36 Hours in the Ixil Triangle

"When it rains in Nebaj, there are tears in the sky."--Juan Perez, resident

Driving up onto the land of a region that was arguably the single-most devastated area during the armed conflict was the start of a few days of seeing a very different side of the project I began months ago.

Nebaj and the other two towns (Cotzal and Chajul) make up what is known as the Ixil [Ee-sheel] Triangle, an area billed as the hotbed of Guatemala's armed conflict. The three sit up in the northern region of the department of Quiché where, according to the UN-sponsored truth commission, over 300 separate massacres took place during the war. This was in addition to the typical laundry list of horrors that plagued primarily indigenous villages throughout the country: disappearances, extrajudicial executions, rape, forced displacement, and coerced conscription into the national army among others. Always better than a list of these repeatedly rattled-off abuses, though, are the words of surviving witnesses. Here is testimony from a young man who survived an attack in the small village of Acul, Nebaj:

At daybreak, soldiers and patrollers had surrounded Acul. Twenty-six dead; twenty were thrown into a hole and six were left thrown in the street. They were struck, shot at, knifed, and tortured. Eighty of them did it. The PAC commander knew me, and told me I was lucky.

Last week I drove north with a friend of a colleague who came down from Canada to do a few days of research in the Ixil for a novel he's writing involving humanitarian aid work in Quiché. He assured me the trip should be spent on whatever interviews I wanted to do, as he followed me with a tape recorder and generally got a feel for the land and people of Nebaj. The drive is a 6-hour trip on primarily windy uphill two-lane highways with breathtaking views of arid landscape. Every so often we drove through tiny villages decorated with cinderblock houses, peeling paint, stray dogs, and the glaring campaign material of various political parties...

FRG party, supported by Rios Montt

Encuentro party, candidate: Rigoberta Menchu (female indigenous Nobel Peace Prize winner)

We spent the first day getting our bearings on the small town of Nebaj, phoning human rights community contacts and following leads on a bit of a goose chase that I've found pretty typical when doing research in Guatemala. After only a bit of success with the local government who promised us interviews the next day, we relented to the fact that we'd get little done on a Sunday in rural Guatemala, and prepared to hit the ground running the next day.

Monday proved to be everything we'd banked on it being--interview after spontaneous interview with as many people involved in human rights regarding the armed conflict as possible. Interviews at the attorney general's office were highlights--so far, there have been no cases put through the courts regarding the conflict, yet in the past year over 100 exhumations of mass graves have been undergone in the Nebaj region alone. "Family members don't want to deal with the courts, they don't want this type of justice," we were assured. "They just want to recover what's left of the bodies." We spoke with a number of activists at NGOs that support the victims who, in fact, do want justice. Turns out there's a veritable cottage industry for this type of legal support, so perhaps the municipality's got it wrong.

The good news is, there is a fair amount of support (legal, psychological and forensic alike) for exhumations in this particular region, having much to do with A) the sheer numbers of high-quantity massacres that took place there, and B) a healthy community of activism on the part of surviving family members. For the families, exhumations shed light on the whereabouts of victims that have been missing for decades, and give them what they need to bring some measure of spiritual closure to an excruciating situation.

Overall it was great to breathe some mountain air and even better to practice some whirlwind fact finding. A few photos of the town to give you an idea...
The best part was feeling the history in the land, and getting exposure to the energy and convictions of the people who lived through the war. In spite of serious discouragement, so many are pushing on, still, in efforts to treat the trauma and mistrust left by the genocide.

My Gig

“Even though the arms of war have been silenced, the problems that led to the war are still unresolved. That's why solidarity is still important today. We should have solidarity in times of peace, not only in times of war.” --Rosalina Tuyuc, President of the National Reparations Program


Taking a step back, I want to write on a couple of things I haven't addressed so far that, I've been advised, need some attention: one, the somewhat disturbing BBC reference in the description, and the other, quite simply, what exactly I am doing here in Guatemala.

The former, although maybe slightly more pressing, will have to wait for another day, when I will elaborate on one of the most alarming issues facing the region. But before anything else, here's a bit on how I got here and where I'm focusing my time and energy...

I arrived in early November to start a ten-month Fulbright research grant won under the pretenses that I would investigate Guatemala's ongoing peace building efforts. As I mentioned before, Guatemala is a new democracy--just 10 years out from the end of a conflict that lasted over three decades and included a textbook case of genocide committed by government authorities against Mayan indigenous populations. My aim here is to look at what is being done in response to such calculated violence.

I've long been drawn to the field of transitional justice, which is, in a few words, the study of how post-conflict societies reckon with recent periods of violence in order to move peacefully into a new era of democracy. Tools used in these efforts include truth commissions, trials for perpetrators, and reparations for victims. Examples that may sound familiar are South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established at the end of Apartheid to investigate human rights violations, and the Nuremberg Trials that followed the Holocaust in post-WWII Europe. I fell hard for the subject after reading Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog, easily the most inspiring book I've ever read.

My specific focus is on how international actors influence these efforts. In order to get into the nitty gritty of that particular question, I made my way into an internship at the mother of all international actors, the United Nations (which luckily has a base in Guatemala City leftover from the peace building mission established to help end the war). So I waffle back and forth between independent reporter and rookie-UN rep. as I do research. With the UN, I've generally been involved in two main areas: 1) The case against seven former leaders for genocide and other crimes against humanity currently being considered in Guatemalan and Spanish courts, and 2) the National Reparations Program, which will provide money, services, and other measures of compensation to victims of the conflict.

I'll post bits and pieces on each of these every once and a while to elaborate--both issues are contentious among citizens and politicians here, and both have some serious points of international historic relevance.

At the heart of the topic, deeper than the political controversy and pragmatic doubt that come with the territory, are the victims. The people who were affected by the violence here are deeply scarred--family members were murdered, torture was used methodically against civilians, women and children were targeted for their power to carry on the Mayan ethnicities, land was seized, and peaceful communities were turned into militarized zones by the government. Today, the same ethnic groups are critically marginalized in society.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Nebaj, a region accurately characterized as the epicenter of the genocide. With any luck, I'll come back to the capital with a much more intimate sense of how the violence occurred, what the human cost was, and how survivors (as opposed to politicians) envision a future of peace.

Notes on that when I return next week.

In the Old Antigua Tradition

Learn where there is wisdom,
where there is strength,
where there is understanding,
so that you may at the same time discern
where there is length of days, and life,
where there is light for the eyes, and peace.

--Baruch 3:14

















It was 3 a.m. on Good Friday, and the streets rang with the customary clanging of church bells that sound hourly in the old colonial town of Antigua, Guatemala. Not so customary were the crowds of people that gathered in the dark, huddling together and clinging to warm beverages, poised to observe and celebrate the height of Holy Week. A week-long fest of food, music, art, drink, and general familial togetherness, Semana Santa (holy week) is a cultural-religious phenomenon long prized by the Spanish-speaking world. It prompts some of its most spectacular ceremonies in Seville, Mexico City, and, luckily for me, Antigua.

In Guatemala, a country where religion and culture are virtually inseparable, Catholicism dominates, represented by around two-thirds of the population. A fast-growing evangelical Christian community is close behind. Semana Santa begins on Palm Sunday, peaks with the commemoration of Christ's crucifixion, and ends with the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Processions















Antigua celebrates with a series of reenactments, processions, and ceremonies, each phase of the story of the Passion symbolized in the corresponding days' events. The processions are astounding--some last more than 12 hours, with tens and sometimes hundreds of processors (called cucuruchos) dressed in purple silk. The first in line have enormous images of Jesus of Nazarus hoisted on their shoulders...




...followed by more cucuruchos swinging heavy silver urns that cast clouds of incense smoke through the streets...

...and bringing up the rear are the the solemn members of marching bands playing funeral dirges as observers listen, some weeping, some snapping photos...

















The processions always come in sets of two; the second wave is for the Virgin Mary, her images held by lines of women dressed in black and white lace...





















Children are eager participants--young trainees for the next generation of traditionalists...

















Onlookers marvel...



...and vendors have a heyday as the crowds grow exponentially throughout the week...



Alfombras

The most impressive facet of the week by far was the enormous traditional carpets (called alfombras) that line the cobblestone streets throughout the old city. Alfombras come most commonly in the form of colored sawdust but are also constructed out of colored sand, flower petals, and even fruits and vegetables. The idea is that each household or storefront builds a carpet on their stretch of the street for the cucuruchos to walk over as the processions make their way through the city. Throughout the week, we would delight every time we happened on an alfombra-in-progress, as they were being constructed continuously on most side streets and alleyways. The tradition has become a bit of a unofficial competition among Antigua residents in both creativity and meticulous dedication--some families spend over ten hours on their carpets, setting up glaring stage lights in the middle of the streets in order to work late into the night. In the dark hours of Friday morning, as we waited for the main procession to start (kicked off by Roman soldiers riding horses through the streets at 3am), the alfombras easily stole the show...

The best part of the alfombra-viewing was the atmosphere; the anticipation and joy involved in such deep-seated traditions was contagious. Even during the wee-est hours of the morning, residents left their doors open, porches lit; cakes and pastries were set out as offerings for passersby; coffee shops served hot drinks; and flowers were displayed everywhere. Families sat on their doorsteps watching with pride as visitors oogled over their newly-adorned stretches of street, and vendors shouted about traditional easter foods and toys on sale. The 5a.m. processional went off without a hitch, and after it passed, we all walked home for a few hours of sleep just as the sun rose and the fog lifted over Volcano Agua...



Friday was decked with signs of mourning--black crepe paper, white flowers, eerie quiet despite growing crowds. A mock trial for the sentencing of Christ began at midday in the main square, and the crucifixion followed (for a much more hardcore reenactment of the crucifixion than Antigua manages, check out the Philippines, where they nail real people to crosses). At noon, the cucuruchos traded their glossy purple robes for black ones.





Church is where the rest of the weekend was spent--Saturday for bereavement, Sunday for rejoicing. Antigua easily accommodates this ritual with its countless churches, both intact and in ruin, each with their own take on the occasion.

The Dry Season

Guatemala has seen periods marked by beauty and dignity...its name has been glorified through its works of science, art, and culture; by men and women of honour and peace. Pages have also been written of shame and infamy, disgrace and terror, pain and grief, all as a product of the armed confrontation among brothers and sisters.

--Prologue, Guatemala: Memory of Silence

Almost to the day, I am halfway through my time here in Guatemala. Not a bad point, I decided, to start writing on the relevant, the interesting, the colorful and what I think is the especially important about what’s going on here. Guatemala is a country a bit off the radar screen, although in and out of international headlines occasionally. Recently it garnered attention for such events as the murder of four Salvadoran diplomats, a freak sinkhole, and a brief visit by the American president. But as the country struggles to build peace after 36 years of violent conflict and new problems rage on, Guatemala surfaces in the press only once in a while.

Living in any small country whose issues have grown stale enough for reporters to have long packed up and left makes it harder to agree with its absence from headlines. I guess that’s because, living amongst them, issues never seem irrelevant. I’ll do my best to shed light on what is interesting enough to capture attention, just not sexy enough to make the morning news. The beautiful and the tragic, a little bit of everything, with the admitted human rights-slant you all know I'll have. Plus to keep everybody updated--friends, family, onlookers--rather than various emails, I thought I’d jot stuff down here and entertain you with some of my photography as well. Because, above all, Guatemala is a strikingly photogenic place--a knockout, truly...

La Catedral, Antigua

Lake Atítlan, San Marcos

Monterrico, Pacific Coast

Downtown market, Guatemala City