GLIMPSE OF GENOCIDE: PLAYING SOCCER, BUT NOT WITH MY PEERS

Recently, friends in Ilom – the resplendent highlands village believed by the Ixil Maya to be the birthplace of their people – invited me to join their soccer team Sociedad Juvenil (Juvenile Society) in a regional tournament about an hour and a half hike away. (I’ve played off-and-on with them for the last 8 months).

While I certainly prefer our squad’s name to that of Ilom’s other team, Los Chiqueros (The Pig Sty Boys), I have always been intrigued by their choice; we range broadly in ages – mostly either teens or late twenties and up – and I often joke with my friend Mu’s that since he’s already a grandfather and pushing 40, perhaps they should contemplate renaming the crew.

As our tiresome, uphill trek to the soccer match snaked past the Santa Delfina plantation, my pal Chato broke the silence by shyly pointing out that he was born there. Chato will soon share something in common with me that is truly rare among Ilom residents, a community of some 450 families: he will be 25 years old.

Last Friday not only marked the 25th anniversary of the military coup that put Efraìn Rìos Montt – the deadliest dictator in Latin America’s modern times – into power. It also marked a short quarter-century since the Guatemalan army rounded up 96 of Ilom`s men into the plaza and gorily ended their lives. The army then set fire to the entire village (as they would do to at least another 625 Mayan villages before their genocidal campaign ended), forcing survivors to flee to nearby Santa Delfina.

In an interview (see link below), Antonio Caba – president of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation, the coalition of witnesses that we accompany – related that refugees from Ilom were virtually enslaved on the Santa Delfina plantation following the massacre of March 23, 1982, and, given the extreme circumstances, children that had fled from Ilom died there on the plantation, every day for months and months.

Chato, our midfielder for Sociedad Juvenil, was one of the lucky ones.

A LITTLE BOMB NAMED SOFÃA

Sunday before last, a shocking three-page cover story in Guatemala’s leading daily newspaper directly linked Ríos Montt to massacres perpetrated in the Ixil region during 1982 and 1983! The article reports that in August the Attorney General acquired a copy of secret military documents outlining Plan Sofìa – an extensive army campaign ordered by then president and commander-in-chief Rios Montt against “subversives” in the area – but he has still refused to formally initiate the genocide case proceedings.

In February, I had the opportunity to switch spots with another accompanier and visit 5 villages in a different area of the Ixil. Apparently while I was visiting witnesses in those communities, Guatemala’s Minister of Defense was claiming to the presiding judge in the genocide case that Plan Sofia does not exist. However, the exposé article from March 18 asserts that not only does Plan Sofìa exist, two of the communities I had been accompanying were likely massacred as a result of Plan Sofia in the summer of 1982.

RÃOS MONTT’S ESCAPE ROUTE: CONGRESS

The next five weeks will determine if Ríos Montt – who ruled over the estimated murder of 70,000 predominantly Mayan people – will evade justice for at least another four years (or feasibly forever, given that he is 81 years old).

If Ríos Montt is able to register as a candidate on May 3 for this year’s congressional elections, his possible win will provide him parliamentary immunity from prosecution. However, if the Attorney General takes an initial declaration from Ríos Montt regarding the accusations cited against him in the genocide case, it would disqualify his candidacy.

Accordingly, please e-mail the Attorney General to urge him to move the case along!

If only half of you reading this e-mail were to devote the 10 seconds required to click a box to send him an e-mail, the Attorney General would have to wade through some 150 e-mails from foreigners upset with his stalling on the
genocide case.

LOCAL INTIMIDATIONS IN THE IXIL

Last month, my accompaniment partner received a phone call from an unknown person who creepily asked her how she was doing, and, when asked to identify himself, only told her that he was “a man.” She hung up. The Caller ID indicated that another fellow accompanier had called her but we knew that he was in a village where there is no service. He later confirmed that, of course, he had not called her, signifying that someone seems to be showing us that they are watching us and able to infiltrate the phone system.

Twice since December, unidentified men have approached my accompaniment partner and me and, without a word, taken our picture on a digital camera, then quickly walked off. And just a few weeks ago, as fellow accompaniers and I met up in a public park (as arranged by phone), a woman maybe 50 meters away stood quietly filming us for minutes on end until we confronted her.

This is by no means all of the suspicious behavior or incidents we’ve been encountering recently, just a sampling to provide some idea.

PRESIDENT BUSH IN GUATEMALA: HE KILLS ?

Lastly, President Bush came to Guatemala a few weeks ago. While he managed to devote a large chunk of time pitching neo-liberal reforms to Guatemalan officials, and other measures that would benefit the U.S. economy, it appears he never once mentioned the recent, unpunished state-led military campaign which claimed upwards of 200,000 lives.

(Makes one wonder what consequences might have sprung from Bush having expressed even one sentence’s worth of concern over the absence of prosecution for the bloodiest genocide in our hemisphere’s recent history.)

After the Guatemalan government strong-armed Bush’s way into Iximchè – a sacred site to indigenous Kaqchikel people – to entertain him for the day (despite the massive protests of local community members kept behind the Secret Service and police blockades), Mayan priests returned en masse, performing rituals to cleanse the area of the evil spirits they say Bush brought in.

Many expressed pain and anger over Bush – a man whose war in Iraq has resulted in a staggering number of innocent deaths (the British government recently conceded that a study pegging the death toll around 655,000 is credible) – desecrating such a special, holy place to them, and their powerlessness, in the face of state repression, to prevent it.

It might be worth observing that the word for “bush” in Spanish is “mata,” which curiously also translates as “he kills” or functions as the command form of the order “to kill.”

HOMEWARD BOUND

In 7 weeks I will be back home in Austin. Many thanks again for all the support you all have provided me during my time here – from e-mails to music to homemade cookies to literature to money to art and so on. You have enabled me to feel a sustained sense of loving community despite living tucked away in the western highlands of Guatemala, and I really appreciate that.

Again, if you haven’t already, please send an e-mail to the Attorney General calling on him to let the survivors testify, thereby also preventing Ríos Montt from retaking Congress.

With love and solidarity,

Jordan

A Dictator’s Reprise in Guatemala, The Daily Texan (by me)

Guatemala’s Anti-Genocide Activists Under Threat (by Elias Lawless)

The Maya Survivors vs Los Genocidios: interview with Antonio of the AJR (by E.Lawless)

By Lorena Seijo, Prensa Libre, March 18, 2007

(translation by P. Harris and E. Lawless)

Secret military document, in possession of the Attorney General, directly links Rìos Montt in Quichè massacres

Not one district attorney has had access, until now, to a classified Guatemalan Army document which tells of military operations executed during the internal armed conflict, against subversive cells or elements.

Delia Dàvila, head of the prosecutor’s department of human rights, within the Attorney General’s office, has been the first to receive a copy of one of those plans, protected by State secrecy and which was partially obtained in a clandestine manner by plaintiffs in the genocide case pursued within Guatemala.

Despite having in her possession documents which record the existence of the Sofìa Pan of operations, that, together with declarations of the witnesses, directly link the Army high command and their commander-in-chief, Efraìn Rìos Montt, with massacres committed predominantly within the Western region of the country, from 1982 to 1983, Dàvila has roundly refused to make an appointment with the former head of State and his leadership, to interrogate them.

The reason is, according to what the prosecutor (Dàvila) told the presiding judge in the case, Roberto Peñate, that she is not certain that those documents are authentic. To verify her doubts, the judge ordered that on January 31 the Minster of Defense, before an open court, present the original documents of Plan Sofia and Victory 82, due to their relation to each other, since the former derived from the latter.

In response, Ronaldo Cecilio Leiva, Minister of Defense, mailed a letter to the judge on February 8 in which he protests his disagreement with the judicial resolution, because it violates article 30 of the constitution, which protects the confidentiality of military affairs.

In the missive, Leiva affirms that Plan Victory 82 is a military affair of national security, classified as secret and that Plan Sofìa does not exist.

To avoid that the documents become public, he presented an appeal and claimed that these records, along with others that contain Operation Ixil Civil Affairs and Firmeza 83 plans, are off-limits.

The appeal was rejected by the judge who reminded the Minister of Defense that the accusation is not against him and summoned him for next March 26, so that he may show before the court the entirety of the plans and the original documents, to which Prensa Libre had partial access. Coincidentally, the meeting will be held 3 days after the 25th anniversary of the coup d’etat, in 1982, which brought Rìos Montt to power.

Post by Jordan Buckley

One of the lawyers working on the national Guatemalan genocide case was recently kidnapped, while other members of the legal team have received a written threat, been tailed by unknown men and incurred other forms of grave intimidation; I typically only send out updates every two months, but I hope you will agree that these alarming circumstances require this plea for your urgent solidarity!

As many know, I am working as an accompanier to the Association for Justice & Reconciliation (AJR), a coalition of Maya survivors volunteering to be witnesses in the national genocide case. It is hoped that by placing international observers in the communities where AJR members live, the threat posed to them is reduced – namely because if anything happens to them, our friends, family and allies (this is you!) will rise up in outrage and demand justice of the Guatemalan authorities.

Please pardon the slight delay in relaying this information; I wanted to hear directly from the aforementioned legal team, the Center for Legal Action in Human Rights (CALDH), before writing you all.

On Feb. 2, Otto Navarro, a CALDH lawyer, found the tire of his car slashed. Later that day, Josè Roberto Morales, CALDH’s indigenous rights coordinator, was kidnapped by two armed men in a carjacking in front of his house. They released him in another neigborhood, telling him that if he activated the vehicle’s alarm they would return to his home and murder him. His vehicle was later found with all of his belongings (including a laptop computer) seemingly untouched.

Between Feb. 3-5, the offices of three other human rights organizations were broken into: their files were searched, and computers and film equipment were stolen. On Feb. 5, as members of these groups waited for the authorities to arrive, a red Toyota Corolla drove by and filmed the group.

Also on Feb. 5, a note was left on the windshield of CALDH lawyer Angèlica Gonzàlez, saying:

According to CALDH, these threats spring directly from their pursuit of the genocide case. The most important figure that the AJR and CALDH seek to charge with genocide, Efraìn Rìos Montt (who ruled over the killing of some 70,000 predominately Maya people during the 1980s), announced on Jan. 17 his plan for this year’s elections:

The threats to CALDH and Rìos Montt’s political ambitions are hardly a casual
coincidence.

On Feb. 7 – as had been planned before the intriguingly-timed threats and kidnapping- CALDH & the AJR presented a formal complaint to the courts, voicing their discontent with the Attorney General’s unwillingness to advance the genocide case past the investigative stage, where it has stalled since its original filing in 2001. CALDH & the AJR also requested that the judge proceed with collecting Ríos Montt’s initial statement in order to formally accuse him of genocide against the Maya Ixil people.

If the judge does not act, Rìos Montt may quite feasibly become the head of Congress in November, dramatically complicating any attempts to hold him accountable for his horrific crimes.

One of the most potent weapons we, individuals who believe in justice and universal human dignity, possess is the ability to exert pressure on the authorities to confront Guatemala’s recent, yet unpunished genocide.

As the AJR, the indigenous survivors of the genocide, and the CALDH legal team,
their allies in struggle, are literally placing their lives on the line to demand justice, I would ask that you please devote a single minute of your time (or less) to send an e-mail via NISGUA to the Guatemalan authorities urging them to advance the genocide case.

Or, better yet, challenge yourself and those you love to craft a creative act of resistance to Guatemalan authorities’ refusal to address the state-led campaign which killed upwards of 200,000 people largely during my (and perhaps your) lifetime¦send them a drawing, a poem, a photograph – however you feel most able to express whatever repugnance or pain or fury their inaction and indifference might generate within you.

Mailing addresses for the authorities, as well as more information about the kidnapping, threats and genocide case, can be found here at NISGUA.

Background

See our post tracking the development of the above mentioned urgent action.

Here is the second half of Elias Lawless's interview with Antonio Caba of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation for WireTap Magazine. For an intro and call to action see the original article [part one and part two].

WireTap: Who is the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR), and what are its objectives in fighting?

Antonio Caba:
Well, we who became the Association for Justice and Reconciliation,
after all that, had no idea how to struggle or continue on. But we knew
what we would become. There was no one on our side, but after a little
while we came to know how to organize, how to fight.

Then came the exhumation in Ilom (Antonio's village), then came CALDH
(Center for Legal Action in Human Rights). I think it was 1998 or 1999.
We met there and they asked me questions such as what the massacre was
like, how the army arrived. I told them all about the situation that
happened here in the community.

Later, we arrived at an agreement
among various communities: Baja Verapaz, Alta Verapaz, Chimaltenango,
Quiche, Huehuetenango, the Ixcan region. So it was from there that we
came to know one another: other people from places where the same
situation occurred. There we decided to found what became the AJR, that
it was necessary to form a coalition that would be called the
Association for Justice and Reconciliation, that we as survivors must
demand justice for all the deaths we had seen. “We have to demand justice so that there may be justice,” we said.

Well,
that was an interest of ours, that the high military commands be tried
for their crimes of genocide against the Maya peoples. As far as those
of us in the Ixil region, we are the Ixil Maya — people that were
affected, were massacred, had our rights violated. For all those
reasons the AJR was sprouted.

WT: What is Efrain Rios Montt's significance in this struggle?

AC:
Rios Montt, as we have always mentioned, is a sickness for us. He is a
disease that is very infectious for Guatemala because he has committed
those grave errors, those tremendous crimes against the Maya peoples.
And not only Rios Montt but also his high military command as well as Lucas Garcia
(Guatemalan dictator from 1978-1982) and his high military command –
they are the ones who committed these offenses of genocide, so Rios
Montt is an illness here in Guatemala on account of being a genocidio, a murderer, a criminal.

And
we have discussed with many companions that if it were us, the Maya,
who were guilty of genocide what would they, the authorities, do?
Rapidly they would place us in prison, if we were the guilty ones. But
since Rios Montt has money — he has funds and he also has his power
and they help him — he intimidates the authorities, or it could be
that he convinces them with money. For that reason we have seen that
there exists much backwardness in the pursuit of justice here in
Guatemala.

Because Rios Montt, living as a criminal, he walks
around freely! And he should be already imprisoned. He should not still
be on the loose. He should not still be appearing on television,
appearing in the media and saying this or that. Rios Montt should
already be in prison for the crimes he has committed, like those
against the children in the Santa Delfina plantation,
no? He was the government at that time, so he should have dispatched
doctors for the children that died. So, what happened? It didn't bother
him that children died. It did not matter to him.

Rios Montt
delights in the impunity, and it is not only Rios Montt who is the
wound for Guatemala, but also the authorities that presently do not act
to judge this genocidio. Therefore, Rios Montt is the wound and also the authorities are the wound because they do not enforce the law.

WT:
Can you discuss Rios Montt's plan, and accordingly the strategy of the
Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), regarding compensation payments to
former Self Defense Civil Patrollers (ex-PAC)?

AC:
Rios Montt is always very crafty in his form, and he has always tried
to conquer the people. Because if you remember the past, of what has
been called Black Thursday,
Rios Montt displayed his style of being on Black Thursday when he
forcibly inscribed [as presidential candidate]. He revealed his nature
on this day because all of his supporters wore masks, wielded sticks
and carried guns violently. But who planned it? Rios Montt planned it!
It was in this form that he also planned the massacres in the
communities.

The Guatemalan authorities should act and not allow
him to participate in elections. Not as a candidate for president, nor
Congress, nor anything. Rios Montt has demonstrated his style before
Guatemala and before the entire world. Rios Montt is a genocidio.

Rios Montt has always found support in the Quiche department. Do you know why people vote for him? They know he is a genocidio and that if he does not win perhaps 1982 might return again. So, for fear, the people vote to not re-experience the past.

The
ex-PAC payments were planned by Rios Montt in order to not lose his
power. First, a general began to convince people to attend protests
under Portillo, but it was all already planned out. Portillo approved.
We saw that it was not to lose his power, his party. Why do I say that?
Because only his supporters received the payment. And those former
patrollers affiliated with another party? They gave them nothing.

It
is better to send more money to reparations for victims because there
are people who lost their houses, lost their family members. Clearly
former patrollers have a right because they were obligated to patrol.
Well, since we know the military has grand quantities of money
allocated from the government, this is what we should reduce and use to
pay former patrollers. Because it was the military that forced them
into patrols. And money received from other countries should not be
given to ex-PACs but as reparations for victims.

Because what
function, what benefit does the military bring? What the military
brings us is poverty. The world knows that Guatemala is poor, but why?
The military has brought the poverty. The weapons have brought the
poverty. And who are the richest? The military, the generals. And the
guerrilla? I have never heard of a guerrilla fighter who is also a
millionaire.

WT: What should the international community do to support the struggle of the AJR and survivors in general?

AC:
What they should do, or what we have always requested, and what I have
asked for as AJR's president is that they pressure Guatemalan
authorities to take these genocidios to a tribunal. And if
they, these authorities, do not want to do it, do not attempt to do it,
nor even wish to try these criminals, then what I would ask is that it
would be good to extradite Rios Montt so that he may be judged in another country.

That
is one thing, but also if there is no justice in Guatemala, then it
would be good that Guatemalan authorities be tried as well. Because to
me it would be proper that they be judged first — before the genocidios — because they are guilty, the Guatemalan authorities, of why these genocidios have not been tried, why they are not imprisoned.

And why do I tell you that? Because the authorities, we entrust them. For that reason they are there, to try these genocidios,
to judge those who commit crimes. And another thing, we pay taxes, and
these authorities are who we fund, so they must comply with their
obligations, no?

Guatemala, 25 de Enero del 2007

El Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios y Acción Psicosocial[1] – ECAP-denuncia que:

Iniciando el año, han continuado los incidentes de seguridad en contra de los trabajadores y trabajadoras de ECAP. En los meses de octubre y noviembre del año pasado denunciamos las intimidaciones y agresiones hacia ECAP por el trabajo psicosocial, que realiza la organización, en las exhumaciones y con los beneficiarios de las medidas de reparación de la sentencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos en la comunidad de Plan de Sánchez. Se denunciaron las persecuciones a dos personas de la organización, una amenaza escrita recibida en Rabinal y el ataque contra uno de los promotores en la región de Rabinal.

El miércoles 10 de enero 2007, se recibió en el correo institucional de ECAP un mensaje con nombre emisor “simón chimón; asoc_shimon@hotmail.com”, que vincula el trabajo de nuestra organización en alianza con otras organizaciones locales de Rabinal, al trabajo del alcalde municipal del FRG. Al final del mensaje se dice: “Se cayó en la trampa del FRG, las amenazas que reciben ECAP vienen del FRG, el FRG sabe la lógica que tiene el ECAP, sabe como trabajan, como es una organización de psicolocos entoces buscan como asustarlos. Esto va a seguir durante este año. El FRG no se queda cayado con la gota de sangre que dejo Rio de Sangre en Rabinal, muy pronto se van a bengar. Asi que tenga muchos cuidados”

El lunes 23 de enero 2007, hacia las 8:30 h, una de las personas que labora en la institución, y que ya había sufrido una persecución con un vehículo en la capital, se encontraba en un autobús extraurbano de  Chimaltenango a la capital, cuando un hombre se sentó a su lado y le dijo “Usted es ¦¦, entienda, no viajen. Yo se que van para Rabinal, entiendan, dejen de estar chingando a la mara!, que algo les puede pasar como se les dijo en la nota, esto va a seguir, hijos de la gran madre o quieren que les pase algo más”. El hombre continuó insultando, hasta un momento en el que se cambió de asiento, y posteriormente se bajó en la parada de Sumpango.

El mismo día 23, alrededor de las 5 de la tarde, una de las compañeras que reside en Rabinal recibió varias llamadas de teléfono donde se le insultaba e intimidaba por el trabajo que se realiza en la región.

ECAP se muestra profundamente preocupado por todos estos incidentes de seguridad en su contra, fundamentalmente teniendo en cuenta que el Estado, a través de la COPREDEH y del Ministerio de Gobernación en reunión de 24 de noviembre 2006, en el marco de las medidas provisionales emitidas por la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos en el contexto de la ejecución de sentencia de reparaciones del caso Plan de Sánchez vs el Estado de Guatemala, se comprometió a poner las medidas de seguridad necesarias para proteger la integridad de las personas y de la organización, y a investigar sobre los hechos que habían sido denunciados hasta la fecha.

Esta situación vulnera el trabajo de atención psicosocial que realizamos con las víctimas y sobrevivientes de la violencia política.

Por todo ello, exigimos a las autoridades que investiguen, esclarezcan y sancionen este tipo de hechos intimidatorios tal como ha sido solicitado por ECAP y ordenado por la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos.

A nivel nacional e internacional solicitamos su apoyo para la denuncia, presión para la efectiva investigación de las autoridades correspondientes y el cese de los ataques; su solidaridad ante esta grave situación, que se suma a otros ataques a defensores de derechos humanos, que afecta derechos individuales y garantías fundamentales de ciudadanos y ciudadanas guatemaltecas.

ECAP
2da. Avenida 1-11, zona 3
Colonia Bran
Ciudad de Guatemala
Telefax: (502) 2332-1430 Tel. 2253-6071
E-mail: ecap [at] guate.net.gt y ecap [at] itelgua.com
www.ecapguatemala.org

[1]La organización Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios y Acción Psicosocial,
ECAP, es una organización no gubernamental guatemalteca que trabaja con sobrevivientes del Conflicto Armado Interno. Desarrolla proyectos de apoyo psicosocial de carácter multidisciplinario e integral, que propician la recuperación y restablecimiento de individuos, grupos sociales y comunidades de los daños psíquicos, sociales y culturales provocados por la violencia política en Guatemala.

Dentro de su quehacer institucional desarrolla acompañamiento psicosocial en procesos de exhumaciones y, entre otros, apoyo psicosocial con sobrevivientes de la masacre de la comunidad indígena de Plan de Sánchez, Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, en el marco de la sentencia de reparaciones de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos de 19 noviembre 2004. En esa ocasión, se presentó un peritaje sobre el daño a la integridad mental para la audiencia en Costa Rica en abril 2004, posteriormente a la sentencia, se ha venido desarrollando un trabajo con los beneficiarios de las medidas de reparación en las diferentes comunidades afectadas de esa región, y por último, ECAP forma parte de un Comité ordenado en las medidas de reparación del caso con el fin de dar un seguimiento a las mismas.

Post by Jordan Buckley

This is my third update from Guatemala: I am working as a human rights accompanier with the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR), a coalition of Maya genocide survivors organizing to charge ex-military and political leaders for the state-led violence that wiped out more than 200,000, largely indigenous, people in the 1980s.

A few weeks ago, a boy who lived near us in Ilom suddenly passed away one morning. His mother and neighbors calmly explained that he had died of sadness. His father had left the day before to the United States out of economic desperation, and his departure had been absolutely devastating for the boy – to the extent that he never woke up.

Death by emotion is not uncommon here. In listening to friends` recounting of the genocide, “susto” – fright – is often given as an explanation of loved ones' deaths following the actual army-led massacres: when they either lived enslaved on a nearby plantation or in their village under violent military occupation (as in the case of those from Ilom), and when they fled into the wilderness for the next 14 years, foraging for food, struggling to elude army search squads and taking cover from aerial bombardments (as in the case of those from Xix).

Last month marked the ten-year anniversary of the Peace Accords, the ceasefire agreement which ended army attacks on Maya villages – supposedly to hunt down guerrilla fighters – as official state policy.

A decade later and still none of the major players (photo: low prophyle)  responsible for the 626 army-led massacres have been charged with anything. That status has not changed since my last update, and most certainly will not change until a formidable popular movement – both nationally and globally – compels Guatemalan officials to take seriously the AJR's willingness to risk their lives by serving as witnesses in the stalled genocide cases here against these men who still retain substantial influence.

A small but important way to support the AJR is by e-mailing Guatemalan officials and urging them to advance the genocide case.

ANOTHER FRONT OF MAYAN RESISTANCE: THE ZAPTISTAS

I was in Chiapas, Mexico for the New Year – and incidentally my 25th birthday – at the Encounter of the Zapatista Peoples with the Peoples of the World. (As many of you know, the Zapatistas first made headlines on January 1, 1994 when an armed uprising enabled them to liberate indigenous communities from the rule of Mexican authorities. Across Chiapas, signs marking the entrance to Zapatista territory inform passersby that “Here the people give the orders and the government obeys.”)

Having lived and worked intimately with folks from the AJR since July, it was fascinating to learn from other Maya communities, situated just a little northwest (across that militarized invisible line which only shows up on maps), of how they are likewise rebelling against the government's wishes – although clearly with different tactics and aims; embracing women's rights and participation; amplifying indigenous voices and decision-making, all the while cultivating a huge, dynamic base of international support (something the AJR comparatively does not possess).

The revolutionary fervor and cultural pride of our Zapatista hosts there in autonomously-governed Oventic stand in stark contrast to much of the evangelical fanaticism which has enveloped the villages where I live in the Guatemalan highlands.

Many, if not most, Zapatistas wore traditional clothing, spoke only in their indigenous languages, shared their customary music and dance with us out-of-towners during several of the planned cultural events, and spoke spiritedly about their commitment to preserving their culture. Back in Guatemala, a friend in Ilom (who is evangelical) recently lamented that evangelical Christianity crushed his people's indigenous practices and beliefs, which, I am told, strikingly swept through in concert with the genocide.

EVANGELISM, GENOCIDE & RIOS MONTT

Efraín Ríos Montt, the evangelical minister/military general who rose to power in 1982 from a military coup, remains the veritable face of the genocide. According to a UN-led commission, Ríos Montt's short-lived regime was responsible for the deaths of some 70,000 (overwhelmingly Maya) people. He is credited with crafting the following domestic policy: “If you are with us, we'll feed you. If not, we'll kill you.”

Even before Ríos Montt's reign, evangelical Christianity had begun to take root in Guatemala. Ruling elites favored evangelism to the liberation theology-inspired brand of Catholicism which was offering impoverished Guatemalans more than charity and sympathy, but indeed solidarity in organizing against the structural causes of their poverty.

By the 1980s, televangelist Pat Robertson's show “The 700 Club” (Photo: holtocw) enjoyed more than 3 million viewers here. Within a week of the military overthrowing the government and Ríos Montt seizing the nation's helm, Robertson had hopped a plane to Guatemala City to meet with and exalt the new leader to his enormous TV audience. Robertson soon wrote of the man whose immediate capture is now demanded by Spanish courts on charges of genocide, “I found [Ríos Montt] to be a man of humility, impeccable personal integrity, and a deep faith in Jesus Christ.”

While Ríos Montt was attempting to effectively exterminate the Maya, Robertson was raising funds for the Guatemalan military through a telethon; he convinced numerous U.S. Christians to donate to International Love Lift – revealingly abbreviated “ILL” – Rios Montt's so-called relief program: funding and supplies used to support the army in its genocidal campaign.

The Christian Broadcasting Network also reportedly provided agricultural and medical technicians as well as money to aid in the design of Rios Montt's first “model villages”: barbed wire-enclosed, military-controlled townships, often rebuilt upon the same land as the original Maya villages scorched to the ground by the army, where massacre survivors were forcibly “re-educated.” Theological re-education was routinely administered by evangelical missionaries.

EVANGELISM TODAY, IMPUNITY & MY GRINGO BEWILDERMENT

Nowadays, dancing in the highlands is pervasively a sin; our radio is clogged with evangelical rock; I dined at God with Us Emmanuel Pizzeria last week, and the gas station where our ride to Ilom usually fills up at is coated in the slogan “To God be the Glory.” We are engrossed in evangelism, and its political consequences can be bewildering: on Jan. 17, for instance, one of the nation's most famous evangelicals – Rìos Montt (photo: Wrath of god)- announced that he is running for the presidency of the National Congress in September's elections – a post that he has a considerable shot at winning and which he previously held as recently as
November 2003.

A few hours after the boy in Ilom died of sadness, the 10-year-old son of one of the witnesses we accompany there also passed away. A couple days later we visited him to express our condolences. He soon asked us if it were true that in the U.S. some people cremate their loved ones. We told him it is indeed common. He remarked that given the absence of rule of law in Guatemala, if a community wills it they will often capture a local criminal and burn him alive to set an example for others¦but to burn a corpse  (i.e. a person who is already dead) is simply a sin against God.

Perhaps needless to say, making sense of the reality of the highlands continues to be complicated for me. One revelation that has kept me somewhat grounded is that while I admire and am inspired by the radical resistance of the Zapatistas, for my fellow evangelical colleagues who outlived a horrific genocide targeted at them, basic survival was, and remains, its own form of radical resistance.

And acting in a way that shuns the often evangelical expectation that they quietly endure their extreme poverty and suffering (and instead wait indifferently for afterlife), by demanding justice and publicly naming those responsible for the genocide despite the terrifying consequences, reflects remarkable bravery and commitment.

I know I have a lot to learn from the AJR before I leave in May, and I am extremely grateful to be working with them. Again, I would ask you to honor their courage by e-mailing Guatemalan officials to urge them to advance the genocide case and finally allow the AJR to testify, to speak their truth to power.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who has been e-mailing me, writing me letters, donating to the struggle and sending me food, art and literature. Your kindness, friendship and solidarity has been wonderful and deeply appreciated.

Join the NISGUA list or GSN Blog for updates on notable news in Guatemala:

Contact the Guatemala Govt- tell them to move on the genocide case! Great activity for church groups, human rights groups, or alone (English is fine):

Become an Accompanier in the Genocide Case 

You can hear interviews with people who have worked as accompaniers (broadcast by Democracy Now! and the BBC) and read articles and more information from a variety of sources here.

If you're in the US you can support Jordan financially- write a tax-deductible check to “DJPC Education Fund” and add “Jordan Buckley-CAMINOS” to the memo line. They can be mailed to: Denver Justice & Peace Committee, 901 W. 14th Avenue Suite 7, Denver, CO  80204. If you are in the UK you can support GSN by contacting us on gsn_mail [at] yahoo [dot] com

A couple of days ago (16-01-2007) the Guatemalan press first hinted at Gen Efrain Ríos Montt's decision to go for Congress and forget about another presidential bid. Now Reuters are reporting it as well and there's more in today's Prensa Libre.

Perhaps it was the Constitutional Court's recent ruling (Petición de Nulidad (2395-2006)) upholding his being barred from running for president. Perhaps it was his incredibly low support in recent opinion polls (on 15-01-07 it was 1.8%). Or perhaps it was a nagging fear that his day in court on counts of genocide and crimes against humanity might just be a very real possibility.

By declaring that he's running for Congress, Rios Montt will once again get immunity from prosecution from April when he'll be able to register his candidacy formally with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). It's timely then, to read Elias Lawless's interview in WireTap Magazine with Antonio Caba, an Ixil Maya activist who currently serves as president of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR). Here's an excerpt:

Update (19-01-07)

Amnesty USA has made the following appeal with Rios Montt's announcement: “Amnesty International Again Calls for Ríos Montt to Either Be Tried in Guatemala or Extradited to Spain to Face the Charges Against Him”. In Guatemala, Siglo XXI covered the story with an interview of Rigoberta Menchu: “Menchú pide repudiar posible candidatura de Ríos”.