ADIVIMA would like to share a video report from Guatemala, in Spanish, that shows the conditions in the village of Agua Blanca, near Chixoy Dam.

The community of Agua Blanca, more than 300 people, is comprised of families displaced by the construction of Chixoy Dam who live in extreme poverty. They have been waiting for reparations from the government for their loss of property for over thirty years.

The January 4th, 2009 land slide occurred near Agua Blanca. With the rainy season underway, tons of silt is accumulating in the river near the village creating a natural dam near the induction tunnels for Chixoy. The situation is critical and leaves the entire community at risk of more landslides or total inundation.

Emergency response teams from the government seem more concerned about damage to Chixoy Dam than the livelihood of the residents of Agua Blanca. Tunnels for the dam are located at the entrance to the village of Agua Blanca and can be seen in the video. If this tunnel is affected, the country could lose 30% of its electricity generation capacity.

Agua Blanca has decided to take matters in their own hands. Although new land and homes have been promised to them within the year as part of the reparations package, all residents have decided to move to a nearby farm next week rather than wait for government assistance in the matter.

Right now, the community needs assistance to purchase basic foods and simple building materials for temporary shelters on the new property. ADIVIMA is coordinating this effort.

A young woman entered the emergency room Tuesday with a bandaged arm. A machete wound. Her father accompanied her, but kept his distance. I barely paid attention, intent on averting a possible heart attack. One of my colleagues looked ill that morning. His son had similar symptoms a few weeks ago and almost died. Some gentle prodding proved to be the only persuasion necessary to take him to the Health Center.

As I was arguing with the doctor that a simple case of gastritis was just not what we were facing here, the young woman whimpered as she unwrapped her bandage less than four feet away. The bleeding had not stopped. As I watched her father’s notable distance, all I could think was, “Women don’t use machetes that much, much less cut themselves on their outer arm with them…” However, deliberately focused compassion has become my mantra. Still I felt for her, wanted to show her a breathing exercise that would help a bit with the pain, if she would only believe me.

But my focus at that moment was dealing with acute chest pain, in a town with no EKG or X-ray machine and no cardiologist. All we could do was take the pills and elixirs meant for his secondary health concern and leave. Tomorrow we would try another doctor. Since his son had passed out a few weeks ago and stopped breathing, I was sure his stress level was incalculable. As a survivor, he had lost children and wives before and certainly did not need to lose any more.

I accompanied his son to the capital after that first episode, to visit a gastrologist who kindly suggested his problem might be emotional. We took it no further. His step mother did not seem to care either way, happy for the fruit and snacks I brought for him to eat when she had nothing to offer.

This week, I was told the child has passed out several times since. No follow ups yet. No EKG. The step mother jokes about what she will serve at his funeral should something happen. Wouldn’t her life be that much easier with one less child that was not her own to feed? I might have passed out as well after hearing what would be served at my wake. This week is the anniversary of his real mother’s death.

Clearly, the anniversary weighs on my colleague as well. Before the massacres began in Rio negro, his first wife told him to save himself so he could tell their story, the story of the whole community. And he did. Not exactly a guilt-free situation.

Last week, I visited a basket weaver whom I adore. We had a brief interview. Candelaria. Her words are simple and direct and that is what I appreciate most about our conversations. Simple. Direct. She could not express enough the grief of having lost her mother in the Río Negro massacre. Her father survived and has done some good things in the community, but she suffered at his hand immeasurably, as did her mother. She was orphaned and subjected to great cruelty when all she wanted was her mother’s tenderness. She still craves it today. Tenderness.

What was lacking in her life, she gives tenfold to her children. They may not have food on occasion, but they have her and that is all that seems to matter in their house. Her baskets are a study in concentration. Since the moment we met, I have wanted so much more for her than she has. Deliberately focused compassion. My basket collection has proliferated over the past year because of it.

Another friend of mine reminded me last week that she arrived in Pacux on Mother’s Day in 1984. As a six year-old, she had lived in an army camp in San Cristobal, Alta Verapaz, after the massacres. After some archival research, I believe the camp was called Acamal. She said people were celebrating in Pacux when she arrived, but not the newcomers.
I can’t even imagine what Mother’s Day must have been like that year in Pacux. With so many women lost and so many orphans left behind, those women who did survive must have felt like walking miracles. Unfortunately, the soldiers at the Army base outside Pacux didn’t view them in quite the same light.

Mothers. Fathers. Daughters. Sons. Lately, I am wrapping my head around stories like these trying to conceptualize intangible reparations. Sort of an exercize. Reparation is the mot du jour around here. A just reparation. It’s central to so much of the work.
The numbers of hectares, houses and animals lost are more or less clear. But how do you repair the loss of a grotto where people worshipped, a sacred archaeological site where deer dances took place for hundreds of years, lost language and lost social ties, the massacre of every healer and tradition bearer in a community? Or a mother?

What reparation is there to offer someone who cries inconsolably every Mother’s Day for lack of tenderness? Or a man who comes close to a heart attack on the anniversary of his wife’s death? Or a community that no longer remembers aspects of their own religious practices?

Honestly, there is none.

I find it rather difficult to write about Chixoy reparations when I cannot actually write about reparations negotiations. The accord is a closed political process. It is moving along with ups and downs, but it is not to be commented upon at the moment.

The complication of all of this silence for COCAHICH and the affected communities is that their story and struggle can become lost in the midst of so many other pressing debates in Guatemala. I noticed that not long ago at a meeting on the proposed Xalalá Dam.

I recently attended a press conference in Guatemala City for the release of a report on the effects of the next proposed megaproject on the Chixoy River, Xalalá Dam. The report was written by the Copenhagen Initiative on Central America and Mexico, CIFCA, and can be found here. During the press conference, I listened to the K’ekchi community members describe how they do not want to have their lives and lands affected in the same way as those poor people from Río Negro and other villages were affected by the Chixoy Dam. For one participant, Hugo Ramirez, Chixoy was like a mirror showing him a story he did not want to see repeated. Who would blame him?

Their listed concerns and demands as a community were clear: the dam would affect their rights to food, health, and a life lived with dignity. Xalalá would violate their rights to protect indigenous lands and would have serious environmental consequences. Their opposition stems first from the fact that the communities affected by Chixoy Dam have still not received a proper indemnification or reparation. Beyond that they understand that the laws are designed to support large multinationals and the proposed energy production would not serve the population of Guatemalan. All true, but most of it is not new. Their demands are the same demands made the Chixoy communities since the 1970s.

My interest in attending was to understand the case better and see where COCAHICH and these communities could help one another. No representatives from the Chixoy communities were officially invited to attend the meeting and share their experiences, so I went to observe and make connections where possible.

If there is one lesson learned from the structure of ADIVIMA and COCAHICH, it is that at a certain point in these campaigns, the communities themselves need to take the lead. I would not say that has happened yet with Xalalá from what I have seen and heard. Nearly sixty NGOs were in some way involved in the Xalalá report written by CIFCA, which is necessary and has its value. However, when one hears from the indigenous community organizations themselves that they don’t have money to travel to meetings or pay for capacity building workshops in their own communities, it makes one wonder what is being done by that “forest of NGOs” as panelist Maximo Bá commented during his presentation on the CIFCA project.

I do not intend to criticize, merely to point out a concern regarding the process thus far. There is much strength to be gained from a united movement when confronting megaprojects, and much to be lost if every community in Guatemala faced with the next Chixoy or Xalalá tried to take on that fight alone.

It is a blustery Sunday in Rabinal. My last blog in January was written from Washington, DC, where I was working in the AP office for a few weeks making connections for ADIVIMA and COCAHICH on the development front. We had a few lectures and launched the Río Negro Memorial Quilt in DC and online. My biographies of victims and weavers are hopefully just the beginning of a longer series of interviews I have scheduled with massacre survivors and families affected by Chixoy. I intend to post at least one bio here every month through the spring.

In late January, I returned to Rabinal. Back at the office, ADIVIMA is faced with progress and setbacks on all fronts. The Río Negro genocide case, which was admitted to the IACHR in March 2008, is getting closer to being elevated to the court system and the legal team is waiting for an audiencia in Washington. Everyone is positive and hopeful.

However, a landslide on January 4th at Los Chorros Mountain in the department of Quiché killed 37 people, all members of COCAHICH who have been affected by Chixoy Dam. There is serious concern that the landslide is related to the dam, as access tunnels that run directly through the Los Chorros mountain and on to Chixoy were built by INDE decades ago.

Reviewing photos of the deceased is a brutal reminder of the persistent cycles of violence and devastation that these communities have endured. Sitting in the COCAHICH office, Tono told me how he felt sick to his stomach after having to wipe blood off of the identity cards he scanned last week. These identity cards are called cédulas. They were taken from the bodies that were recovered from the rubble at Los Chorros. Soon they will be in the local museum along with photos of all the other muertos from the internal conflict.

The cédulas of these community members mirror those of the Río Negro victims in a rather prophetic way. Cédulas have been used just as much, if not more, for control as for identification. Not one of the Los Chorros victims was found without their cédula. Back in 1982, the seventy-three people from Río Negro massacred in Xococ on February 13th were called by the Army to retrieve their cédulas that day as well. These tragedies past and present, they are all pieces of the same story.

I visit the Rabinal Community Museum fairly regularly. It is filled with cédula images just like these. After having researched the lives of some of the victims, I feel like I know them, and when I go there, I feel as if I am visiting new friends. For me that is the beauty and the power of that exhibit space. The images and the stories demand that you remember them.

They also make me reflect on Luis Gonzalez Palma's photo, La Mirada Crítica, which portrays an unidentified Mayan girl with a measuring tape around her forehead. Her gaze asks some of the same question as these three photos here, "What am I to you?" "What does my life represent?" and more provocatively, "Do you even care?" If you multiplied these three images by 100,000 ( approximately the number of deaths since the beginning of the internal conflict to date) and filled a government ministry with them, then maybe someone would take note in Guatemala City.

Back in Quiché, there are three hundred people living in a refugee camp after several villages were abandoned in January for fear of more landslides. To date, the government has done nothing aside from hold a conference in Coban last week to discuss how to help, more than a month after the event. FEMA's response in New Orleans might warrant a five-star rating in comparison.

Studies are underway by government geologists to verify the cause of the landslide, but COCAHICH wants to hire their own geologists. As a recent article in the New York Times linked last year’s devastating earthquake in China to the impact of a nearby dam reservoir, their suspicions are not unfounded.

In March, I hope to work with the landslide affected communities and relate some of their experiences. I already know there will be so much to tell.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Spanish
Juan de Dios Garcia, adivima@yahoo.com
502-7938-8230
English
Heidi McKinnon, hmckinnon@advocacynet.org
502-7938-8230

THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE IN THE VERAPACES, MAYA ACHÍ
ADIVIMA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 12, 2009 Rabinal, Guatemala- Tragic Landslide near Chixoy Dam in Central Guatemala Kills Dozens. On January 4, 2009, a landslide on Los Chorros Mountain in the central Guatemalan state of Alta Verapaz killed thirty-eight men commuting on foot to work in a nearby coffee plantation. More than four thousand tons of rock and earth fell along a mile long stretch of the only road linking the remote villages near Chicamán, Quiché to San Cristóbal, Alta Verapaz.

To date, sixteen bodies exhumed from the rubble have been identified. Fourteen people are still missing and seven of the injured are still hospitalized. More than three hundred people have been evacuated from the remote villages near the Los Chorros mountain where the accident occurred. Over one hundred-fifty women and children have been affected by this tragedy.

The region surrounding the Los Chorros mountain in Alta Verapaz lies near two geological faults, the Chixoy and Polochic, and is located near the largest hydroelectric dam in the country- Chixoy. Distribution tunnels for Chixoy Dam run through the mountains close the site of the landslide and geologists are testing for possible damage to the tunnels. Chixoy Dam supplies 40% of all electricity within Guatemala.

Victims of last week’s tragedy were all from communities affected by the construction of Chixoy Dam and are members of the Coordinator for the Communities Affected by Chixoy Dam (COCAHICH), which is negotiating with the President of Guatemala for reparations related to the construction of the dam. Members of COCAHICH believe the landslide is directly attributable to the construction of Chixoy Dam, but no conclusive evidence has come from the recent studies of the accident to support their claims.

Currently over 13,000 people are members of the communities displaced by Chixoy, including those who died in the Los Chorros landslide. Vice President Espada toured the region on January 10th and offered government support for the burial of victims.

COCAHICH, and their partner organization, ADIVIMA, report that to date no other international aid agencies are working in the region to assist the families of the deceased and those living in refugee camps.

COCAHICH is accepting donations for the affected families through the Advocacy Project in the US and the ADIVIMA Facebook Cause page.

The Advocacy Project
http://www.advocacynet.org/page/adivimagive

ADIVIMA
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/113207?m=3124eff7&recruiter_id=17817487

I have been quiet about the negotiation process for some time because it was not going well in late summer and early fall. So as not complicate COCAHICH’s work, I preferred to leave those details out of my blogs. As things have taken a turn for the better, I feel somewhat at liberty to discuss the complications and where the process is headed.

During the past seven months of negotiations between COCAHICH and Vice President Espada’s staff, an entire range of government ministers and functionaries attended, often numbering twenty or more. This included INDE staff and representatives as well. As COCAHICH negotiators numbered three or four, there was a clear imbalance that set a tone to the meetings and seemed to favor one side over the other. My understanding from interviews with COCAHICH negotiators is that they felt that Vice President Espada should have sent representatives with more negotiating power and not allowed the INDE representatives to have as much input in the negotiation.

In late October 2008, COCAHICH staff opened a dialogue with First Lady Sandra Colom de Caballeros, who heads a government program called Cohesión Social. Their goal was to ask for President Colom’s intervention in the negotiation, although they would have been happy to continue with Vice President Espada’s staff had he changed spokesmen. During the weeks that followed, President Colom and the First Lady demonstrated a great deal of support and willingness to revise the negotiation process.

Luis Velasquez, President Colom, Roberto Menendez of OAS and Carlos Chen of COCAHICH discussing the new accord

As the latest ADIVIMA press release stated, a new political accord was signed on November 20th, 2008, between Luis Velásquez of the Office of President Colom, Roberto Menendez of the Organization of American States, and Juan de Dios Garcia, spokesman for COCAHICH. President Colom signed it later that day.

Luis Velasquez, Roberto Menendez and Juan de Dios Garcia

The first negotiation took place last Wednesday, November 26th, 2008, in the offices of the OAS in Guatemala City. The accord limits the number of government officials involved to offer more balance to the process. As well, President Colom felt that INDE representatives had no reason to be at the negotiating table at all, which was a great victory for the COCAHICH staff and lawyers. The new negotiators for the Colom administration include: Luis Velásquez and Luis Surita of the Office of the President, Jorge Ruano of the Office of the Vice President, Karen Slogans of SEGEPLAN, and Orlando Blanco of SEGEPAZ.

Negotiators for the Colom Administration

COCAHICH Representatives at First Meeting of New Accord

During the meetings with President Colom on November 20th, he also agreed to remove essential wording from the previous agreement that resulted in an historic acknowledgement by the Guatemalan government of damages and violations caused by the construction of Chixoy Dam. Unfortunately, during last week’s initial meeting between COCAHICH and Colom administration negotiators, Colom’s lawyers and staff attempted to backtrack from a perceived or implied acceptance of responsibility for damages on the part of the Colom administration. According to witnesses, this point of discussion lasted nearly three hours. As the accord had been signed, COCAHICH’s position was clear. The acknowledgement had been made and would remain on the record, and so it has for now.

This coming week the new Technical Committee will have its first round of meetings to decide when the contracted companies, ARS Progetti and Movimundo, will begin the verification interviews in the affected communities. Their work was slated to start in August 2008, but was delayed for methodological reasons and then further complicated by the collapse of the negotiations with Vice President Espada’s staff. A best guess would be that verification will begin after the holiday season in mid January.

So after some tense weeks of dialogue and some perceived good will on the part of the Colom administration, the reparation negotiations continue. Hopefully, the Colom negotiators will respect this accord and finalize the reparations in the coming months.

Pending funding, I have every intention to continue following the story and monitoring the process of verifying damages in the affected communities starting in late January.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Spanish
Juan de Dios Garcia, adivima@yahoo.com
502-7938-8230
English
Heidi McKinnon, hmckinnon@advocacynet.org
502-7938-8230

THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE IN THE VERAPACES, MAYA ACHÍ
ADIVIMA

Communities Affected by the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam Sign Historic Political Accord for Reparations with Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom Caballeros

November 10, 2008 Rabinal, Guatemala- After months of stalled political negotiations with the Office of Vice President of Guatemala, the Coordinator of the Communities Affected by the Construction of the Chixoy Dam (COCAHICH) and the office of President Álvaro Colom Caballeros have signed a new agreement for the recently failed negotiations on reparations to continue. The new accord will end on June 30, 2009, the result of a long, patient struggle by the displaced communities to open a dialogue with the Guatemalan government regarding the disastrous effects of forced displacement and human rights violations that occurred and have left them in extreme poverty.

With the signing of this new political accord, the communities, the government of the Republic of Guatemala, and the Organization of American States (OAS) mediators have proposed to facilitate and accelerate the verification process and design a plan for reparations during the next seven months. Yesterday, President Colom stated, “I appreciate the patience and assistance of all parties and hope that this proceeds well. We would like to move this process forward with more than simply signatures and make sure it does not slow down.”

By signing the new accord, the government of Guatemala and President Colom assume responsibility to offer reparations for the damages and violations that occurred during the construction of the Chixoy Dam. This accord signals the first time the Guatemalan government has acknowledged that these damaging events took place. “Twenty-five years after Chixoy was built, we now expect to see concrete results and reparations for all of the damages and violations in 2009,” a representative of COCAHICH said.

Background
Official negotiations between the Republic of Guatemala and COCAHICH began in December of 2004, following a non-violent takeover of the Chixoy Dam by hundreds of community activists in September 2004. After the signing of two preliminary agreements to study the case in 2005 and 2006, the Vice President of the Republic of Guatemala, Dr. Rafael Espada, and representatives of COCAHICH signed a political accord on March 17, 2008 to negotiate reparations for the damages which occurred during the construction of the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam, which was built by the National Institute of Electrification (INDE).

Since March 2008, representative from the OAS, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman, or PDH, have served as international observers for the reparation negotiation process. The process stalled in late October 2008 due to a perceived lack of will on the part of the Vice President. For COCAHICH, “the political negotiation collapsed and the process needed to be restructured.”

All parties involved understood the dire political and economic consequences of a failed negotiation, as the next step in this case would be to send it to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The grave human rights violations which occurred during the construction of the dam caused forced displacement and resulted in five genocidal massacres in which 444 men, women and children were killed. According to a recent COCAHICH census, over 13,000 people in 28 communities have been directly or indirectly affected by Chixoy Dam, many of whom are still living in poverty following their forced displacement.

When I arrived in Rabinal this September, I noticed that kite season had arrived along with me. It is no windier in September than any other time of the year, so I started asking questions and learned the poetic truth behind an innocent phenomenon.

All the children playing with their 'barilletes' in the afternoon these past two months have been calling in the spirits of their ancestors for All Saints Day. In the field near the cemetery on All Saints Day two weekends ago, kites were everywhere: big and small, ragged and plain, multicolored and fanciful. People spent the day praying, visiting and eating graveside in the cemetery in remembrance of their family members who have passed away. I will post a separate blog about Dia de Todos los Santos.

As I traveled to other affected communities, the kite story unfolded. Children everywhere know that September to November is kite season, but they don't always have a sense of its significance. Boys and girls make their own kites out of flimsy, ripped plastic bags, papers or whatever is lying around. If they are lucky, they can purchase a really colorful paper kite at the local tienda.

Most afternoons in the villages, kids were running in front of me, toward me, and whizzing back and forth with valiant but rather dubious attempts at aeronautical engineering. It is clearly the thing to do before dark this season. I have often seen them floating about the neighborhood from the roof of my home in Rabinal.

In a Mayan community where death and life have such a fluid relationship, examples of the relevance of the years of genocide can be found often and unexpectedly. I now include kite flying on that list. Other towns in Guatemala, like Santiago Sacatepequez, have spectacular kite flying celebrations, but here in Rabinal, the tradition is far from being a spectacle, and is all the more ingratiating for its informality and simplicity.

Following are a few photos taken over the weeks leading up to All Saints Day. I only include a few because, even when one has a camera in hand, it is not so easy for me to capture a kite, or a child with a kite, in motion.

Areceli's Son in Pacux

Two Friends near the Chixoy Dam

Kite Flying over a Church near the Chixoy River

Kite Flying near the Rabinal Cemetery on All Saints Day

The Maya Achi resettlement community of San Antonio Panec is located in the countryside near the small town of Tac Tic, Alta Verapaz, nearly four hours north and east of Rabinal by car. The land was purchased by INDE in 1983 and is quite removed from the Chixoy River. I visited to organize COCAHICH's weaving cooperative, Lik Chom (Leek-Chaum), which means 'So Beautiful' in Maya Achi.

Village Center

Walkway through the Village

Families in San Antonio Panec originally came from two different villages in the Chixoy River Basin: Pueblo Viejo and Los Chicos. The Chixoy Dam is located on top of the former village of Pueblo Viejo and the original village of Los Chicos was completely inundated apart from a small church.

The environment in which these families originally lived dictated the kind of riverine subsistence economy in which they were engaged prior to the construction of Chixoy. For most people reading this blog, moving your home does not involve a drastic change in lifestyle because your career is far less likely to be tied directly to the geography of your home. For the more than 13,000 people who are currently affected by the displacement of Chixoy, and most indigenous commuities throughout the world, their work and livelihood has always been directly linked to where they live and their environment. When they moved to San Antonio Panec, changes to their lifestyle were drastic.

Historically, corn and beans were grown in fertile fields along the bottom lands of the Chixoy River Basin. Semi-tropical fruits were plentiful and fishing was an integral part of daily life. It may sound like an antediluvial paradise, but they had the basics of a subsistence lifestyle that had maintained them for hundreds of years along the tributaries of the Chixoy River.

When these families were displaced in 1983 and arrived in San Antonio Panec, they had to adapt to a higher elevation which is much cooler than Chixoy. Not only were their cultivation and work habits disrupted, but they had to adapt to a new diet based on the fruits and vegetables that grow in the micro climate of San Antonio Panec. As one elderly woman told me, "Our plants would not grow here, so we had to learn how to cultivate different vegetables. I have coffee plants outside my door. We never had that in Pueblo Viejo."

Many families are able to engage in small amounts of subsistence agriculture, as each displaced family was given one manzana of agricultural land and one manzana to build a house during their relocation in 1983. Other resettled people were not so lucky, but luck is not the best way to describe their ‘windfall.’ Much of the agricultural land available in San Antonio Panec is located along steep hillside slopes that prove to be dangerous to cultivate. Corn yields are diminished compared to the riverbeds of Chixoy and their fishing culture has nearly disappeared.

Rather than working in a semi-tropical riverine economy, today, wage earners in San Antonio Panec work on nearby farms as agricultural or manual laborers, find jobs in the local service industries, sell weavings and generally take on any kind of labor activity that will offer an income. The current generation of leaders in San Antonio Panec grew up in Pueblo Viejo or Los Chicos and moved inland to their present location as children. Their priorities for the economic development of the community naturally differ from those of the previous generation, and although they remember well what their lives were like before displacement, they are not looking for ways to revert to that lifestyle. That world is gone.

INDE says they built houses for the community along steep hillsides and some of these wooden houses have recently begun to give way to landslides. Last month, the community moved an older couple from their house after part of their front porch and outdoor sink fell into the adjacent ravine.

INDE House on Hillside

The real truth of the matter is that INDE paid these community members a small some weekly to build their own houses but did not purchase any of the materials to build them, not even zinc roofing. What they did do is buy PVC pipe to bring water to the village, but every family had to purchase their own PVC and install it to get water from the communal well to their houses. Other NGOs and government organizations donated aluminum or zinc roofing, cement and other building materials to community members, but not INDE.

I have visited San Antonio Panec three times to discuss the COCAHICH economic development plan and the artisans’ cooperative, Lik Chom. The strategy I have developed in some of the more rural villages for the preliminary discussions involves separate meetings for men and women. This emerged after a great deal of discussion with the community leaders. As women have a hard enough time opening up about their work when we are alone, this has proven to be the approach that works.

Strict Gender Divisions Occur at All Village Meetings

Our meeting with the men in San Antonio has been informal and general and focused on carpentry and capacity building in agricultural production. Coffee grows well in the region and they want to develop a coffee cooperative on a portion of their communal lands. For this, we are seeking technical assistance.

Communal Lands for A Coffee Plantation

San Antonio Panec also has a functional micro enterprise selling sand to local builders and concrete companies in Coban. They do not work with the national cement company, Cementos Progreso, which has a less than stellar reputation in Guatemala. One meter of sand sells for $30 quetzales ($4 US) and they rarely sell more than 8 meters a day. Proceeds pay the four laborers employed by the community and fund communal projects when necessary.

A Meter of Sand

During my last visit, I met with nearly twenty working weavers and nearly forty women who would like to expand their weaving skills to contribute to a cooperative in the community. Their work is typically Coban-style weaving for huipils, which involves dense colorful designs. Deer imagery is central to their work, although the women I spoke with did not have an understanding of underlying meanings to the designs they make. No one wears the huipils either because they cannot afford to do so. They weave strictly for economic necessity rather than for personal use.

Here are a few examples of Coban-style weavings.

Coban-style Textile by Ines.

Close-up of Maria Santos Xitumul's Work

Textile Sample by Medarde

Backstrap looms in this community are no wider than two feet, which means the huipils they make are woven in three narrow panels that are sewn together. The current market for their work is Tac Tic itself, which is twenty minutes away by bus. One huipil is worth about $250 quetzales ($34 US) in Tac Tic and represents more than a week of full-time work for those who have the time to devote to it. Most women can make one huipil a month due to their family obligations.

Yolanda Weaving A Huipil Panel at Home.

On my second trip, I met the four young Galliego sisters who are single without children and therefore able to make as many as three huipils a month each, which is tremendous. They weave from 7AM to 6 PM most days and still earn no more than $700 quetzales ($93 US) a month per person for their exhaustive labor.

Two of the Galliego Girls

This short video demostrates their weaving technique.

During our first meeting for the artisans' cooperative, we discussed the structure of the organization, its goals, and possible product lines that could be developed given the nature of their designs and the size of their looms. Each woman brought a sample of her work to photograph and we reviewed them together. This may have been the first time these women had ever met to discuss their weavings together and everyone was energized and ready to move forward. There is so much talent in this village.

Our First Cooperative Meeting

Maria and Her Latest Work

A Blue Tablecloth by Ines

An Orange Huipil Started by Berta

We discussed a variety of capacity building opportunities, including weaving and business management workshops for adults. One woman suggested workshops for girls older than twelve who might be interested in weaving as a profession and we all agreed. Several women offered to serve as teachers and they promised to create a list of girls who might want to take classes in the future.

Now that I have spent time identifying weavers and familiarizing myself with local designs and available materials, the real work begins. The Advocacy Project, ADIVIMA and COCAHICH are actively looking for granting agencies and partner organizations who are both capable and willing to implement the work outlined in the economic development plan for these displaced communities. They have waited more than twenty-five years for this kind of assistance and deserve support.

Once we gain initial funding for the project, we will start with the weaving workshops and create the first set of product samples. I look forward to the day when we can return to San Antonio Panec and say, “OK, let’s get started.”

Thus far, I have said little about life in Rabinal in terms of security and violence. Personal safety is a complicated issue to address, as some might consider Rabinal peaceful. However, to be frank, it is no haven of tranquility. I live in a town that has been irrevocably marked by brutality and is unlikely to recover.

Acts of violence have allegedly increased in Rabinal in the past few months, to the point that the Guatemalan Army arrived in August to support the diminishing local police forces. Discussions amongst local citizens, the National Police (PNC), the Army, civic actors and non-governmental organizations preceded their arrival, but arrive they did.

Army Officer in Rabinal Plaza

With the Army’s installation in Rabinal, a fierce polemic emerges within the community. After the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996, the Guatemalan Army was strictly forbidden to enter into former conflict zones such as Rabinal. Their presence thus constitutes a break with the Peace Accords on some level. However, in nearby communities where the Army is currently working, such as Salamá, rates of violence have decreased. Everyone is asking, should they stay or should they go?

Since August, the soldiers’ presence has been a source of whispered conversations and wild speculation about town and has made some of my friends ill at ease; forcing them to relive experiences they would prefer to remain forgotten. For others there is talk of conspiracy. Some say alleged acts of local violence may not have happened, insisting the spread of false information has paved the way for the Army’s appearance.

People I know in town and the nearby villages lived with palpable fear at the mere mention of the Army during the civil war, and certainly do not feel safer having them in town today, no matter what their present mission might be. Last weekend, I interviewed Maria, a weaver in the resettlement village of Pacux who worked on the Río Negro Memorial Textile. While we were discussing her childhood in Pacux, her mother broke in to recount a painful story in which Maria, a mere infant at the time, was thrown to the ground while she was raped and threatened with having her throat slit by guards outside the Army post for having taken Maria to the doctor in town without an escort or permission. At the time, Pacux was more akin to a concentration camp than a refugee camp, and no one was allowed to leave without authorization from the Army. As soldiers were trained to rape and intimidate, women were certainly not safe traveling even such a short distance alone during the day, much less at night.

That was 1984. Twenty-four years later, Rabinal is still struggling with senseless violence. While I feel safe at work (there are guards) and around town running my errands during the day, I seldom leave the house at night and have been told not to do so countless times by neighbors, co-workers and concerned friends. Shop keepers around town are closing their doors earlier because of increased incidences of coercion and extortion. Certainly some of the fear could be baseless, but not all of it. For other foreign nationals in Rabinal, their experiences might be quite different, but as a single female, my choice to remain for the most part ‘cloistered’ after dark has been the safest option for me. When I am traveling in rural villages, I have no such concerns regarding safety.

There are several youth gangs in town, called pandillas or maras in Guatemala, and over the past few weeks, three allegedly gang-related deaths have occurred. People seem to talk about them everywhere I go. While I was traveling three weeks ago, one young man was killed in a village near Rabinal, purportedly for refusing to become involved with a local gang. This past week, on October 14th, two young teachers were shot and one killed in a neighborhood called Piedras Azules, located less than a mile up the hill from my house. The young man, Wilfredo Rolando Xitumul Tolón, 22, was shot and died instantly. His companion, Nohemí González, 31, a local teacher, received several machete blows directly to her skull and died in the hospital three days later. Her funeral was Sunday.

Nohemi's Funeral Leaving the Plaza in Rabinal

This may sound more like Rwanda in 1994 than Guatemala in 2008, but events such as these are not uncommon. Nearly six hundred women died violently in 2007 according to the national paper, Prensa Libre. More than four thousand women have been murdered since 2001 and only 4% of those cases have been prosecuted (Prensa Latina). As a direct result of the impunity regarding prosecutions of ‘femicide,’ Guatemala has been labeled one of the most violent places for women in the world, on par with countries like Afghanistan and the DRC.

Amnesty International wrote a thorough report on the subject of female homicide in 2005 called, "Guatemala: No Protection, No Justice: Killings of Women in Guatemala". According to a 2007 report by the UN Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, following his mission to Guatemala, homicide rates for young women aged 16-30 increased 117% over the five years between 2001 and 2006.

The Winter 2008 edition of Harvard’s Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies journal, ReVista, offers sobering statistics on the subject of gender based violence. Victoria Sanford demonstrates in a graph for her article, “Feminicide in Guatemala” that the current rate of femicide in Guatemala at the time of publication in 2007 was just below that of 1982, the most violent year of the entire internal conflict in Guatemala.

Young women in Guatemala are dying at an alarming rate, and only a slim percentage of these homicides are being brought to trial or prosecuted in any manner. This past March, Sen. Jeff Binghaman (D-NM) introduced Senate Resolution 178 condemning the more than 2,000 unsolved murders of women in Guatemala since 2001. The resolution passed unanimously and urged the newly-elected Colom government to investigate the deaths and make femicide a legislative priority for the new administration.

Increased international visibility for this epidemic of violence in the last few years has made a difference. Women’s groups and a multi-party coalition of mostly female members of the Guatemalan legislature have recently achieved stunning historic gains in securing rights for women in Guatemala. Decree 22-2008, the first ever regarding violence against women, took effect on May 15, 2008. “La ley contra el Femicidio y otras Formas de Violencia contra la Mujer” addresses all forms of economic, psychological, physical and sexual violence. The decree affirms a woman’s right to contraception, addresses domestic violence, and sets prison sentences from 5-50 years for a prescribed list of crimes ranging from economic coercion to homicide.

As positive a step forward as this legislation is, it will have different consequences in rural and urban, literate and non-literate populations. I have my doubts about how many victims of domestic violence in the outlying departments in particular will be able to find their voice, come forward and denounce a boyfriend or husband before it is too late for them or their children. What I might define as an act of domestic violence is sadly normalized behavior to women in many villages today. In a country where the dominant cultural climate does not always acknowledge domestic violence and where women in rural regions have a hard time finding their voice in any setting, making one’s case before a cadre of predominantly male police will still be an uphill battle.

Heightened levels of violence, both in Rabinal and throughout the country, certainly stem from a multitude of sources, only a few of which include staggering unemployment and poverty, or lack of adequate healthcare and education. These societal realities notwithstanding, the internal conflict has left behind a legacy of institutionalized fear and normalized violence that cannot be dismissed. Looking for a local example of this phenomenon is easy enough.

Here in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, it is impossible to discuss the internal conflict and overlook the most significant historical event that precipitated much of the state-sponsored genocide in surrounding communities. On September 15, 1981, hundreds of Maya Achí men, women and children arrived in the central plaza of Rabinal to celebrate Guatemalan Independence Day. Before 1984, there was a marked division between the Mayan communities who lived outside of the urban centers and the ladinos who lived in towns like Rabinal, Cubulco or Salamá. The families that arrived in Rabinal that day were definitely arriving from Achí villages in every direction around the city.

During the morning of the 15th, once the majority of villagers had arrived in town, the Guatemalan Army surrounded the plaza and blockaded the roads entering and exiting Rabinal. The Achí families started their procession into the plaza directed by local authorities to reverse the direction they usually took, which was from the plaza out of town. The Army then proceeded to open fire on hundreds of people, killing them in cold blood. Some local ladino residents of Rabinal heard warnings about the impending violence and hid in their homes during the massacre.

Estimates suggest at the very least two hundred people died that day, but various eyewitness accounts suggest a number closer to one thousand. Many of the bodies were removed by truckload to mass graves in the nearby cities of Salamá, El Rancho and beyond. The following day, news reports in a small town in the nearby state of El Progreso noted forty-six bodies found on the side of the road. The dead were identified as residents of Rabinal (Oj K’asklik, p.203). Witnesses said at least one driver had to repaint his truck due to the blood stains. Bodies decayed in the streets for days, but residents, not wanting to get involved in any way with cleaning up or witnessing the event, remained indoors.

Although no one knows exactly how many people were killed that morning, it was certainly the single deadliest act of violence in Rabinal or the state of Baja Verapaz during the civil war. The deaths in the Rabinal plaza surpassed the Río Negro massacres or those in Panzós in 1979, which began the era of state-sponsored violence during the internal conflict in Guatemala.

However chilling this event may be, few people talk openly about it. Echoes of the fictional town of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude are tough to ignore. In García Márquez’ novel, José Arcadio witnessed the massacre of thousands of workers from the banana plantations of Macondo. The bodies were carted off by train, and within days of the event no one in town remembered that anyone was missing or had died at all.

As one witness to the September 15th Rabinal massacre recounted, “Mira uno en ese momento, no quiere ver nada, ni enterarse de nada.” “Look, you don’t want to see anything or get involved in anything in a moment like that” (Oj K’asklik, p.202). This is one of the legacies of genocide: an almost willful amnesia.

Echoes of this epidemic are present in Rabinal again two weeks ago. In a Prensa Libre article regarding the case of Wilfredo and Nohemí, a friend of the deceased commented that “he never thought that a crime of this magnitude could occur in Rabinal.” Nohemí’s casket was carried directly though the Rabinal plaza followed by hundreds of people, similar to that day in 1982 when another group of hundreds were shot or macheted to death in that very same spot.

Unwanted memories of such an intense level of community violence remain buried in the minds and hearts of those who experienced it and survived. These events inform the manner in which people view the world, and how they interact with their families and communities for generations. What they experienced in turn touches and shapes the lives of the generations that follow and how they themselves act and react in almost any situation.

While Nohemí and Wilfredo’s friend works through the shock of their deaths, incredulous that this could happen in Rabinal, I wonder that there isn’t more violence. As I interview Río Negro survivors and compile basic personal data, a very preliminary pattern emerges from this small population. During the height of the internal conflict from 1981-1983, child mortality was extremely high and birth rates dropped, only to rise again after 1984. As an example, in one day in 1982, one hundred-seven children died during the Río Negro massacre at Pak’oxom. Practically every village surrounding Rabinal was affected by violence, therefore the pattern could certainly apply more broadly than simply the Río Negro, Rabinal and Pacux communities.

I cannot help but consider the increase in violence since 2001 to be a result of the first generation of traumatized wartime infants growing up. The first children born in hiding in the mountains or the first refugee camps near Rabinal in 1984 turned seventeen in 2001. These young adults undoubtedly have unprecedented internalized fear, grief, anger and despair. Some are clearly involved in local gang violence. I am constantly told not to stay in Pacux after dark for fear of them. Whether that is hearsay or not does not matter as much as the fact that there is a distinct fear associated with local male youth, those born in and around Pacux post 1984.

Whatever the truth to the my theory of violence during the internal conflict coming full circle, it means very little to the families of Wilfredo or Nohemí. Theories and statistics don’t bring back your children. And no one would dispute that Rabinal has a hard path toward recovery, no matter how many Army patrols are present.

I feel the need to backtrack briefly and review where I have been and where we are headed this fall with the blogs from Rabinal. First, I left Rabinal in late August for a brief respite in Santa Fe. I needed to regroup and was thankfully able to do so. Somehow trying to hold your own IV over your head in the hospital whilst being violently ill complicates life unnecessarily.

After a few weeks off, and with improved health and a fair amount of dehydrated food, I returned to Rabinal in mid September to move forward on several fronts with ADIVIMA and COCAHICH work. The women in Colonia Naranjo were still in the midst of a sewing workshop they began in August for their cooperative and the weavers in Pacux had finished the Memorial Textile, as I mentioned in one of my last blogs. Plans are moving along there, albeit slowly as we have no funds as yet to be doing any of the cooperative work really.

Another part of my work plan for the fall involves monitoring the verification process for the reparation negotiations between the Colom government and COCAHICH. For COCAHICH and ADIVIMA, the negotiations process has been frustrating in the past few months and the verification work has yet to begin. The contractors are now two months behind and to complicate things further, negotiations with the Vice President’s office are somewhat stalled until the end of this month. As the COCAHICH staff was recently downsized for budgetary reasons, I had expected to arrive in Rabinal and jump right into accompanying and monitoring the Movimondo/ARS Progetti contractors as they began house-to-house interviews in each of the affected communities. There are literally thousands of people to interview.

Unfortunately, the interview methodology outlined in Movimondo’s first report had been criticized by several COCAHICH negotiators and third-party monitors and is presently being revised. While their work is delayed, the INDE staff seems to be quite busy continuing to visit affected communities to discuss repair and development projects that for some reason haven’t happened in the past twenty-five years… I returned to two dam-affected communities two weekends ago that have had more than one visit from INDE in the past two months. They assure me this is quite rare.

In the coming weeks, I plan to focus on a variety of subjects in the blog. AP will be uploading my profiles of all the Pacux weavers involved in the Río Negro Memorial Textile to the website and I will be discussing our advocacy plans and where we plan to travel with the textile. In addition, I will continue to focus a great deal on the artisans' cooperative and profile different dam-affected villages and weavers as I make my rounds to all twenty-eight communities. As the verification process begins, I will post updates from our field trips and the negotiations. As reparations negotiations unfold between COCAHICH and the Guatemalan government, I will offer brief updates as well.

It should be an interesting few months, and I thank you to everyone for your enthusiastic support of this blog and our work here in Rabinal.

While I am preparing a variety of blogs about my recent travels to dam affected communities, I wanted to post a brief photo essay from a repatriation that took place Friday at the cemetery in Rabinal.

Six sets of remains were buried after a series of exhumations in the village of Chitucan this past year which were led by ADIVIMA and FAFG. An all night velorio took place at ADIVIMA Thursday, ending with a procession to the cemetery and a burial at noon. It has rained nonstop for days in Rabinal, however the showers tapered off just before the procession left the ADIVIMA compound and did not start again until we had returned.

At the grave site, prayers were offered, incense burned and the remains were placed in the grave in a tidy row along with boxes filled with clothes and associated items found with the bodies. Women left offerings, flowers and lit candles after the grave was closed and a final prayer was offered by the president of ADIVIMA and member of the exhumations staff, Pedrina.

Tonight, my prayers are with the victims' families from Chitucan.

In late August, I met with a group of women from Pacux to discuss a memorial project for survivors of the Río Negro massacres that will hopefully form part of the work of the new artisans’ cooperative in Pacux. Since 2003, The Advocacy Project has assisted with a successful memorial quilt program with a partner organization in Tuzla, Bosnia called BOSFAM. BOSFAM supports women and families who were displaces by the wars and massacres in Bosnia, and they run a women’s weaving cooperative whose members are survivors of the Srebrenica massacres which took place in July 1995. More than 8,000 muslims were killed in Srebrenica and BOSFAM assists and supports survivors and widows through their weaving program.

When I explained the history of BOSFAM to Carmen, Maria, Laura and the other Pacux weavers and showed photos of the textiles BOSFAM weavers have created, they understood immediately and told me they had tried to develop their own Memorial Textile in 2007, but did not have the funding to do so. Thus began a conversation in which I explained that The Advocacy Project would like to assist them in developing their own Memorial Textile project.

Fifteen weavers volunteered to create twenty initial textiles commemorating family members who were killed during the massacres that took place on March 13, 1982 at Pak'oxom, a hillside above the village of Río Negro.

We met over several weeks and discussed design ideas until we came to the conclusion that everyone needed to express themselves in their own way, which is what they did.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting with everyone in Pacux to see their work. The textile squares are completed, and this week the first Río Negro Memorial Textile will be finished.

AP staff intend to use the textile for advocacy efforts on behalf of ADIVIMA and their economic development plan for all of the communities affected by the construction of Chixoy and the massacres in Río Negro. Donations to the project can be made directly to ADIVIMA through the AP website.

We hope this first textile has a long and well-traveled life of its own and helps thousands of people understand the history of Río Negro and why these fifteen women are living lives of desperate poverty in Pacux today.

Photos will be uploaded when possible.

Last month I traveled a few hours north of Rabinal into Alta Verapaz to visit several communities living in resettlement villages near the Chixoy Reservoir. During this trip, I had the opportunity to visit the reservoir and see the Chixoy Dam and hydroelectric facilities at Pueblo Viejo.

At the entrance to the reservoir region is an INDE sign with clear blue waters flowing through the dam.

However the reality is that the reservoir and rivers are often filled with silt and sometimes look more like mud than crystaline pools of agua pura.

The facility opens the floodgates regularly and sounds alarms beforehand to advise residents downriver of the imminent flooding. This was not always the case and many people died in the floodwaters in the first few years after construction.

Now, when the alarms sound, children from the nearby community of Santa Cruz are attracted to the river to collect fish. As the gates close and the floodwaters reside, dead tilapia and other local freshwater fish from the reservoir collect along the shore.

Often children can gather up to ten pounds of fish at a time, the quality of which is questionable, but it does supply a good source of protein to the community. I could not say that of many other communities I visited.

Strategically placed around the reservoir and above the hydroelectric facility are small guard posts used in the past by INDE security. According to some, the Guatemalan Army also used the posts to protect and monitor activities around the dam during construction.

Below one guard post is the tunnel in which several community negotiators were found dead in 1979 while on their way to a meeting.

These men were representing all the affected communities in negotiations with the government and INDE. They carried with them all of their records and minutes from meetings with INDE representatives outlining the reparations INDE had offered to date. Those records were never recovered. Thirty years later, the second round of negotiations on reparations still continues and the negotiators still have concerns about their safety.

Two new hydroelectric facilities are in the planning stages in Guatemala. One in Xalalá and another along the Polochic River. The Xalalá project is underway and out to bid until November 2008. Prensa Libre recently reported that interested parties have already forewarned the Colóm administration that they expect the government to be more involved in reparations negotiations with local communities before they agree to take on construction at Xalalá. ADIVIMA hopes to be involved in consulting with other communities as they face resettlement and negotiation as well.

Over the past few weeks I have had the privilege to visit various remote communities in both Baja and Alta Verapaz that have been affected either directly or indirectly by the Chixoy Hydroelectric Facility. I have heard testimonies from so many voices expressing frustration, disgust and often hope that their lives will improve. While I was taking in these oral histories of survival and witnessing the struggle of family after family, another subtext to the story emerged.

Since June 24th, 2008, the last day of community-wide meetings regarding the contract to verify damages caused by the construction of Chixoy, representatives of the electric company, INDE, and the Commission of Energy and Mines have been taking a small tour of the affected communities on their own. The purpose of their community visits has been to offer incentives to affected families, supposedly to minimize the palpable resentment that is felt against INDE in the regions affected by the dam.

In several villages I visited, INDE had already offered a variety of housing repairs and solar panels for families who have so far lived for over twenty-five years without electricity. INDE representatives have most likely not visited most of these communities in twenty-five years, much less offered them any new ‘incentives’ like solar electricity. Apparently, electricity from Chixoy is too difficult to for INDE bring to these rural villages, although they had no trouble displacing these families to build the largest hydroelectric facility in the country right in their backyard.

Unfortunately, none of these projects are being offered in the interest of community development. Rather, INDE is attempting to appease and ultimately persuade as many of these extremely vulnerable families that they have not been as neglected as one might think, given the clear history of Chixoy.

Wherever INDE makes their case heard and accepted, there is always the possibility that it will affect the final outcome of the Chixoy reparations plan in their favor. To be fair, without having a clear understanding of INDE’s position, one might only suggest that undermining negotiations is their ultimate objective. As the President of the Commission of Energy and Mines is the son of the former general director during the period of construction of the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam, the suggestion seems more likely to be fact.

My question today is this: If your family lived with serious daily food stress in substandard housing and had no access to work, would you refuse a development project even if it were purely politically motivated?

No one would deny even one of these families the opportunity to improve their standard of living, but the possible repercussions for the more than 8,000 affected individuals seem far greater than the cost of a few solar panels for a dozen families in Chitomax.

As this aspect of the negotiation process develops, I will revisit the issue with more details.

After my last meeting with the nascent weaving cooperative in Colonia Naranjo, I paid a visit to the home of Aurelia Sente Calo, her husband, Lucas Moreno Paredes, and their extended family, headed by Porfirio Moreno Paredes and Angela Paredes Cos.

Porfirio and Angela in front of their kitchen

Porfirio and Angela lived in the village of Chicruz, along the Chixoy River, until 1983, when their lands were flooded by the filling of the reservoir for the Chixoy Dam. They subsequently moved to a lot in the resettlement village of Colonia Naranjo with their six children where they received a house constructed by INDE on a small lot of infertile land in compensation for their riverfront acreage filled with fruit trees and corn fields that sustained the family for generations.

Generations of the Moreno Paredes family

As the children grew and the family expanded, houses were built behind and to the side of their original house in Colonia Naranjo. Today, the Moreno Paredes family lives among six concrete or bamboo houses on a lot that measures 100m x 15 m. All have simple zinc or hard plastic roofing.

Houses at the back of the lot

Aurelia and Lucas live in one of the larger houses on the lot and have two children, Aurelia and Angela.

Aurelia and Angela at home

When I visited Aurelia, Lucas was working in their rented corn fields, which they are lucky to be able to afford. Aureliana gave me a breakdown of basic household expenses and wages in Colonia Naranjo that illustrate the reality of life in a refugee camp, twenty-five years on from their evacuation.

Agricultural laborers make $40 quetzales a day in this region, which works out to $800 quetzales a month, or about $105 US, when they can find work. Lucas` brother, Román, told me that he is fortunate to work 5 days a month. People who have experience in construction work can earn closer to $50 quetzales a day, but not everyone is so lucky.

Estamos bien hodidos aquí, according to Román Moreno Paredes

Given these wages, it makes sense that every family in Colonia Naranjo is struggling to cover basic expenses. Fire wood costs $350 a month and their INDE electric bill is generally around $200 quetzales a month. I will not even begin to comment on that. Water is inexpensive, but entire weeks pass without reliable water service. Unlike the Perez family in Pacux, there is no well here, only a water tank that all six families use for drinking water and bathing when necessary.

When water pipes break, the community must pay to repair them. These storage tanks are crucial.

Given the basic expenses, it is no wonder so many people cannot even feed their families. Lucas has to take out a loan to pay for the $300 quetzal rent on their corn fields per season. When he is working in the corn fields, he cannot earn wages, so these are the leanest months for the family. Meals consist of tortillas that Aurelia makes three times a day, sometimes with a bit of tomato or onion.

Aurelia grinds corn daily

Even eggs are a luxury at $1 quetzal per egg. As their property cannot support six families and chickens for everyone, they cannot raise their own hens without encountering even more serious health concerns than those they currently face.

Aurelia´s Granary

The corn that Lucas grows feeds the family year-round. Aurelia uses up to 50 ears a day to make tortillas for the family, depending on whether they have other food or not.

Corn Supplies for the Year

They cannot afford to share much of their harvest with other families or neighbors for fear of risking their own food security. In a Mayan community that is based on principles of shared lands and mutual support, this marks a serious shift.

Such realities underscore the tangible processes through which cultural heritage begins to unravel in a community that had previously shared so much only one generation ago. I have heard and seen this phenomenon over and again in the years I have worked with traditional communities. When people lose their geographic context or orientation, they can fall into a downward spiral in which language and cultural traditions slowly dissipate unless the community is vigilant and proactive. Maintenance of traditions is certainly possible under such circumstances, but it is unfortunately the exception rather than the rule.

As we move forward in the process of supporting artisans in Colonia Naranjo, and all the dam-affected communities, I am looking at other successful models in Guatemala that have allowed weavers to earn consistent wages in the range of $600-700 quetzales a month for their work.

At home with baby Angela

While it may not seem like a livable wage to most, for Aurelia and Lucas, $600 quetzales would offer a great deal of family security.

Don Justo is the only resident of Colonia Naranjo who knows how to weave on a loom. He is in his early 70s and spent more than 10 years trying to make a living with his traditional textile work after resettling in Colonia Naranjo during the internal displacement in the 80s. When he could no longer sell his textiles profitably in the local markets, he dismantled the looms and stored them in a shed up the hill from his house just in case they were needed in the future. This past Saturday, Don Justo led me up the hillside to his shed and unpacked the looms. They were covered in dust and spider webs, but in tact and ready to be put to use.

Taking a Look at the Loom

I was in Colonia Naranjo to meet with local artisans and structure a series of future workshops to strengthen skills in embroidery, sewing, and a variety weaving techniques that are being lost. Don Justo was the only man in the group of 40 women present, and he was ready to get started. Now. The weaving workshop will last a year, and as he noted, he is not getting any younger.

Don Justo´s Catalog of Designs

When the women have developed their skills sufficiently and we have designed a viable product line, they will organize into a cooperative and begin production for export under COCAHICH’s economic development plan for all of the dam-affected communities. Jobs in these communities are scarce. Many people have marketable skills, but no market and no jobs. Theirs will be one of several regional cooperatives for the 28 affected communities for which we will research startup funds. Based on Don Justo’s textile samples, the women in Colonia Naranjo will have no problem finding external markets. And based on similar projects in Guatemala, this can work.

Striped Wool Shawl by Don Justo Morente

Their community is emblematic of what every other dam-affected community is experiencing, what Guatemalans as a whole are experiencing. The unemployment rate in Colonia Naranjo is roughly 90%. Pacux is equivalent, meaning 10% of adult males have work. And these are the urban resettlement communities with greater access to labor resources.

More than 70 of the 1000 residents of Colonia Naranjo have left for the US to find work. That accounts for nearly one-fifth of the adult population of this resettlement community. During the reparations meetings last week, many people expressed their frustration to the government officials about the unemployment situation. Please review testimony in my previous blog, Ya Estamos Cansados.

Nationally, although unemployment was officially just over 3% in 2007, Guatemalans are migrating to the US from rural communities like Colonia Naranjo at a rate of 150,000 a year reports Prensa Libre. Roughly 25,000 make it across and 100,000 are detained and deported. What happens to that other 25,000 is not documented. There are 1.2 million Guatemalans, considered ‘co-nationals’ in the internal discourse, who are living abroad. Over 90% of them are in the US, and 60% are undocumented*.

Remittances from the US to Guatemala reached 2/3 of the country’s export income last year, or nearly $5 billion dollars of a $67.5 billion dollar GDP. In Colonia Naranjo, Pacux, or any other remote village in the region, one can only hope to make $150-200 a month, six days a week, for manual labor, if you are part of that 10% who can find work. It makes sense that someone would look elsewhere for a way out of the economic oppression brought on by internal displacement and attempted genocide. In a resettlement community like Colonia Narnajo, that translates to becoming a refugee from the life of an unemployed, landless refugee.

However, this issue is larger than the effects of CAFTA on the Guatemalan economy or political trends in Latin America. In a country like Guatemala, where 45-60% of the population is indigenous, discrimination and thinly veiled forms of slavery have prevailed from contact through the colonial period and the civil wars to today. These practices and prejudices are normalized and integrated into the fabric of the larger society.

Many local Achí men were forced to labor for free on local plantations from the founding of Rabinal well into the 1970s. Their subsequent forced integration into the Army or the PACs during the civil war was simply an extension of the encomienda system that the Spanish enforced throughout Latin America. Into the mid 1970s, men were rounded up on market days when they visited the plaza and taken to training camps or told by the local authorities to work on a given plantation until further notice, without pay. If they did not comply, the consequences were generally fatal.

Understandably, those few Achí men and women who did join the guerrilla movement felt justified in their fight to end such forms of oppression. And this happened for centuries in a town founded by none other than Bartolomé de las Casas, considered a liberator of the indigenous populations in the New World.

Back in that town not far from Rabinal called Colonia Naranjo, founded by INDE rather than de las Casas, most people I met had a relative or friend now working in the US. Looking through the lens of life in Colonia Naranjo, traveling to the US to work seems more like exercising a basic human right to have access to paid labor rather than a series of illegal actions to defraud Americans of their income. How they get there is a tough story, though. People must sell what little they have or go into debt to an agent, called a coyote, to get them across the border. The price for attempting to cross from Baja Verapaz runs $5,000 US, which includes three attempts and transportation within the US to a chosen destination. Although it may sound like a cruise package, it is not.

People have sold their homes, failed to cross, and been left homeless with no means to get back to their villages. Even when someone is able to keep their home and make it across, they then face difficulties in both countries. Prensa Libre reported today on a new wave of robberies targeted at homes belonging to migrants. In the US, these co-nationals must then find reliable work and pay off the heavy debt to their coyotes quickly or face violent consequences.

Don Justo’s sons have already worked in the US and returned home. They did not learn to weave because it was not a viable profession for them, so they both crossed into the US for several years to work in construction, sending money home when they could. When we met this past Saturday, they were working on an addition to Don Justo’s house for their families.

So many people in the US have the misguided impression that all migrants want to stay permanently in ´the land of the free.´ Most simply want to earn enough to buy a decent house or pay off the one they own in their own country, amass some savings, and then go home to start their own businesses or improve their quality of life.

After a new wave of ICE raids began in the US in 2007, support and advocacy groups for Guatemalan co-nationals in the US began to pressure the Guatemalan government to step up diplomatic efforts on behalf of deportees like those who were caught in the raids in New Bedford, Massachusetts last year. Organizations such as CONGUATE, the Coalition of Guatemalan Migrants, MIGUA, the Guatemalan Immigrant Movement in the US and RPDG, the Guatemalan Peace and Development Network have been instrumental in pushing for federal reforms in Guatemala that led to the establishment of a new migration agency called CONAMIGUA, the National Council for Guatemalan Migrants. CONAMIGUA´s role is to attend to the needs of Guatemalan migrants in other countries by assisting to guarantee human, civil and labor rights from nationals living in foreign countries, execute economic development plans within Guatemala to reduce migration and assist the families of deportees with legal, economic and political concerns.

At the archeological museum in Colonia Naranjo, women like Aurelia and Maria showed me examples of their skills and quite reluctantly spoke of their interests in sewing, weaving and designing new products like embroidered tunics and wool scarves. Don Justo has wanted to teach people how to weave for years and everyone was hopeful that the time has finally come. They need to work and they don´t want to migrate.

Aureliana Calo´s Embroidery

A Table Runner by Maria

Typical Crocheted Wool Handbags

Aside from learning weaving skills and hopefully generating a family income, these women and men who become involved in the development plan in the coming years will learn basic accounting and business management skills and become more engaged in the development of their communities. As a side effect, the stronger and healthier the community becomes, cultural identity is strengthened and migration may become less appealing as well. It is not so far fetched to think that one can weave their way toward a new life in a town like Colonia Naranjo. All it takes is a little will and a great deal of wool.

*Statistical information in this blog was obtained from Prensa Libre and Nuetro Diario reports, Guatemalan migration records, IMF and CIA Fact Book documents for 2007 and personal interviews.

On Tuesday, June 24th, I saw the Chixoy River for the first time while entering the community of Chitomax. June 24th is el Día de San Juan, or the day of Saint John the Baptist, patron saint of water. It is a good day to be near water, which is what I did.

Chixoy River

Since the flooding of the river basins for the Chixoy Dam, the thousands of people who were resettled to the mountains around the village of Chitomax have only infertile, hilly uplands on which to grow subsistence crops. Villages scattered throughout the mountains on the north side of the river are only accessible by a suspension bridge in Chitomax whose cables are corroded. It is a serious concern for the hundreds of people who have to cross it daily.

Looking North from Chitomax

Farmers have no other means by which to carry their crops into nearby towns like Cubulco or Rabinal to sell them aside from carrying them across this bridge. With the little floodplain land available, they grow corn and beans. However, the majority of their crops are planted throughout the mountains in the distance.

Corn along the River

The bridge itself is a danger. There are wide open spaces between the wooden panels; it bounces and sways as you walk, making it hard to balance; and the cables are rusting and ready to collapse. Years ago, there were not even wood panels to cover the cables. Men, women and children cross it every day to go to work, school or into town, which is hours away.

The spaces are wide enough for a child to fall.

Part of the reparations these communities are requesting from INDE will include the replacement of this bridge with something much larger that will allow motor traffic and offer the mountain villages safe and reliable access to the hospital, work, markets and shops in town. And that is a brief portrait of life from the south side of Chitomax. Later in July, I will report on the villages across the river.

This week I accompanied a delegation of ADIVIMA and COCAHICH representatives during a two-day session of meetings to introduce reparations consultants hired by the Organization of American States (OAS) to members of the dam-affected communities. Over the next four months, these consultants will interview survivors in each of the 28 villages and verify damages that resulted from the construction of the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam. Their final report will be used during the reparation negotiations taking place between the office of the Vice-President of Guatemala and delegates from COCAHICH, who represent the people affected by the dam. The report should be completed in November 2008.

On Tuesday, June 24th, we visited the communities of Chitomax, Colonia Naranjo and Pacux to hear comments and questions about the verification process and the political negotiations between COCAHICH and the Guatemalan government. The visiting delegation included negotiators from the offices of the Vice President and the energy company INDE, the contracted consultants from Italian NGOs ARS Progetti and Movi Mundo, lawyers and representatives for COCAHICH and ADIVIMA, and mediators from the OAS.

Delegation Representatives

Chitomax

The day began in Chitomax, downstream from the Chixoy Dam. Half of the affected communities live in this region among 14 remote villages, almost all of which are located on the north side of the Chixoy River. A decaying suspension bridge connects north and south.

Looking North from Chitomax across the Río Chixoy

None have electricity or water although they only live a few miles from the largest energy generating plant in the country. The meeting took place in the village of Chitomax itself, which is the one village located on the south side of the river at the end of the only dirt road entering the region.

Chitomax Crowd

There were about 200 people waiting for us in the mid-day sun when we arrived. After brief introductions by Roberto Menéndez of the OAS and an overview of the work by Vinício Ramírez of Movi Mundo, the floor, so to speak, was opened to the community members.

The First Testimony

Each community was represented and everyone had something to say. These are excerpts of what we heard from a myriad of voices, both men and women, whose names I will not mention:

"Nos sentimos marginalizado, abandonado... Nos encerraron. No hay como vivir… Nosotras las mujeres tenemos derechos. Yo tengo derecho de venir y reclamar aquí... No tenemos luz. Entraron con engaño... Es una vergüenza que Guatemala está vendiendo luz a otros países y aquí estamos desnudos... Nos dejaron un pedacito de tierra que no vale nada… Para que fecha, para que hora, vamos empezar los proyectos... El gobierno es un engañador... Haga el puente. Haga la carretera y la luz. Ya estamos cansados."

"We women have rights. I have the right to come here and denounce them"

“We feel marginalized, abandoned… They have us in a jail with no way to live a real life. We have no electricity. All they did was come here and lie to us… It is shameful that Guatemala is selling energy to other countries and we are left with nothing… They only gave us a little patch of land that isn´t worth anything… On what day and at what time are they going to begin the infrastructure projects? The government lies… Build the bridge. Build the roads, and give us electricity. We are tired of this.”

Listening to the Testimony

They spoke clearly and forcefully. The message was strong and the delegation could see first hand what life has been like in these communities since the dam was built. They were tired of participating in study after study and never seeing results; tired of hearing promise after promise that was never kept. They wanted to know at what hour of what day and in what year would these reparations be made. And finally, they expressed their demand for a percentage of INDE profits from now on for their families.

Of course, their discourse did not seem to make an impression on some INDE delegates who were laughing and chatting amongst themselves at times during the discussion. They expressed their indifference in other ways as well.

We Turn Our Work into Energy

The OAS delegates and consultant staff addressed as many questions as possible while counsel for ADIVIMA took notes and transcribed the rapid-fire testimony as best they could, as did I. The downstream residents said what they needed to say.

Colonia Naranjo

The second meeting took place further south of the river in the resettlement village of Colonia Naranjo, located on the margins of the town of Cubulco.

Colonia Naranjo Crowd

OAS Mediator Ortega Greeting the Community

Again, the community presence easily surpassed 200 and although the message was distinct, because their experience in an urban resettlement village is quite different from those who live in the mountains around Chitomax, it reinforced everything that had been said previously during the two-day session. Everyone listened.

Waiting to Testify

Each person discussed a specific aspect of their life before the dam was built and how they have been affected since its construction:

"Hubo gobierno para sacarnos, pero no hay gobierno para ayudarnos... Somos dueños del agua. Yo fue pescador antes. Ahora no hay pescado… No puede pasar ganado al otro lado del río ahora… Nos sentimos triste. Todas las ayudas que ofrecía, no se cumplió… A mi me duele. Conozco la vida de antes y la vida de ahora. Eso es una colonia limitada. Es una ciudad sin trabajo.… Antes no nos hacía falta. Ahora todo es comprado. Nos dejó retrasado porque no tenemos trabajo… Comíamos cosas sanas antes. Nada de química. Aquí no hay dinero para comprar. Tortilla es limitado para los niños. .. Ya estamos cansados…

Listening to the Testimony

El Señor Gaitán Sánchez nos ofrecíamos muchas cosas. ¿Vamos a pasar más 32 años? ¿Va tener fin o no va tener fin? Éramos dueños de más de 300 caballerías en la época… ¿Cuándo va ser el pagamiento?... Muchos han muerto en las aguas del embalse… Nuestra energía va hasta Honduras, El Salvador… ¿Cuál es la razón de todo el sufrimiento que hemos vivido? Es un tiempo muy crítico para nosotros… "

"This is a refugee settlement with limited resources. It is a city without work."

“The government was there to evict us, but they aren´t here to help us now… We are the owners of this water. I was a fisherman before and now there are no fish… [Since the river was flooded], we cannot get our cattle across [to market]… We are very sad. All of the assistance that was offered was never given… It hurts me. I know the life we had before and the life we have now. Before we never lacked for anything, but now we have to buy everything. They left us without a future because there is no work… We ate healthy food without chemicals. There is no money for food now and we barely have tortillas for our children. We are tired of this.

The Men of Colonia Naranjo

Dr. Gaitan Sánchez (*) offered us many things. Do we have to wait another 32 years [to receive them]? Will there or will there not be an end to this? We owned more than 30,000 acres of land at the time… When are they going to pay us?.. So many have died in the floodwaters of the dam… And our energy goes to Honduras and El Salvador… What is the reason for all the suffering that we have experienced? This is a critical moment for us.”

(*) Dr. Sánchez was contracted by INDE to do the preliminary indemnification research with the communities in 1979.

In both Chitomax and Colonia Naranjo, at least one person compared their experiences with INDE to this past week´s events in San Juan Sacatepéquez, where a large cement factory is to be built by Cementos Progreso without the consent of 12 local Mayan communities who will be affected. Over 10,000 protesters lined the streets last week in San Juan and one of the community leaders in opposition to the factory was killed over the weekend. President Colóm declared a state of emergency in the region. The Director of ADIVIMA, Juan de Dios García, expressed their solidarity with the communities in San Juan Sacatepéquez at the end of the meeting and the delegation drove towards Rabinal.

Pacux

The day´s meetings ended in Pacux, the resettlement village near Rabinal that is home to many Río Negro survivors. There was a solemn tone to the conversation. The community is composed in large part of older women who survived the massacres, adults who were orphaned children in the mid 1980s and their current families.

Flavia, of ARS Progetti, Explaining Verification Process

Instead of a sea of Mexican cowboy hats and women sitting in the shade on the margins, I found myself seated in the grass amongst fifty or more women and grandchildren while their sons and husbands kept a slight distance.

Río Negro Families in Pacux

Tomasa, who I mentioned in a previous blog, was there with her daughter, Juliana, and her grandchildren. We sat together for a while in the grass and listened.

Doña Tomasa and Her Grandchild

Carlos Chen spoke first, recounting the stories and pointing out the men and women in the audience who were orphaned after the massacres. The conversation was reflective in a way that I had not heard until Pacux. Several younger men spoke about their lives now and the importance that INDE speak with communities in the future so that what happened to them would not happen again.

One woman almost apologized to the INDE representatives for speaking forcefully about her experiences, as these people in the delegation were not at fault for what had happened so long ago. She was clear, though, that the INDE representatives had a responsibility to carry their message back to the company. None of them took notes.

Here are some words from the testimonies in Pacux:

"Muchas de ellos son huérfanos. Costó bastante sangre de nuestros seres queridos… Es lamentable lo que nos hicieron… Deberían primero hablar con la gente… Ya aprovecharon y ahora nos estamos sufriendo… Había 22 caballerías, y ahora, no han cumplido con las tierras prometidas… ¿Y ustedes podrían vivir la mitad del día en nuestras casas donde vivíamos por 25 años… Estamos luchando para hacer medio mejor las casas…

Que me pague todas estas tierras inundadas… Con un lote de 15 x 30 [metros], en este uno no se puede vivir… Que el estado de Guatemala cumple con el deber que hay con la comunidad de Río Negro… Queremos pronto la reparación… Ya estamos cansados… A veces pienso que no soy guatemalteco…No quiero hablar más porque me duele recordar todo eso… "

Juliana and Child

“Many of these people were orphaned. [The dam] cost so much blood from our loved ones... It is a shame, what they did to us… They ought to talk with people first… They took advantage and now we are suffering for it… We had over 2000 acres and now we don´t even have the lands they promised us… Could any of you spend even half a day in these houses where we have lived for 25 years?... We are still fighting just to make these houses a little better…

I want them to pay me for all of the inundated lands… On a 15x30 meter lot, no one can live like this. The state of Guatemala must pay the debt they owe to the community of Río Negro… We want the reparations now… We are so tired… Sometimes I don´t even feel like I am Guatemalan… I don´t want to talk anymore because it hurts too much to remember all of this.”

Listening to the Testimonies

And we heard more. They talked about the medical clinic that is currently used as a chicken coop because there is no medicine and there are no nurses or doctors. We heard from women who had houses and food and lands at Río Negro who now have been stealing wood for over 25 years because they have no alternative for survival. We heard the strain in their voices; we watched them weep.

When the community meetings ended and the delegation returned to Rabinal, the commentary from the INDE representatives was simple. “We don´t want the consultants to talk about the massacres. That should not be part of their work.”

Obviously, those oral histories will be at the heart of Movi Mundo´s work in Pacux. There is little INDE can do to rewrite history now.

Whenever people start moving tables around the office, I know something interesting is about to happen. Today ADIVIMA´s Department of Exhumations hosted a workshop on DNA testing with a group of seventeen Río Negro survivors who now live scattered throughout the rural villages surrounding Rabinal.

A team from the Missing Persons Investigation Office of FAFG is here for two days to request DNA samples from the relatives of a group of 74 murder victims exhumed from a well at the former military outpost outside of Pacux. I discussed this briefly in a previous blog, The Road to Pacux. None of the victims have been identified yet, and this is the sixth round of testing this team has done in Rabinal since 2004, when FAFG exhumed the bodies.

When the exhumations took place, families were invited to the site in an attempt to identify missing relatives and give their testimonies regarding what they knew of each individual disappearance, as well as the clothing, facial features, or anything unusual that might help the FAFG team in their investigation. ADIVIMA has helped FAFG stay in touch with these relatives over the years for DNA testing workshops like this one.

Since 2004, new relatives have come forward to testify and request to be included in the process, so periodically, more workshops take place. One cannot forget the level of psychological strain and real and present fear that has affected this community. No matter how much time has passed or how routine a day one may have as a survivor of violence, there exists an inquietude that permeates that life. That unconscious sense of “What if” that makes a person hold back, stay silent, or simply close their door.

Sixteen women and one man attended the morning session. Amílcar, from the FAFG team, explained some basic kinship terminology with a color-coded wall chart and the importance of getting DNA samples from as wide a sample of relatives as possible.

Kinship Chart

Amílcar and Ofélia travel throughout rural regions of Guatemala and have seen first hand how many generations were lost during the internal conflict. Often there is only an older female relative still living, or sometimes a single adult who was the child of a victim.

Chart Detail

Once the relatives understand the process and are comfortable, they work with other team members who take the samples.

FAFG DNA Test

Four separate mouth swabs are needed to get a good sample from each person. From there, the samples go to the FAFG DNA lab for analysis.

Ana Getting Tested

ADIVIMA´s Department of Legal Cases has an open investigation on the Rabinal Military Outpost near Pacux which I will review in a future blog. Once the FAFG reports are finished, years from now, ADIVIMA will hopefully be able to take those findings and proceed even further with the case.

Almost half of all electricity consumed in Guatemala today comes from one source-the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam. It is not far from Rabinal, a two-hour drive to the north, or a more vigorous and lengthy walk over the mountains.

Chixoy Reservoir

Many of you may know the story, but for those who do not, let me summarize briefly. The Chixoy (pronounced Cheek-soy) River Basin is the ancestral home of tens of thousands of Maya Achí and has been since before contact. More than thirty Achí villages dotted the river basin before dam construction began and over forty archaeological sites have been documented in the area, one large pyramid complex called Cauinal rivals Tikal in importance. It remains submerged for part of the year.

In 1975, the National Institute for Electrification (INDE), with funding from the World Bank, Central American Bank of Economic Integration Investment, Fund of Venezuela and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), began construction in the river basin without community consultation or notification and without clear title to the majority of the lands affected by the reservoir and the Pueblo Viejo hydroelectric facilities. Some communities are still paying taxes on inundated lands today.

In the early 1980s, resettlement and compensation negotiations did take place between INDE and some communities. Often INDE negotiators imposed great pressure on the community members to move. INDE negotiators offered compensation packages and resettlement plans to move entire communities to equally fertile lands with access to free water and electricity. The Achí negotiators documented every proposal, however no final agreements were made with many affected peoples. Some villages formally rejected the resettlement lands. Others, like Río Negro, were insistent that they had no plans to move, and by 1980 tensions were extremely high.

In one key incident that ushered in the years of intensive violence in the region, it is alleged that INDE security forces tortured and killed several Achí negotiators and confiscated documentary proof of negotiations and INDE guarantees to the communities. Afterwards, a campaign of genocide was implemented by the Guatemalan Army and INDE security forces against residents of villages like Río Negro, who, for not wanting to move from their ancestral lands, were labeled insurgents and guerrillas.

For several years, forced relocation of entire communities ensued and villages that harbored Río Negro refugees were attacked as well. The World Bank and IDB were aware of what was happening and underwrote loans to INDE even after the massacres and evictions occurred. They were also aware that resettlement plans had not been met, normally a condition for any further funding.

The river basin was filled in January 1983, after ten communities had been abandoned due to genocidal massacres. Five massacre sites are currently inundated. Even more communities had to move uphill to avoid being flooded out of their houses, with no help from INDE or the government. To date, there are currently thirty or more communities upstream and downstream from the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam who have been affected by its construction.

Map of Displaced Communities

Members of these communities formed different organizations over the years (ASCRA, ASDINUMA, and ADIVIMA) to fight for their collective rights to reparations and compensation. In 2004, these three local NGOs created a new organization called COCAHICH in an effort to centralize efforts and begin political negotiations for reparations and restitution with the Guatemalan government. Negotiations began in December 2004, after years of relentless national and international pressure on the part of a multitude of NGOs such as ASCRA, ASDINUMA, ADIVIMA, IRN, Rights Action, etc. COCAHICH is partially funded by the Fund for Global Human Rights.

Aside from negotiating for reparations and restitution, COCAHICH has developed an economic development plan published in April 2008 to benefit more than 10,000 people in local dam-affected communities. The plan calls for Q$125 million in investments over five years to fund projects in all social and economic sectors. International investors such as the IDB have taken interest in the project. It will be available online in English in the coming months.

Currently, dam-affected communities are divided into three economic zones, each with its own specializations in the areas of forestry, agriculture, manufacturing, and traditional arts. The development plan is geared to assist families to reach at least a basic level of subsistence, which is a separate process from the ongoing reparations and restitution negotiations with the government of Guatemala. The goal of those negotiations is to ensure dam-affected families have a better standard of living than they did before the evictions.

Urban resettlement families, like Tomasa´s in Pacux, mentioned in my previous blog, live on no more than $1,200-1,500 quetzales per month, or $170-190 dollars for a family of four or more. In the rural villages that income drops precipitously. COCAHICH would like to see this median income rise to the level of $3,000 quetzales per month, which would allow families to pay for staple foods, basic living expenses, and posibly generate savings.

Sustainable forestry enterprises and agricultural production are the cornerstones of the plan and could produce a steady income for all of the dam-affected communities. Traditional arts and craft production could be another profitable venture in the region, however many of the dam-affected communities have no ability to purchase the raw materials they need to embroider and some have lost the skills necessary to weave traditional cloth. One of the projects I will be working on this summer is to identify weavers in the region who would benefit from developing a cooperative to support their work and assist with distribution and market access.

I welcome your questions and comments on development efforts in the Rabinal region. Background information on the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam was taken from Barbara Rose Johnston´s report and personal interviews.

Pacux is a resettlement village on the outskirts of Rabinal. In 1983, it was a concentration camp. To reach the settlement today, one must pass Cemetery #2 and the massacre monuments that line its edge, facing the soccer fields beyond. INDE, the national electricity company responsible for Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam, built Pacux in the early 1980s. It was planned on a grid system with walls and barbed wire fences surrounding a collection of 50x50 meter plots. The Rabinal River borders the eastern edge of the community.

Perimeter Road

After the 1982 massacres, numerous refugee families moved into these concrete and wood homes, most likely under threat of intimidation and out of a basic need for shelter. They were homeless.

Typical House in Pacux

Once they had arrived, Army patrols were stationed at the entrance to Pacux, and no one was allowed to enter or leave without authorization. After losing thousands of acres of land to the Chixoy reservoir, the refugees in Pacux were given no access to land where they could grow staple crops like beans and corn to feed their families. Neither were they allowed to seek employment beyond the Army base, as they were considered insurgents for opposing their own eviction. For nearly three years in the mid-1980s, they could not leave Pacux.

People were murdered in Pacux as well. In 2004, FAFG excavated a well on the former Army post and found more than seventy bodies. The deaths had occurred over a period of several years. The streets in Pacux are named after massacre survivors.

Avenida Pablo Uscap

I visited Pacux soon after arriving in Rabinal and returned this weekend to get to know the community better. Today there are 150 families, three general stores, a school, and an evangelical church. On one of the steepest roads in the settlement, I met Tomasa and her extended family of four.

Tomasa and Family

They were cooking dinner over a pit fire in front of the house, and were gracious enough to recount something of their living conditions to me.

Tomasa’s house is a typical wood and concrete one-room home with dirt floors and a small yard with one scrawny tree. Out back there is a water spigot, a toilet and a well.

Barnardín and the Well

She is lucky. None of the plumbing existed when she moved to Pacux in 1983, but it is of minimal use as residents receive only 30 minutes of water a day, if it works. There have been months without water from the local tanks, forcing families to go to the river, which is surely polluted.

Rabinal River

The bathroom facility and pila, or concrete sink with spigot and basin, were recently supplied by Plan International.

The well was purchased by the family three years ago. Three men worked several weeks to dig the well at a cost of $2,000 quetzales, more or less two months wages.

The well

There are only 15 families in Pacux with a well. Tomasa shares her water with neighbors whenever they need it.

Aside from a lack of water, the greatest irony of all is the amount of electricity available to residents. For an hour or two every evening there is light at Tomasa’s house. In a country where half of the electricity is supplied from energy generated on lands that are still under title to the people living a marginal life in Pacux, this is appalling.

INDE had promised free water and electricity to all dam-affected peoples in the 1980s, however they complied with their own agreements infrequently at best. When the company was privatized, the new owners stated they were under no obligation to honor such an agreement. So Tomasa and her family pay for water and electricity service, if one can call this service. [In the interest of full disclosure, my house in Rabinal only has water for half of the day, but there is no lack of electricity.]

Just outside of Pacux, there are plots of farmland between the cemetery and the community where crops are grown, but those plots are private property.

Corn Field at Entrace to Pacux

On a daily basis, then, residents are reminded of several things when they travel between Pacux and Rabinal. First, their family members were murdered and their remains are buried next to the road entering the settlement. This may not be as negative as it seems, but certainly families would prefer to have the burials near their own homes or on ancestral lands. Second, they pass fields of corn or beans every day when they themselves have no lands of their own and no means of sustaining their families in a traditional manner. Third, they essentially live in town and still have no reliable electricity when everyone else in Rabinal does.

Tomasa’s son, Bernardín, told me that aside from desperately needing agricultural lands and hoping for reparations, their immediate needs are clean water and housing repairs. Their homes are wood and concrete and as thick as an average piece of lumber. Sunlight shines through the slats and when it rains hard, there is nothing dry inside. Some houses I saw were tiled roof adobes, which is a vast improvement, but not all are so lucky.

Habitat for Humanity House

This is life in Pacux, a model resettlement village.

Children Playing in the Community Pila

The Voice of Our Children and Grandchildren Will Never Forget the Terror

The Main Road in Town

I invite anyone reading this blog to consider how successful you might be in raising a healthy family under such conditions? In the weeks to come I expect to profile other rural dam-affected communities that will hopefully benefit from the economic development plan that I will discuss next.

I am grateful to the Pérez and Lajuuj families for their time and generosity and will update their story as I can. Background information was taken from Barbara Rose Johnston´s work and the entire team of researchers who contributed to her report.

May 29th was the 30th anniversary of a massacre that occurred in Panzós, Alta Verapaz. The murder of 53 protesters that occurred there in 1979 is widely regarded as the first act of mass violence against a Mayan community in modern Guatemalan history, ushering in the ethnic genocide of the early 1980s.

On the 30th anniversary of the massacre, the Cultural Center of the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City held the opening of an exhibit on Panzós curated by the Q’iche artist, Marlón García. In 1997, Marlon worked as the forensic photographer for the exhumation of the mass graves in Panzós. From that point of departure, he dedicated ten years to researching the massacres, detailing the intricate socioeconomic and political links that led to the events of May 29,1979.

Panzós Exhibit

As my work here in Guatemala will involve developing an exhibit on the massacres in the Río Negro region, I was interested to see how local curators are approaching the subject of violence. For Marlón, the history of Panzós was so multidimensional that he chose to engage every aspect. The exhibit began with Q’eqchi origin stories and customs, and a depiction of 16th century military attacks by Spanish troops on Teculután. The later history of multinational land grabs, the arrival of the railway in Panzós and nickel mining underscore the problems local Q’eqchi communities have faced when fighting for agrarian reform and workers´ rights in the face of government corruption.

At the heart of the Panzós story is a protest involving eight hundred workers who entered the plaza in Panzós on the morning of May 29, 1979, led by a local Q’eqchi leader named Mama Maquín, her daughter and grandchildren. The Canadian company, Inco, Ltd., had expropriated their lands and crops to open a new nickel mine with the help of the Guatemalan army. As the mayor of Panzós addressed the crowd, army troops surrounded the square and opened fire on queue. Thirty-five people died in the plaza and eighteen more in the nearby Polochic River as they tried to escape. Mama Maquín was killed with her daughter and grandson. Her grand daughter survived, and is depicted in the painting by Marlon Garcia used as the central image of the show.

Panzós Poster

As the exhibit continues, some of the victims are commemorated with a wall of identification photographs, a now standard museum practice for documenting mass violence in Latin America. Marlón´s vibrant paintings of life in the Panzós region are spotted throughout the show.

The Panzós material is followed by images of Chixoy Dam and testimonials of the Río Negro massacres as well as images of the first memorials to the Panzós victims organized by the indigenous women´s organization FAMDEGUA, highlighting the strength of the women of this community.

The exhibit ends with a series of poignant photographs by James Rodríguez of the January 2007 eviction of subsistence farmers from their lands in the region of El Estor, somewhat near present-day Panzós.

Guests Reviewing El Estor Photographs. Photo by James Rodríguez

Local police, military personnel and employees of the local nickel mine run by the Canadian firm, Skye Resources, worked hand in hand to evict the farmers from their land for the purpose of the expansion of the mine. Images of houses set on fire, armed police and a man crying over the end of the only life and the only land he has ever known offer an anatomy of greed.

Before the Eviction. Photo by James Rodríguez

Photo by James Rodríguez

Photo by James Rodríguez

Photographer James Rodríguez’s work captures the anguish and the historical replay inherent in this present-day tragedy. He could have been photographing Panzós in 1979, Río Negro, or any previous land grab and it would have looked identical, which is clearly the point. The entire catalog of El Estor photographs is available through his website, and discussed on his blog.

At the opening, Marlón spoke at length about his experiences and the people who worked with him. What was most memorable for me was his comment, “Va venir la justicia y le va agarrar.” “Justice will come and it will take hold.” The Río Negro sentence had been handed down the day before, making his words timely for some, but still only a distant hope for others.

We arrived early in Salamá thanks to Tomás. The sentencing was to begin at 3 PM, and we had twenty minutes to spare, which would normally have been a plus. However, I was with the prosecution team from ADIVIMA, and we were at the local tribunal for the reading of the final sentence against five Achí men from the village of Xococ who were found guilty of killing at least twenty-six people from Río Negro on March 13, 1982. One hundred seventy-seven died that day, but only two have officially been identified from their remains. During the trial, seventeen survivors identified the victims of twenty-four murders they witnessed.

Nearly sixty people were waiting outside the compound, all Achí families from Xococ, relatives of the accused. We were three women facing a ground swell of animosity from the moment we arrived. The previous week, over two hundred Río Negro survivors attended the last day of the trial when the verdict was read. That day these families stayed home. Unbeknownst to us, this was their day to bear witness and support their relatives.

P. was nervous when she realized who we were facing. She was one of the survivors who brought the case forward and plainly told me that she feared some of the younger men in the crowd might want to harm or kidnap her. They made menacing comments under their breath as we walked the gauntlet and entered the compound. It was safer there. As we waited inside, F., the ADIVIMA prosecutor, looked calm, but the bounce of her knee spoke loudly. She wanted this case to be over. ADIVIMA has a larger criminal case against the Guatemalan government that has been accepted to the court of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights and she needed to focus on that.

As we waited in a corner of the compound, several of the accused men were escorted past us in handcuffs, neatly dressed. Most were old men with white hair. My reaction did not surprise me. These men committed horrible crimes out of a mixture of free will, revenge and obligation. The details of their atrocities I will not discuss here. Given their 30-year sentences, they will all most likely die in jail.

There is no disputing that some amount of justice is served by such a sentence. Even considering the heinous nature of their actions, they were pawns in a much larger campaign of displacement and intentional genocide that they themselves did not design. Watching each man shuffle past, we all probably thought about those men and women who were missing from the line up, the real architects of the Río Negro massacres who ran the Guatemalan government and army, and who worked for the international banks and the hydroelectric companies that built the Chixoy Dam. They may never hear their sentences read aloud in a courtroom at 9 PM on a Wednesday night in Salamá with their grandchildren watching. But this verdict was for each of them just as much as it was for the five men in the courtroom last week.

It is one thing to read about a criminal and objectively know that justice would be served if they were punished. I was in Chile the week before Pinochet died and in Indonesia the week before the death of Suharto. I saw and heard so much justified and palpable anger and frustration in both countries. To see someone literally get away with murder, to escape justice, is unsettling, maddening. But when you are seated a few feet away from a murderer who is over seventy, speaks no Spanish and has trouble even walking, it can make one pause and wonder whose definition of justice is being served by such a sentence. Who is more culpable, the man who pulled the trigger or the man who bought him the gun and told him who he should kill if he wanted to stay alive and keep his family safe?

The sentencing was delayed for five hours that afternoon. P., F., and I safely escaped the eye of the storm and spent several hours sitting in our car near the central plaza exchanging stories about life, love, family. It was meant to be a diversion. Although we did not make mention of our actions out loud, whenever a car passed, we paid close attention. Whomever walked by was scrutinized thoroughly. We were on alert for hours, until it was finally time to return to the tribunal and enter the courtroom.

We arrived first, followed by two armed police and the accused men from Xococ. Each one handcuffed, saying, “Buenas noches” or “Utzulaj xokaq´ ab´” to the prosecution in turn. We sat there together in silence and reflection for some time before the families and judges arrived. The police were exchanging gossip behind me. I took notes. F. reviewed her agenda as her knee bounced. P. sat with her head in her hands. Maybe she was praying; maybe she was thinking of the first night she slept in the mountains after escaping the killings in Río Negro. A snake brushed against her side while she slept and she awoke, taking it as a signal to keep moving up the mountain. Hours later she could hear the PAC patrol passing the spot where she and her son had slept.

When the families entered the courtroom, no one sat near me for obvious reasons. I will never be a welcome face in Xococ. Seats lined the wall outside the window to my immediate left near a chalk board with a grid. Down the left side were the names of the accused and across the top those of the witnesses. Some squares said things like, “la violó” or “lo ví en Río Negro.” “He raped her.” “I saw him in Río Negro.” Many of the youth present did not believe that this event ever occurred. Just as I heard in Xesiguan, there is a whole generation of children who may not believe that there was ever a war in this country, or that so many of their relatives died in it.

After the judges entered, the proceedings moved very quickly. We were expecting the sentence to be read, a process that was estimated to take four hours. Within twenty minutes, both sides received copies of the final sentence in Spanish or Achí, whether they could read it or not. Some of us were free to leave.

Aside from thoughts on the bittersweet nature of justice, what I witnessed was a historic event in Guatemala. For the second time, a tribunal acknowledged the massacres that took place in the hills above Río Negro at a now sacred site called Pacoxom. It was a victory for every survivor and will help support ADIVIMA´s case against the Guatemalan government before the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights.

A few days ago, my Achí professor and I were talking about the case. He is a survivor as well, and was for some reason surprised to hear me express what he had been thinking for some time. This case was an important step to take, but there are others far more culpable who may always remain free. We can only hope they have their day in Salamá as well.

I bought my rubber boots the day after arriving in Rabinal. It is the only way to manage the mud. From the looks I get, I am clearly the only woman wearing rubber boots and a skirt around town. Maybe this is how people will remember me: the woman with tall black boots and a red skirt. That wouldn’t be so bad.

Thursday, I wore my boots to an exhumation in Xesiguan, a hamlet in the mountains thirty minutes from town. It was not an easy drive. When I arrived with Marvin and Maria from the ADIVIMA exhumation team, the first person I met was Heidy, an anthropologist from the Foundation for Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology. She had long, dark hair and black rubber boots. We were both holding shovels. I will remember that. We all have markers with which we recall certain events and people in our lives. I will always remember Heidy for her boots. Her presence made me feel at home.

The Osorio family was waiting when we arrived and they showed us to the two burial sites, one in a milpa behind the house, another further up the hill next to a rather grand mango tree overshadowing a rather diminutive brick house. Pine branches, flowers, and a pillar candle had been placed over the graves the previous day when the families held their private ceremonies.

Offerings at second burial site

The team consisted of four anthropologists from FAFG, the ADIVIMA team, two local police, and representatives from the magistrate’s office in Rabinal. All day long, we were surrounded by the families and friends of the deceased who passed back and forth across the field to watch the dig. Nothing so eventful had happened in Xesiguan for some time.

Taking GPS readings at the site

After the official documents were read at the first grave site, the FAFG team took GPS readings and photos, taped off the area and carefully moved the offerings to the edge of the field. Then a friend of the family began to dig.

Beginning to dig

Paulino Osorio Cahuec was found dead fifty meters down the hill from his house on August 14, 1983. By 3 PM on June 5, 2008, his remains were beginning to take form deep in the honey-colored earth behind his cousin’s house in Xesiguan. What appeared first were his boots. They were navy with a white stripe on the rim, and they were short. Everyone commented. “I thought he wore tall boots?” “Mira sus botes.” “Ay, los botes.” This went on for some time as Sergio and Luis from FAFG worked tirelessly and the rest of his remains emerged from the soil.

The FAFG team at work

The comments were perfectly natural. In order to process something so senseless, you have to find a point of entry into the story that humanizes the event and allows you to identify with what you are seeing and experiencing. And there it was. Paulino wore short rubber boots in the rainy season. Most of the men, and Heidy and I, were wearing the exact same boots this summer. It really is the only way to manage the mud.

According to testimony, Paulino had been shot in the back of the head. He was 30 when he died, a Maya Achí farmer from Xesiguan. His mandible was mostly in tact, but his cranium and upper jaw were found in fragments. After his death, his family carried him home and buried him near the house, which is a common cultural practice. The civil patrols, or PACs, made it hard for anyone to leave their home without fear for their safetly, much less to go to a cemetery or have a ceremony at home to bury a murder victim.

Over 4,500 people died in the Rabinal region alone between 1981 and 1983, and 99.8 % of them were Maya Achí. (Oj K’aslik: Somos Vivos. Litografía Namal Wuj. Guatemala: 2003, p. 79.) If the PACs did not bury the bodies themselves, then most of the deceased were buried near their homes by family, most likely very quickly and quietly. That is where the body would remain until a family member found the courage to speak out and denounce the murder before the local police. ADIVIMA manages at least one exhumation case a month, but nearly every day somewhere in Guatemala, people are still coming forward with their stories. Countless families are still not able to speak. Thousands of bodies remain unaccounted for.

A local elder prayed over the remains and reminded the children present not to forget what they were seeing, that a murder had happened.

The next generation

Even today, some younger people in these villages do not believe that the civil war occurred. It is not part of their experience, and I shudder to think how so much can be lost in one generation.

Neighbors and relatives watching the team work

Local boys coming home from school

After the prayers, Luis and Sergio then handed each bone to Heidy, who carefully placed them in individual brown paper bags labeled with the necessary internal codes and notations of FAFG. She and her lab partner, Luis, would clean and analyze the remains over the next four to eight weeks to officially identify Paulino’s body and determine his cause of death, if possible.

Heidy at work

When I bought my rubber boots last week, I thought I would leave them behind when I return home. Too much baggage. Now I think they will travel with me, a reminder of the day I came to know Paulino Osorio Cahuec.

Today is market day in Rabinal and the air is heavy with the promise of rain. A tropical storm marked my arrival yesterday afternoon and has decided to linger. I expect to outlast it by a few months.

While I wait for the relentless bands of rain to pass so that I might get acquainted with my new home, I cannot help but think about time and memory. I am amazed by how differently each of us perceives time, moves through it at our own speed, and how much our sense of time shifts from culture to culture. I am hopeful that my own relationship with time recasts itself to some degree over the summer. Perception and insight are far more dependable travel companions when you live within the sense of time and the pace of life wherever you happen to be.

This summer, I will be depending heavily on their company as I try to understand how the Maya Achí community in Rabinal is recovering from the relentless loss of life and land that they suffered in the 1980s. How does a community heal itself after a prolonged period of trauma and institutionalized violence? For some, the traumas will likely never heal no matter how much time may pass or how many memories they wish would fade. For others, it is the act of remembering itself that offers solace and healing, that heralds resistance and helps to gather strength.

I was reminded of this reading a recent article about Jesús Tecú Osorio, a survivor of the Río Negro massacres. In April 2008, Jesús was the first person to testify before a tribunal in Madrid regarding human rights abuses that occurred during the civil war in Guatemala. He recounted the day in March 1982 when 177 women and children from his the town of Río Negro were shot, stoned and dismembered with machetes because they refused to abandon their lands to make way for the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam. He was ten years old when he witnessed these events.

As Jesús spoke, it was clear to the reporter that time had offered little shelter from his life experience, the pain was so immediate and evident. However, his expression of vulnerability and intense bravery signaled to me a critical moment. Memory is a powerful tool, and by recounting his story that day Jesús momentarily brought to light the silent anguish of an entire community of survivors. There is relief in such an act, as if his words offered a break in the clouds from a decades-long storm that had settled over these mountains and rivers. This was not the first time he had told his story, but it was the first time since the civil war that an international tribunal was able to listen.

The tribunal ended a few weeks ago in Madrid after 29 testimonials from survivors of more than twenty massacres. Following that historic event came yet another this past Wednesday, May 28, 2008, when five former members of a local army patrol were sentenced to 780 years in prison in Salamá, Guatemala for killings they committed in Río Negro on March 13, 1982 when Jesús lost his family. Twenty-six years later, some amount of justice has finally been served. The director of ADIVIMA, Juan de Dios García, stated in the national paper, Prensa Libre, that although this sentence would not bring back their relatives, “at last, after so much time, we can see some resolution.” As I sit hear reviewing the news reports and waiting for the rain to stop, all I can think is, “How many others here are waiting for this storm to clear?”