Have we forgotten Guatemala?
Text and photo by Wallice de la Vega
Published in the Catholic press nationwide in 1994
© wallice 1994

In recent years, much attention has been given to the Central American nations of El Salvador and Nicaragua. By now most of us have heard of the atrocities committed by both, right-wing governments and leftist guerrillas movements there.

But much longer than the civil wars raged in these two countries, the indigenous people of Guatemala have suffered a systematic genocide from the same government that is supposed to protect them. This is probably the main reason for Catholic religious and lay missionaries to be in this Central American region today.

The situation in Guatemala turned to its worst in 1954, after the elected government of Jacobo Arbenz was derogated by a coup that had the blessing and support of the United States. According to the latest report issued by the United Nations' Guatemalan Human Rights Commission (CDHG), the intensity of the government repression of civilians as well as its attempts to eliminate the indigenous population has worsen steadily since 1963.

Although two democratic governments have been elected in Guatemala since 1985, corruption, lawlessness, impunity, elitism, and violation of international law continue today, based mainly on the control enjoyed by the military. Last week, in a move toward despotic control, President Jorge Serrano suspended all civilian constitutional guarantees and abolished the Guatemalan parliament. Meanwhile, the military tacitly supported him and the United States made no comment about the situation. Serrano explained that these actions would guarantee democracy for his country.

Benito Juárez, a Guatemalan human rights activist who has based himself temporarily in Houston, tours the United States asking for support for his people. In a recent study session in Dallas, Juárez narrated first-hand experiences about life in rural Guatemala. According to him, the killing of his people has not stopped since the arrival of the Spaniards five centuries ago, mainly because there has been no reaction outside Guatemala.

"There is a moral responsibility to stop the killing there," he said. "Maybe now that Ms. [Rigoberta] Menchú received the Nobel Prize, there will be more eyes opened around the world about our situation." In his effort to bring attention to his cause, Juárez encourages U.S. supporters to call or write to representatives in Congress and to vote for candidates who support indigenous peoples' rights. Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois, a veteran religious missionary who served in Guatemala for many years, blames the United States for the pain suffered by Guatemalan civilians. He attacks directly the School of the Americas, the military institution responsible for training thousands of Latin American soldiers on the arts of torture, assassination, and military coups, in its Fort Benning (Georgia) campus.

"This year, 2,000 soldiers from 18 Latin American countries will be trained at the school," he said. "The 1981 El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, in which 700 civilians were killed, was carried out by graduates of the school." The School of the Americas (dubbed "The School of Coups") was founded in 1946 and established originally in Panama. To date, it has trained some 55,000 soldiers, of which its best known graduates include Panama's General Manuel Noriega, Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer, the late Salvadoran army's Major Roberto D·Aubuisson (who planned and ordered the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in San Salvador) and Haiti's chief of police Joseph-Michael Francois (who led the ousting of Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president).

Although President Carter terminated all direct U.S. military aid to Guatemala in 1978, and the school was forced out of Panama in 1984, it continues to operate in Fort Benning, funded with our tax dollars.

Aside from U.S. training, the Guatemalan armed forces receive aid and support from Israel, South Africa, and Taiwan. Also, the Chilean "Carabineros", General Augusto Pinochet's elite force, equip and train the Guatemalan militia.

José Franco, a broken 56 year-old man from Guatemala has a personal horror story to tell. Around 1984, he was studying theology at Seminario Bíblico El Calvario with intentions of becoming a pastor. He had the opportunity to travel throughout Central America and came home with the idea of forming a farm cooperative, as some colleagues had done in Germany and Switzerland. Soon after his arrival, he was tagged by the G-2 (the feared Army intelligence branch) as a communist trying to organize peasants to overthrow the government.

"What could I, a peasant from the deep mountains of Guatemala, know about communism?," he asked at a recent conference. "The idea of fighting communism is very popular everywhere, so when you have someone 'identified' as such, the pressure against him is too much." Because his "murder was imminent, to happen at any moment", Franco had to flee to the United States, where he has been a political refugee since 1986.

According to the CDHG report, the root of the Guatemalan tragedy is socio-economic. High poverty, elitism, and huge gaps between a very rich minority and the very poor majority, the worst distribution of income in all Latin America, low level of taxation on the rich, lack of medical care, an obsolete education system, and high unemployment, all contribute to the end results.

The genocide perpetrated on the indigenous people is based on elitism and the struggle for land ownership. The bombing of entire villages and other acts of terrorism are geared toward "clearing the land," which then becomes free for the taking by either the government or large land owners. By merely fleeing the survivors of these attacks are not safe, since Army troops have on occasion followed them across the border into Mexico in order to exterminate as many Indians as possible in a single sweep.

The Catholic Church has played a key role in the support and defense of the Guatemalan Indians during the past century. For example, the Maryknoll Catholic Foreign Mission Society sent its first workers to the mountains of Huehuetenango in 1943. Also, the Mennonites and other ecumenical and lay missionaries have been active helping Guatemala's poor.

To solidify the church's stand with the Indians, last September the Guatemalan bishops published a pastoral letter commemorating the quincentennial of Columbus' arrival to the New World. The letter incorporated a statement by Mayan Catholic priests calling for the Church's repentance for ignoring the Indian suffering since the beginning of the evangelization of the Americas.

As in other despotic Latin American countries, the Church has lost some of its workers in Guatemala. To date, 20 religious and lay missionaries have been murdered or died in obscure accidents there. Also, Guatemala City's Archbishop Próspero Penados del Barrio and Bishop Rodolfo Ramazzini, of San Marcos, have received death threats for their support of "the subversives".

In contrast to the Church's position, the U.S. government has opted to ignore the suffering of Guatemala's indigenous population, which is taking place practically in our back yard. Instead, much attention has been focused on the high profile, far away situation in Bosnia.

Although the CDHG report was the third time the commission petitioned United Nations (and specifically U.S.) intervention in Guatemala, the requests have been ignored.

"I don't know what we have to do," said Juárez. "According to the U.N., it has cost at least 100,000 lives. If that's not enough, how many do we need to count, a million, two...?