Christina Laur de Pérez, coordinatrice, Justice

Overcoming Victimhood: Guatemalan Massacre Survivors become Human Rights Defenders

Presented by: Christina Laur de Pérez, Coordinator, Justice and Reconciliation Program (DEJURE), Center For Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH)

For: Frontline: Steps to Protection: the 2nd Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders, Dublin Castle, 10-12 September 2003.

Good afternoon, Tengo que disculparme primer con mis compañeros y compañeras latinos y Latinas porque voy a hablar en ingles.

I would like to thank frontline for the opportunity to share the struggle for truth and justice of victims of genocide in Guatemala, a struggle that has transformed massacre survivors into human rights defenders.

Yesterday marked the 21st anniversary of the massacre of Vibitz, Santa María Nebaj, El Quiché under the military regime of Efraín Ríos Montt. That’s a name I’ll ask you not to forget.

“At 5:00am on September 9, 1982, a group of 150 soldiers from the Salquil Grande Military camp arrived in Vibitz accompanied by civil patrols. The army regularly visited the village but the terrified population normally hid from the soldiers. On September 9, 1982 17 villagers had not gone to hide, being confident that no harm would be done to them. Around 6 o 7 am, they were detained by the soldiers, forced into lines, and shot one by one. The children’s heads were smashed with machetes or blown apart by bullets. Other people were killed as they hid in the corn fields. After the massacre the soldiers destroyed the victim’s crops and killed and ate their sheep. The victims were buried by survivors in a single grave at the site of the massacre.

This is one of over 600 massacres documented in a United Nations sponsored truth commission which examined Guatemala’s 36 year civil war. The truth commission further concluded that more than 200,000 people were killed or disappeared, over a million people were displaced into mountain hiding places, over the border into Mexico or further abroad. Many of them stayed in hiding or exile for ten to fifteen years in conditions which also led to many deaths.

Eighty-three percent of the victims were Mayan. The violence reached its peak between 1981 and1983 in a systematic campaign of genocide. So what is genocide and why didn’t the world react? Genocide is the intention to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic or religious group. In Guatemala this was carried out against Mayan people through the following acts.

1. Killing of members of the group. 2. Injury which seriously affects the physical or mental integrity of members of the group. 3. Submission of the group or members thereof to conditions of existence which can produce its or their total or partial physical destruction.

Awareness of the genocide was limited because people didn’t talk about what happened out of fear and because of poor communications in remote rural areas where massacres occurred. The urban business elite closed their eyes and pretended it didn’t happen. The strong racist history of Guatemala allowed that indigenous peoples could be massacred without public outcry. The same racism allowed military officers to justify that the revolutionary guerrillas were hiding amongst the Maya and that to catch the fish it was necessary to drain the water.

No one and nothing was spared. Women, children and the elderly became prime targets. Homes, animals, crops, sacred places and possessions were burned or stolen. It was a scorched earth policy.

More than 20 years later, survivors are fighting for justice. First when peace looked probable in the mid 1990s, families began to demand exhumations of clandestine graves uncovering indisputable evidence of the genocide. As the remains were given dignified burials, family members began to clamour for justice and this is the process that has converted them into Human Rights Defenders.

In 1997, the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH) studied the possibilities of finding justice for all the massacres and realized the only effective way would be to prosecute the planners and instigators of the genocide rather than those that followed the orders locally.

Twenty-two Mayan communities joined together to form the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) in 2000 and presented with CALDH´s legal support two collective legal cases against the military high commands of Romeo Lucas Garcia and Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. They are the only genocide cases we know of being taken in national courts by massacre survivors. The benefits are many fold:

1. The cases force the Guatemalan Justice system to strengthen its capacity to investigate and prosecute the most serious of crimes in a culture rot with impunity. 2. The processes will help establish the legal truth that future generation will be unable to deny. 3. The trials will generate public education about the genocide that is not present in national curriculum. 4. The trials aim to build confidence in the justice system particularly for indigenous people that have been traditionally excluded. 5. It gives victims their day in court.

Being involved in the cases has meant that witnesses needed to learn about their rights, the justice system, criminal law and recent Guatemalan history. The knowledge they have now gained has helped the survivors overcome their fear and put into practice what they have learned. The AJR applied in a special Guatemalan process to become co-prosecutor allowing CALDH as legal counsel the right to carry out the investigation in collaboration with State prosecutors. This process is coming to an end. An overwhelming body of evidence exists from forensic and ballistic reports, to over 100 eyewitness statements. There are expert witnesses who can testify to the mental and physical affects of the genocide as well as proof of the chain of command – who gave orders and how they were carried out.

So it sounds like a closed book case, but sadly there is a major factor left to play and that is impunity!!

Because those responsible for the genocide have not been investigated till now, and still have not been tried or convicted, the culture of impunity has allowed them, not only to continue to enjoy all freedoms, but to build their power.

Efraín Ríos Montt, accused of planning and instigating genocide in 1982 has served the last four years as President of Congress for his Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG) political party. During that time he and his government have inserted friends and loyal supporters into all realms of power and society. Corruption, parallel powers and the drug trade have been firmly established. Despite constitutional barring overturned by a state constitutional court, Ríos Montt is now running for President.

When it looked like the courts might deny his candidacy in July, as they had done on two previous occasions, he publicly announced that he could not be responsible for what his supporters might do. A few days later 1000´s of tugs were bused into the capital city. With ski masks and clubs they threatened the business district, the courts and journalists. One journalist died when an angry mob chased hi causing a sever heart attack. Among the thugs were several FRG congressmen and Ríos Montt advisors. They were caught on camera and published in daily papers but have resulted in no charges and no disciplinary measures.

Threats and intimidations against human rights groups have been constant. Just last night I checked the internet for Guatemala news and saw another human rights organization (FAMDEGUA) was broken into and documents and computers were stolen.

November 9 is Election Day. Fraudulent actions of intimidation and cooptation are reported daily. The results will determine whether democracy and justice continue their slow development or whether once again terror will reign in Guatemala.

I don’t want to finish on such a glum note you let me tell you about the hope that remains. Back in January, the governor of one of the hardest hit departments during the war made threatening statements against human rights organizations in one of the communities involved in the genocide cases. I know that only 3 or 4 years ago the survivors would have gone home to hide engulfed in fear, but not now. Those brave people denounced the intimidation before authorities, the human rights ombudsman and the United Nations verification Mission. They produced witnesses and demanded a response.

If the genocide cases result in nothing more, they will have achieved a lifestyle change in victims turned human rights defenders. We need the world’s accompaniment so that survivors now defenders don’t become victims again.