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Journey to lands of beauty and harsh, man-made
reality
By TERESA MALCOLM
Guatemala and Mexico
The Guatemala City dump is not a
place where youd expect to find tourists. The scene is horrific on so
many levels: a vast environmental catastrophe of waste, picked over by people
who survive on the findings of discarded cardboard, glass, food. A sickly sweet
smell of decay hung in the air. Flies and buzzards swarmed.
Yet there we were, 22 travelers clicking our cameras as fervently
as any tour group at a beautiful historical landmark, before we piled into our
bus and headed back to the hotel, with the smell of the dump still lingering in
our clothes.
We were tourists of a kind, but ones who had opted out of the
usual round of museums, shopping, natural attractions and Mayan ruins to spend
a trip in a foreign country learning about the political and economic situation
there, gathering information and first-hand stories to effect change at home.
We were taking a chance to delve deeper into the worlds of Guatemala and
Mexico, looking beyond the incredible beauty of the landscape to the stories of
tragedy that had happened there. From an indigenous community struggling to
revive itself after being brutally driven out by the Guatemalan military over
15 years ago, to a Chiapas, Mexico, village facing violence and oppression
today, we got a glimpse of reality that few tourists encounter.
From Aug. 14-29, we traveled in Guatemala and Mexico, members of a
delegation jointly sponsored by Witness For Peace; the Ecumenical Program on
Central America and the Caribbean, known as EPICA; and SOA Watch, an
organization working to close the School of the Americas, a training program
for Latin American military officers whose graduates have been implicated in
human rights atrocities.
For activists, such a trip can keep you rooted in what is
reality, in the words of Meghan McVety, a delegate from San Francisco.
I can get lost in the image thats portrayed in the United
States, McVety, 28, said. This grounds me in the universal struggle
for human rights.
As part of a social justice delegation, youre not going to
see the usual sights, nor stay in the usual places. As one might expect, on a
trip meant to build solidarity with the poor, you will not be at the Sheraton.
Most of the trip was spent in small hotels and guesthouses with varying
amenities -- luxury was a bathroom with hot water in your room. We always had
roommates, sometimes more than one. And for two nights spent in rural
communities, it became more like a back-to-the-basics camping trip.
The first five days were spent in Guatemala City at the homey,
comfortable Casa San José. We were served communal meals, shared up to
four to a bedroom and lined up for the showers in the hall. As the delegation
members trickled in over the first two days (several flights were delayed), we
started to acquaint ourselves with these people with whom wed be spending
24 hours a day for the next 15 days.
The age range was broad: The youngest delegate was 17, one of the
nine delegates under the age of 30. The oldest were in their 60s. There were
students, professors, pastoral ministers and human rights activists, as well as
people working in real estate, computers, construction and engineering. Half
were Catholic. Most were from the United States, but we had two Canadians and
one German currently working for SOA Watch. Those of us (including myself) with
limited or nonexistent Spanish skills had reason to be grateful that we had a
fair number of Spanish-speakers.
Struggling for peace
In Guatemala City, we began to piece
together a picture of a country struggling to build peace. Speakers, most from
human rights organizations, told of their experiences in Guatemalas
brutal civil conflict in the 1980s and of the difficult and not always
successful attempt to reassert their rights following the countrys peace
accords of 1996. We even met with a former general -- a School of the Americas
graduate -- to give us the perspective of the Guatemalan army.
An unplanned encounter on the first full day gave us our first
taste of the mix of hope and caution that prevails in Guatemala today. A
walking tour of the citys Zone 1 led us to the Church of San Sebastian,
where assassinated Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera had been pastor. There, a
sacristan offered to lead us to the garage where Gerardi was murdered. A shrine
with his photo has marked the spot since the day his body was found. As
sunlight poured down into the garage, the sacristan, Vinicio Cardona, shared
his memories of Gerardi, calling him martyr for peace. Gerardi was
killed two days after the archdiocesan human rights office he headed released
the report of the Recovery of the Historic Memory project, known as the REHMI
report. The report detailed human rights abuses during Guatemalas civil
war, laying the responsibility for most of the atrocities at the feet of the
military.
The day he was killed, I said to a friend, Look how
radiant he looks. He must be so happy his project is successful,
Cardona told us, with one of our group leaders translating. Little did he
know that 10 hours later hed be dead.
The REHMI report and Gerardis death remain a benchmark in
Guatemalas struggle toward peace -- an indication of how far the country
had come -- that so many were willing to come forward and tell their experience
under brutal repression -- and how far there is to go. Among human rights
workers, the prevailing belief is that the bishops death was at the hands
of the military, and that the lack of progress is merely a cover-up.
A three-part driving tour gave us a taste of the economic
divisions of Guatemalan society. The first stop was the Guatemala City dump.
About 3,000 people live and/or work there. Some families have lived there for
several generations, working their way up to the top of a dump hierarchy --
people who have been there longest have first pickings of the best trash.
Efforts to help these people have met with little success: It was found that
they were unable to function in normal society and would return to the
dump.
The next day, we drove to the city cemetery, populated with
astounding monuments to the rich and their dead, next to rows of small tombs
for everyone else. The tombs are rented -- if a family does not make payments,
the body is removed and the space rented to someone else. The cemetery is owned
by the powerful Castillo family, which also owns beer and glass companies. The
joke in Guatemala City is, Even when we die, we still keep paying the
Castillo family. The Castillos own tomb is a massive Egyptian-style
monument.
The far end of the cemetery overlooks a ravine that runs through
Guatemala City. A green tangle of vegetation leads down the hill where, in the
1980s, bodies were thrown after being tortured and killed next to the tomb of a
19th century general.
Elegant houses, walled away
We moved on to a scenic drive
through a fiercely gated wealthy neighborhood. Elegant houses were partially
obscured by high walls topped with barbed wire and multi-pointed iron spikes.
Private security guards patrolled the streets.
Our own accommodations were in Guatemala Citys congested,
polluted and reportedly crime-ridden Zone 1. Many of our meetings were held
there, especially in the first few days of cultural orientation, discussion of
issues and personal sharing.
Sharing our feelings and processing what we had learned was a
fixture throughout the trip in the form of morning reflections and
debriefings after meetings. To be honest, I sometimes felt it was
time that could be better spent. We sat in meeting rooms of hotels talking
while a whole foreign country waited outside to be explored. In our packed
schedule (many days ran 12 hours, and we only had one free day during the whole
trip), the processing meetings could have given way to outings for a little
cultural exposure to augment the political focus of the trip. I was not alone
in feeling this way. One member of the delegation said at a meeting,
Ive come here to learn about Guatemala and Chiapas. I can do this
at home. Another said privately that she found the amount of time spent
processing a little self-indulgent.
But for the most part, that seemed to be a minority opinion. Most
participated enthusiastically. In the end, I chalked it up to a matter of
personal preference. In fact, Maureen Doyle, a Catholic Worker from Columbia,
Mo., who had been on three previous delegations with Global Exchange, praised
this experience for not only being better organized, but also offering more
time to work through, as a group, what we were experiencing.
Visit to a burned-out place
The heart of that experience in
Guatemala was our visit to Ximbaxuc (Shim-ba-shuuk) once an indigenous
community of over 150 families in the province of Quiché, northwest of
Guatemala City. Residents were burned out of their homes by soldiers and
paramilitaries in the 1980s. Some families of Ximbaxuc settled in nearby
communities, others emigrated to the southern coast and to Guatemala City. In
the past five years, 15 families have returned to attempt to rebuild the
community.
The road leading up the mountain to Ximbaxuc was washed out by
rain. So after a 20-minute truck ride from Santa Cruz del Quiché, we set
out on foot for a 3-hour hike into the mountains, through mud, fording streams
and traversing through a vista of astonishing natural beauty. Our taciturn
hired guide left us just outside the farms of Ximbaxuc, and we tramped in,
covered with mud, dehydrated and exhausted.
We were greeted by Juan Castro and his brother Rosalio, members of
a family leading the reestablishment of Ximbaxuc. After a short rest, we set to
hiking again, as the two brothers gave us a tour of Ximbaxuc -- a collection of
farms spread out over the mountains. Cornfields blanketed the steep expanses
between homes. Over half the corn was stunted, attacked by worms, Juan Castro
said. Another cornfield had been taken away by a landslide just days
before.
Our tour through Ximbaxuc took us past burned out houses, now
overgrown with vegetation, as Juan Castro told the stories of the people who
had lived there. A mother and daughter had been pushed into their house and
burned alive. Juans neighbor Antolina Perez was shot in the knee before
he was captured and burned alive in his house.
Most wrenching was the story Juan told outside the remains of his
brother Pedros house. Juan pointed out the beautiful flowering tree
growing behind the burned and crumbling walls. His brother had planted it, he
said, a type of tree that Mayan priests once used to communicate with God.
Pedro did not live to see the tree grow to shelter what was once his house. In
November 1982, brothers Pedro and Gustavo Castro, two cousins and two neighbors
were kidnapped by soldiers, tortured for 15 days and then killed.
Some family members were able to visit them while they were in
captivity, Juan Castro said. The soldiers were asking them about the
guerrillas, Juan said, but they didnt know anything. He said
they had been hit so many times their teeth were loose, and their bound wrists
were cut to the bone by their bindings. The six men told them of having needles
stuck into their eyes, of being given feces to eat and urine to drink.
This is what they told us, Juan said. With their own voices
they told us.
For years the family didnt know where the six men were
buried. Later the family was able to get information about the burial of three
of the men in a clandestine grave, and they requested an exhumation from the
Quiché diocese. They were exhumed and reburied in a Christian
way in October 1998, Juan said. In the other grave, they were
thrown in, buried like animals, on top of each other and intertwined. It was
sad to see them this way, a really difficult moment. The bodies of the
other three have not been found .
Lives were lost, and so were many improvements the community had
made in the years leading up to 1982. Juans father, Bernardo Castro, had
led the way in getting a road to come into the community. Its still
there, though impassable when we arrived. Lost were the school and the church
Bernardo Castro had helped build, burned to the ground by the military. A water
project that was underway was abandoned.
Despite these losses, and the loss of two sons, Juan said his
father, now 76, is still helping us and giving us ideas to rebuild the
community.
Back at the Castro house, Bernardo told us that he had survived
three attempts on his life by paramilitaries before his family fled Ximbaxuc.
I didnt do anything wrong, he said. I didnt kill
or steal. Im not a bad person. I dont know why they did it. Maybe
they were bad people. Many of his friends were killed, he said, but he
was spared. I dont know why, but God didnt allow
it.
It has been difficult returning, starting over with nothing, he
said. I didnt have my house, my animals -- I didnt have
anything, he said. Were very poor, but at least were
living in peace.
No water for bricks
Juan and Rosalio brought the
delegation to a clearing that they hoped could someday become the new center of
the community. They have dreams of building a new church and school, but are
stymied by the lack of readily available water, which is needed to make adobe
bricks. They have their eye on some land with a spring but lack the funds to
buy the plot, which is set at about 20,000 quetzal (approximately $2,600). They
have not been able to get assistance from the government, Juan said. In
the peace accords it said the government commits itself to helping
victims, he said. I think were victims -- you can see all the
things we lost here.
Once they get a water source, they are willing to complete the
project with their own labor, Juan said. We may be a small group, but
were thinking big things, he said. But it might take us a
long time to realize these dreams.
Only one note of caution was struck by our presence in the
community. Juan was concerned that our guide might be a member of a family of
military commissioners. Indeed, the guide spoke very little on the way up and
had told some delegation members as we passed the burned remains of a house
that most of the destruction in the area had been caused by the guerrillas, not
the military. Our group leaders asked us to refrain from talking too much on
the way down about why we had come up to the community -- a single occurrence
in Guatemala that was to become the norm in Chiapas.
Despite that bit of nervousness, both Juan and Rosalio said they
did not have any problem with former members of the civil patrol who lived in
the area. For the most part, the civil patrols were people forced into
committing human rights violations by the military, Juan said. Maybe some
did volunteer because the soldiers convinced them, and they didnt realize
the crimes they were committing, he said.
Today, Rosalio said, these people cant bother me, and
I wont bother them. Only this way therell be peace -- if
theyre thinking of God and I am as well. They work paying their bills and
I work on mine, and there will be peace.
Most of us spent the night at the house shared by Juan Castro and
his parents; a few stayed at Rosalios smaller house. So as not to impose
too much, we brought our own food -- rice with a little bit of tomatoes and
onions. Packed in side-by-side, we slept on the earth floor of one of the adobe
buildings, a few of us spilling out into the courtyard. There was no bathroom,
no latrine: There was the cornfield.
I found myself ill-prepared for the camping experience. Witness
for Peace sent a generic list of packing suggestions for delegations, but it
had said that if a sleeping bag and hiking shoes were needed, it would be on a
second list specific to our delegation. About half the group did not receive
that second letter, including me. Enough sleeping bags were rounded up in
Guatemala City, but I wished I had brought tougher walking shoes to slog
through the mud, clothes that could get grubby and a flashlight. Lesson
learned: If you dont get a packing list specifically for your trip, call
and ask for it. Mine was waiting on my desk when I came home.
After an early breakfast, we immediately set off down the mountain
to catch a truck into Santa Cruz del Quiché, fetch our luggage from the
hotel, and then pile onto a bus for the long, long road to San Cristóbal
de las Casas. Unwashed, muddy and unkempt, we hit the border between Guatemala
and Mexico by 7 p.m., and got our first taste of the tension of traveling
through Chiapas.
Pervasive paranoia
Customs agents determined they were
going to search all our bags, looking for arms and drugs. Our Mexican driver
talked them out of it after they searched three or four bags and found
nothing.
A few yards down the road was Immigration, where we would get our
tourist visas. Each of us was given a visa of 15 days -- even though U.S.,
Canadian and German citizens are eligible for tourist visas of up to 180 days.
Then our delegation leader was given only five days. When he questioned the
immigration officer, he was told, Youll find out when you go to the
immigration office in San Cristóbal de las Casas. Five days was
shorter than the eight days the delegation planned to spend in Mexico, and the
five-day visa put a kind of unofficial flag on the group that could cause
trouble at the military, police and immigration roadblocks dotting the highways
of Chiapas.
As it turned out, we made it through the rest of the roadblocks
that night without incident. Indeed, for the rest of the trip, we did not
encounter any trouble, and the five-day visa was successfully extended. But
that did not lessen the pervasive feeling of paranoia that was part of
traveling in Chiapas, as we walked the line of pursuing the delegations
mission while being just tourists.
There were plenty of recreational tourists in San Cristóbal
de las Casas, which is a truly charming town, with beautiful architecture,
plenty of shopping and a wealth of accommodations and amenities. But for
travelers trying to learn about the political situation, the threat remains
that they could end up among the around 300 foreigners who have been deported
since the conflict in Chiapas began in 1994.
We discovered in Chiapas an unexpectedly volatile situation. The
night before we arrived, three human rights observers -- two foreigners and one
Mexican -- had been attacked by a group of government supporters on a road
heading toward La Realidad. The next day, the governor of Chiapas made a speech
whose message was, in part, Foreigners out. All this was part of a
larger picture of increasing tensions in the area of Amador Hernandez, where
indigenous people were confronting military attempts to construct a road into
Zapatista territory.
In San Cristóbal de las Casas, we were instructed to keep a
low profile. Never assume people cant understand English, we were told,
and dont speak about the delegations work in public. Dont
wear political T-shirts, dont congregate around the ubiquitous stalls
selling Zapatista souvenirs, dont carry political literature. And always
carry your passport and tourist visa -- immigration officers had been known to
take foreigners back to their hotels to get those items, and subsequently
search their rooms. The day we visited SIPAZ, a peace organization staffed
mainly by foreigners, an immigration vehicle was parked down the street. Were
they there for SIPAZ or for us, or both? We never found out.
Article 33 of the Mexican constitution says that foreigners may
not involve themselves in the political affairs of the country, and it is under
that law that foreigners with tourist visas have been deported. Special visas
are available for human rights observers, but they are difficult to obtain and
greatly limit freedom of movement. Witness For Peace maintains that because the
primary purpose of its delegations is to influence U.S. policy, they do not
violate Article 33. We traveled with tourist visas and played the game at the
roadblocks, as Witness for Peace delegation leader Jess Hunter put it.
Each person has a role to take, Hunter told us. We do our
dance, and they do their dance in return.
Although that tactic worked for our delegation, it is not always
successful. Doyle had been part of a Global Exchange delegation to Chiapas over
New Years, 1999, in which three delegates received citations at a
military and immigration roadblock. Presented with a citation, the foreigner
must present him or herself at immigration for interrogation. The interrogation
could end with instructions to leave on the date of ones return plane
ticket. It could also lead to another interrogation in Mexico City and possible
deportation. All along there is the option of skipping out of the country, an
option taken by two of the cited delegates earlier that year. Failing to appear
for an interrogation and leaving the country instead results in being barred
from Mexico for an undetermined number of years.
If immigration officials decided to cite members of our group,
with journalist on my visa, I wondered if I would be singled out.
Hunter said, It would be better for you to identify yourself as anything
other than a journalist. When it was suggested that I say I work
for a Catholic organization, Hunter said, Thats not much
better.
A day at Union Progreso
We met with human rights workers who
helped us make some sense of the ongoing conflict in Chiapas. But again, the
heart of the trip in Mexico was our visit to the indigenous community of Union
Progreso. Again we were in the mountains, but this village was nestled in a
valley. Four-wheel-drive vans took us at a creeping pace down the winding,
muddy road, through a succession of gates in barbed-wire fences. This time,
there was no hiking -- incredibly, the vans made it out the next day in the
pouring rain, wheels spinning in the mud. High above the valley, looking down
on Union Progreso is Los Platanos, a pro-government community and reportedly
the home of paramilitaries.
While we met only one family in Ximbaxuc, a much larger group came
out to meet us in Union Progreso, a community of about 20 families. As darkness
fell and rain splattered on us, we stood in a basketball court and were
introduced to a crowd of about 70, women and children on one side, men on the
other, and us in the middle.
Nearly all in Union Progreso are Zapatista sympathizers; one
family supports the government. On June 10, 1998, members of the army and
pro-government paramilitaries attacked the community. Community members told us
that thousands of soldiers and police surrounded Union Progreso. Most of the
community fled into the hills, but seven young men who were working in the
fields were shot. Five of them, between the ages of 18 to 24, were killed. Two
were wounded and taken to jail; one was released after seven months, and the
other four months later.
A group of men who had stayed in the community were rounded up as
soldiers went through the houses and stole anything of value -- farming tools,
corn, chickens, TVs -- and looted the cooperative store.
The state and federal government keep putting in more and
more soldiers, a community leader told us. There are lots of rumors
about more attacks. Sometimes we cannot work. We see planes and helicopters
pass over and public security passing on the road to Los Platanos, and we are
afraid.
They said that in December, public security police tried to enter
the community, and once again the residents fled. That time they lived for a
week in the mountains before they felt it was safe to return to their homes.
Now they have guards that keep watch 24 hours a day.
The real core of the visit to Union Progreso was scheduled for the
next morning. But unfortunately, I was struck down by a particularly nasty cold
and spent the morning in my sleeping bag, missing what several delegates said
was emotional, tearful testimony from the families of the five young men who
were killed.
In notes shared with me, Rick Axtell, a delegate from Kentucky,
told of old men asking how they can work in the fields without the help of
their sons, and young widows wondering how they will support their children
without their husbands. The police said the young men were armed, which the
community denies.
These five were responsible members of our community, also
working for justice, said one man whose son-in-law was killed. The
government continues to tell lies, to deny anything happened in this community.
The government lies and says we support them, but we continue to struggle for
justice, to resist and to support these families. The government says the
Zapatistas are turning in their arms and have lost support. That is a lie, too.
The government thought they could make us come over to their side. We will
never go to their side. All of us feel such sadness, but we must carry forward
the struggle.
What I missed that day sharply illustrated the impact of the
community visits: The stories of Ximbaxuc, heard firsthand, gave all that I had
learned in Guatemala an emotional resonance that was harder to grasp in
Chiapas. The second-hand stories from my fellow delegates were certainly
informative, but I did not get as close to it. I did not see the women silently
crying; I did not see the old man fiercely clearing weeds from his sons
graves, revealing the monument that said, If pain and sacrifice are a
prayer without words, I am praying for you since you left us.
It was for these firsthand stories that we had come on this trip,
looking for a deeper understanding and a personal face to the issues. In our
last two days in Mexico City, delegates got their first taste of bringing the
experience back home, in an off-the-record meeting with representatives from
the U.S. embassy. It was a chance to speak to those in power about what we had
seen and encourage them to go out and see for themselves the impact of both
U.S. and Mexican policies.
In a final four-hour debriefing, we discussed numerous ways to put
what we had learned into action: writing letters to Congress; demonstrating
against the School of the Americas; and joining campaigns such as Jubilee 2000
that challenge unjust economic policies. Educating others played a big part in
peoples goals. Members of the group said they would seek speaking
engagements with church groups, schools and other organizations, or spread the
word through the media. Some delegates aimed to find a way to raise funds for
Ximbaxucs water project.
Early in the tour a delegate expressed both hope and fear that the
trip could radically affect his comfortable life at home. By the end, that was
something many in the delegation aspired to: living a simpler lifestyle in
solidarity with the poor, and holding the experience in Chiapas and Guatemala
in our memories as an inspiration to continue the struggle for justice.
Delegation sponsers |
The following are organizations that sponsor peace and
justice delegations and some of their upcoming destinations:
Center for Global Education (612) 330-1159 or
800-299-8889 globaled@augsburg.edu
www.augsburg.edu/global/its2.html Guatemala, Mexico, South
Africa
Christian Peacemakers (312) 455-1199
cpt@igc.org www.prairienet.org/cpt/delegat.html Mexico,
Middle East
Global Exchange Reality Tours 800-497-1994
info@globalexchange.org www.globalexchange.org/tours/
Cuba, India, Ireland, Mexico, Israel, South Africa, U.S.-Mexico border
Witness For Peace (202) 588-1471
witness@witnessforpeace.org
www.witnessforpeace.org/deleg.html Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chiapas,
Cuba, Haiti, Honduras
Costs vary greatly, depending on the destination, the
length of the trip and what is covered (airfare is often not included). It can
range from $425 for a 3-day trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, to over $3,000 for
two weeks in South Africa. The Witness For Peace/EPICA/SOA Watch delegation to
Chiapas and Guatemala was $1,270. It did not include airfare from and to the
United States, but covered virtually everything else -- very little extra
spending money was needed.
In addition to these national organizations many local
parishes organize trips, often arranged with a sister parish or other contacts
in the foreign country. |
Teresa Malcolm is NCRs assistant news
editor.
National Catholic Reporter, October 15,
1999
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