Nothing But The Memory Of A Silent War
By Maria Wokurka
The hour of truth has arrived
The past is not forgotten
…
After so many years, dark pages fall open so many
Of the dead demand justice from above,
Welcome to Guatemalan reality!
These lines derive from a rap song by the Guatemalan Lucio Yaxón. His songs are about more than fast beats and exploding battles of words. He sings about atrocities and massacres against his nation, about violent years under the rules of the Caucasians, and about an agonizing civil war in Guatemala. The last ravages were from 1960 to 1996, fought by four left-wing Guerilla units and the Guatemalan government. Lucio did not want to leave his country.
November 9th, 2009 – The Guatemalan Lucio Yaxón arrives in Germany, as a political refugee. The 26-years-old street worker leaves his home country because he did not feel secure any longer: threatening calls, chased by cars without number plates, and terrified of eventually getting murdered. He is not willing to talk in deeper details. In Germany he experiences a hard culture shock. “It will never feel like home.” His family means home to him but there is neither a country nor place he would call home.
Born in 1983 in Sololá, 140 kilometers from the capital of Guatemala City, Lucio grows up at the border of Mexico. His father has been kidnapped in 1995 and was found a few days later – dead, and with signs of torture. The refugee does not doubt that the former military murdered his father. When he was young his parents joined a Guerilla movement. Three of his uncles disappeared during the war – without a trace. The life of Lucio and his six siblings is determined by moving. “There is no place I connect to my childhood.”
Even though the Guatemalan misses his country, going back on the next plane is no remedy. The chunky man knits his distinctive brows and closes his black eyes. Nevertheless, inside Lucio rests a peace he never experienced before. “Life is holy here. In Guatemala it is not of a big value. The barrier to act violently is low; killing belongs to the every-day-life. Every victim is a personal tragedy but no social drama.” Lucio barely smiles. The memories are deep.
36 Years Of Civil War And The Struggle For A Better Future
Even though the Guatemalan civil war is over, 18 years after the official peace agreement, the country still struggles with massive problems. Lucio’s shares his dilemma with millions of Guatemalans who do not belong to the upper or middle class. Luis Eduardo Barrueto, a student and freelance journalist from Guatemala, calls Guatemala a fragile state: “It is a democracy and I think it is prone to be governed by elites. Its main problem is impunity and the bad functioning of the legal system. Only a few cases, usually those of high profile, reach sentencing in the courts.” The young journalist understands the situation in a way that the ideological struggle for influence between the elites and the left is still ongoing.
Guatemala is not the only country that struggles with poverty, criminality, drug trafficking and the political system. Nevertheless, its fate is uncertain, although the Central American country is recognized as a democracy and, with regard to natural resources, rich enough to prevent any famine. Eduardo Barrueto would not even speak of a “critical situation” due to a progressed economy, “which is very stable in the macro sense”. But, in addition to the mentioned problems, Guatemala struggles with the heritage of a very recent civil war.
Andreas Boueke is an author and sociologist. For 20 years he investigated as a freelance journalist and published several books on Guatemala. According to Boueke, the causes of the former civil war – such as poverty and the total marginalization for the majority of the population – have not changed. “In principal, it is impossible that a child dies of hunger today looking at Guatemala’s wealth on resources, but the problem is about fair distribution.”
Formally, Guatemala is a democracy. “The implementation, however, shows that this democracy is not representative for the population,” says Boueke. According to the German Department for Foreign Affairs, 15,5 million inhabitants live in Guatemala, 40 percent of them belonging to the indigenous population and 58 percent are ‘mestizos’, a person of mixed ancestry. In the 2011 elections the only indigenous party received not even four percent of the votes. In February 2014 the German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung published an article with the headline, ‘In the parliament the indigenous are underrepresented’. Boueke explains: “When a majority of the population is not included in the social, political and economic system, one can kind of assume that the winners of an election represent those who have influence and power in any event.”
The director and author Uli Stelzner has been shooting documentaries about Guatemala since 1990. Back then he travelled as the leader of a national German student delegation to Guatemala in order to talk to the president, the police and the Interior Minister. “I experienced that a country rather develops from the inside. Guatemala has always been an object of desire for international powers. The country is interesting due to its resources. Unfortunately it is not very useful that help is imposed internationally but, at the same time, on the national level no political scope for development exists.” Boueke confirms that the situation was “inflicted from the outside”. “After years of dictatorship in 1986 it was decided: ‘become democratic’. The society could not truly participate in the following peace process. In 1996 it was just said ‘now peace it is.’”
The Tragic Heritage Of The Civil War
The roots of the conflict begin in the year of 1954. The democratically-elected president Árbenz Guzmán was ousted by the anti-communist opposition with the help of the CIA. Árbenz intended to establish a land reform, which mainly implied the expropriation of the vast estates owned by the United Fruit Company, today known as Chiquita. At that time 40 percent of the Guatemalan estates were owned by only 23 families. In 1963, for the first time, the military had total control over the government, supported by North-American consultants. Until 1996 guerilla movements and folk organizations fought against the military dictatorships and the small elite. Due to the length and about 250.000 victims, the civil war probably belongs to the bloodiest conflicts of the Western hemisphere – more than 80 percent of the victims were civilians. The majority died through actions by the military or allied security forces. The Central American country is still afflicted by strong repression.
A bit lost in thought a whiff of a smile touches upon Lucio’s face. He runs his hand over his left ear, where a small earring made of wooden pearls dangles, and tells of another Guatemala – fascinating, full of jungles, affected by volcanoes and rivers. Lucio tells his story not for the first time. A story about his personal combat and his anger at a system “without impunity” that perches on hushed and hidden evidence. Lucio wants to know what happened to his relatives: “It is about the right to know the truth.”
The heritage of the war is fatal in Stelzner’s opinion: “All kind of violence is to see as a heritage of the war. For decades the justice did not intervene. Instead, the justice and the state used violence against the population.” According to the author that is the reason why violence is a component of the daily life. The state as a ‘role model’ used practices that are not conformable with a functioning justice. “More than 98 percent of the atrocities are not clarified. The willingness to act violently accompanies the impunity. “
A look at different news media today represents a critical picture about the situation. With the 2011 elected president, Pérez Molina, almost every article – such as the German nation newspaper DIE ZEIT, the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera and the British Huffington Post – mentions the president’s past first. “For the first time since the end of the military dictatorships 25 years ago, a former deputy of the army is again at the front of the country,” reported DIE ZEIT. “Critics have questioned the new president’s record during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, when the army committed widespread atrocities,” reported BBC in January 2012.
The website and monthly magazine E+Z – Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit, financed by the German Federal Ministry for Collaboration and Development, reports that the ex-general, during the civil war, had been deployed in Quiché, a region of particularly numerous civilian victims. In an interview with the magazine in 2012, the lawyer Carlos Hugo Leal Tot said: “Molina sends, again, troops into remote municipalities. The indigenous communities try to defend but they are also afraid. Molina was called ‘captain of the ash’ due to his brutality. It feels like he wants to take revenge for what the previous government has reached.” The former president Álvaro Colóm enforced the opening of the military archives as well as actions for former militaries. “The first action, under the government of Pérez Molina, was, to close the archives and to actually persuade ex-guerillas and indigenous leaders,” said the lawyer. The news portal america21.de released an article with the headline “Guatemala: Almost no progress with regard to the implementation of the peace agreement” in January 2014.
Fallen By The Wayside – The Hard Attempt To Rehabilitate
In 2012 the homepage of Human Rights Watch said, “although impunity remains the norm for human right violations, there were significant advances for accountability in 2011, including convictions of four former officers […] and the first arrest of top-ranking official for human rights violations.” However, the progress seems like ‘going one step forward while going two steps back’. Taking into consideration the trial for the former President General Ríos Montt for crimes against humanity and genocide, Amnesty International released news in May 2014, saying “Guatemala is slipping back into impunity”. To bring the ex-general to justice has been a big step forward, but the Constitutional Court annulled the conviction a year ago. Since then the Attorney General and the responsible judge have been replaced and disbarred. Amnesty International’s expert for Guatemala, Sebastian Elgueta, says the country is at a crossroads: “It should not turn back the clock and return to the days when cases of past human rights violations were simply not investigated or prosecuted.” Human Rights Watch further explains on its website: “Attacks and threats against human rights defenders are common. There is a routine failure to prosecute those responsible.”
Stelzner explains the “flimsy democracy” was not least made out of self-interest. “The democracy was wanted – by the military and small bourgeoisie. After all, nobody likes to do business with dictatorships.” In Stelzner’s opinion the same forces still rule the country. Like Boueke, he sees that these forces are not motivated to establish a real democracy. International relations are shaped by double standards: On one hand the US and the EU demand abidance by human rights, on the other hand the nations follow economic interests. “The commercial treaties between the US and Guatemala lead to an impoverishment as well as the access to the resources – the human rights suffer under these scenarios. It is a hypocritical business.”
Stelzner concedes that Guatemala needs time to rehabilitate. The Guatemala-expert Otto Argueta agrees: “The people struggle on a daily basis – 50 percent of the children are malnourished, 70 percent of the population lives in poverty. But post-war generations need decades of time to change.” Nonetheless, Stelzner classifies the situation as problematic: The boundaries have been given to multinational enterprises. Constant repression and assassinations of spokespersons almost belong to daily life. “The crucial issue is that the country has not recovered from the immense violence in the 80s,” says Stelzner. “There is absolutely no support by the state. The justice and the police are against you. All services are privatized. No public educational system exits. The land distribution belongs to one of the most unfair in the world. Besides Haiti, Guatemala is the second poorest country on the whole continent. Human rights problems exist in all respects.”
Lucio acknowledges that, with the peace agreement, there have been positive changes. “Nowadays we are allowed to make demonstrations and ethnic groups are not officially discriminated any longer. But the rights rather exist on the paper. People cannot speak of a peaceful country as long as nothing changes through demonstrations, as long as the government is manipulative and as long as everybody is forced to participate in this system.” In his opinion Guatemala is not an indigenous country anymore as it is not governed by them. “Presidents and politicians have English, German and Spanish names. The internationally recognized democracy is not ‘real’ as it is made for the elite of Guatemala. This is at the expense of the poor people and, in turn, leads to corruption, violence and deprivation of rights.” The tone of Lucio’s voice sounds clear and insistent, the eyes gaze seriously. “I call the situation a silent war with an arranged democracy that does not work.”
The man with the black eyes sits inside a café in middle of Berlin’s driving life. When he closes his eyes he looks like he wants to rest and forget. But Lucio does not want to neither will forget. He wants justice and answers.
The hour of truth has arrived
The past is not forgotten. Image by Francisco Anzola via Wikicommons.
