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Resources > News Service > Bulletins > By Country/Territory > Guatemala > Guatemala Massacr...

Guatemala Massacre Survivors Use Memorial Quilt to Seek Reparations, January 28, 2009

Photo Credit: Heidi McKinnon

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AdvocacyNet 
News Bulletin 174 
January 28, 2009 
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Guatemala Massacre Survivors Use Memorial Quilt to Seek Reparations
 
January 28, 2009, Rabinal, Guatemala: The memories of massacre survivors take shape in the colorful fabric of the Rio Negro Memorial Quilt: a bright blue river, hills marked with crosses, and the names of murdered family members. Behind each panel is a harrowing story.
 
The quilt was woven by 15 indigenous women in the resettlement village of Pacux, in the province of Baja Verapaz. All were displaced from their homes when the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam was built in the early 1980s, and all lost relatives in massacres that accompanied the dam's construction.
 
Almost 30 years later, the survivors are using the new quilt to remember their loved ones and press the government of Guatemala for reparations. Their advocacy group, ADIVIMA*, is working with The Advocacy Project (AP) in Washington to promote the quilt in the US as part of this campaign.
 
Last week, the quilt was presented at two events in Washington by Heidi McKinnon, an AP Peace Fellow who has been volunteering with the survivors and coordinating the quilt project in Guatemala. New web pages on the AP site tell the stories of the weavers and the some of the victims they commemorate.
 
Ms McKinnon recalled how one of the weavers, Martina Osorio, wove a panel for her father, Lorenzo Osorio, who was tortured and shot in February 1982. Six of Ms Osorio's siblings were also killed, and she hid in the mountains before moving to a military refugee camp. 
 
"We suffered so much," said Ms Osorio, who was 8 years old at the time of the massacre. "We did not eat tortillas or have a change of clothes for two years. We lived under constant watch, because they thought we were revolutionaries."
 
Overall, 477 indigenous villagers who refused to abandon their land for the Chixoy Dam were killed by paramilitaries in 1982. About 13,000 people in 28 villages remain affected by the dam, and their umbrella group, COCAHICH*, is currently negotiating with the government to secure reparations.
 
Ms McKinnon will return this week to Guatemala, where she will help ADIVIMA and COCAHICH to put together a comprehensive reconstruction plan. She will start by helping a team to assess the damage caused by displacement, and is also hoping to help weavers from the affected communities to form a cooperative and market their products internationally.
 
During her visit to Washington, Ms McKinnon met with officials from the Inter-American Development Bank, which provided loans for the Chixoy Dam in the early 1980s and recently funded an economic development plan for the affected villages. Ms McKinnon also met with handicrafts specialists.
 
The survivors hope that the memorial quilt will help to revive traditional indigenous culture, which was shattered by the dam and the massacres. Sacred land was flooded, and several valuable artifacts from the Rio Negro communities were taken to be exhibited in foreign museums. Some villages lost their weavers and weaving skills. As part of its reconstruction plan, ADIVIMA hopes to organize four weaving workshops during 2009 in resettlement communities.
 
None of this, however, will restore the confidence and self-reliance that was lost during the massacres. Isabel Osorio Chen, a weaver who honored her grandmother Juliana in a quilt panel, recalled the past with sadness:
 
"Nothing is the same," she said. "We have to buy everything now. Women of my grandmother's generation knew how to do everything. Juliana lived alone, cut and hauled her own wood, planted corn and beans and worked as a midwife and spiritual leader."
 
* ADIVIMA stands for the Association for the Integral Development of the Victims of Violence in the Verapaces, Maya Achi. COCAHICH, a sister organization of ADIVIMA, stands for the Coordinator for the Communities Affected by the Chixoy Dam.


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