Guatemala is a mainly mountainous country in Central America, just south of Mexico and less than half the size of the UK. It was once at the heart of the remarkable Mayan civilization, which flourished until the 10th century AD. When Spanish explorers conquered this region in the 16th century, the Mayans became slaves in their own ancient home. They are still the underprivileged majority of Guatemala's 12.3m population.
At the end of the 19th century Guatemala came under the rule of a dictator who put his country on the economic map by encouraging landowners to buy and run coffee plantations. The Roman Catholic church was deprived of its lands for the purpose, and within 30 years Americans were the major investors. A powerful army and police force were set up to protect the wealthy landowners and their flourishing businesses. The Indians, with the status of peasants and laborers, saw nothing of the wealth being generated under a series of grasping dictators.
But in 1944 the current dictator was overthrown, and a new, enlightened government introduced reforms which put the interests of the native people first. Indians in both town and country were given consideration, social security, and education. Laborers could now set up workers' unions, and this gave them political strength as well.
The genocide
The Guatemalan government, using the Guatemalan Army and its counter-insurgency force (whose members defined themselves as 'killing machines'), began a systematic campaign of repressions and suppression against the Mayan Indians, whom they claimed were working towards an communist coup.Their 2-year series of atrocities is sometimes called 'The Silent Holocaust'.In the words of the 1999 UN-sponsored report on the civil war: 'The Army's perception of Mayan communities as natural allies of the guerrillas contributed to increasing and aggravating the human rights violations perpetrated against them, demonstrating an aggressive racist component of extreme cruelty that led to extermination en mass of defenseless Mayan communities, including children, women and the elderly, through methods whose cruelty has outraged the moral conscience of the civilized world.'
Working methodically across the Mayan region, the army and its paramilitary teams, including 'civil patrols' of forcibly conscripted local men, attacked 626 villages. Each community was rounded up, or seized when gathered already for a celebration or a market day. The villagers, if they didn't escape to become hunted refugees, were then brutally murdered; others were forced to watch, and sometimes to take part. Buildings were destroyed, and a 'scorched earth' policy applied: the killers destroyed crops, slaughtered livestock, fouled water supplies, and violated sacred places and cultural symbols.
Children were often beaten against walls, or thrown alive into pits where the bodies of adults were later thrown; they were also tortured and raped. Victims of all ages often had their limbs amputated, or were impaled and left to die slowly. Others were doused in petrol and set alight, or disemboweled while still alive. Yet others were shot repeatedly, or tortured and shut up alone to die in pain. The wombs of pregnant women were cut open. Women were routinely raped while being tortured. Women - now widows - who lived could scarcely survive the trauma: 'the presence of sexual violence in the social memory of the communities has become a source of collective shame'.
After the genocide
In 1986 civilian rule and a new constitution were set up, but the army held on to its power, not least because half a million Guatemalans were members of army, police or civil defense forces, many of them responsible for the civil war's worst brutality.
Peace talks were set up by the UN in 1991, but made poor progress. Suspended in1993, they were resumed in1994 under a new democratic government led by the country's former human rights ombudsman. An accord on human rights protection was signed by the government and URNG. Other issues were discussed over the next year. A peace agreement was finally signed in 1996.
Since then Guatemala has been trying to recover from its civil war, hard to do when so many civilians had taken part in atrocities and were now shielded by an amnesty law bitterly resented by victims. There were also many guerrillas and ex-soldiers to demobilise and resettle. All the same, a policy of reconciliation was introduced and, with difficulty, maintained.
Part of the peace agreement was the setting up of The Historical Clarification Commission (CEH), an investigation into the atrocities of the civil war. It began work in July 1997, funded by a number of countries (including the USA, a generous donor). The army was unable to provide its records for the period 1981-1983; but the three commissioners traveled through the country and collected 9,000 witness statements, protected by a UN confidentiality agreement. The Commission's mandate was limited - 'reflecting the strength of the Guatemalan armed forces in the peace negotiations', a commentator dryly observed: no names of human right violators could be given, and the Commission's work could have no 'judicial effects'.
The report, entitled 'Guatemala: Memory of Silence' was presented in February 1999. Its discoveries clearly revealed a governmental policy of genocide carried out against the Mayan Indians. Apart from being carried out by individuals, unnamed, the genocide was clearly also the responsibility of a hostile institutional structure.
Witness
The witnesses name was calavana and he is telling how his life was during the genocide i feel really sorry about what happened to him.
'I was 10 years old. The patrollers pushed me to the ground with some of the other children and we were told to stay there and keep our faces down. I tried to look up and saw my mother and sister in line with the other women. One by one they disappeared over the brow of a hill, and I could hear their screams. I could see my mother and sister approaching that brow. I was kicked and told to keep my head down. When I looked up again, over to the line of women, my mother and sister were no longer there. For two years a patroller kept me prisoner, but then I escaped.'
'The United States did not bear direct responsibility for any act of genocide, the Commission said. However, its government had known what was going on in the Guatemalan countryside. It had not raised any objections and had continued to support the Guatemalan army. In that sense, the United States was implicated. As for American businesses, the Guatemalan subsidiary of Coca-Cola had mercilessly pursued the trade union movement for years, and a dozen union leaders had been killed. The Commission said that the truth had been told in its report with the purpose of improving the condition of the peoples of Guatemala. Individuals and groups had the right to know who was responsible. While the Commission was not allowed to name perpetrators or attribute responsibility, the report indicates times and names institutions. People could deduce who was in charge. Everyone knew who had been President and Chief of Staff of the army in 1982 and 1983. If the perpetrators were brought to trial, it would be through the Ministry of Justice. People had every right to bring the accused to justice, the Commissioner stressed.'
http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_guatemala4.html,www.yale.edu/gsp/guatemala/TextforDatabaseCharts.html, www.lasolidarity.org/Organize/guatemala.pdf <---- I had allot of help knowing more and finding more info from these web site
Quotes from the Guatemala genocide
- The violence of this civil war, directed at the indigenous "Marxist" Mayans, is interpreted as genocide by many. The United States government, whose business interests in the region translated into the overthrow of a democratically elected leader, and subsequent support for repressive regimes, played a large role in that genocide. BY Jay Gamel
- The communist "threat" emerging in Central American in the late 70's and 80's, Guatemala included, lead to CIA funded violence throughout the region. Latin American military personnel trained at the infamous School of the Americas, located at Ft. Benning, Georgia. There, judging by their subsequent actions, they learned countless methods of violating human rights. By a Witness
- President Alvaro Colom announced that he will open the "war archives," referring to army documents produced during Guatemala's 36-year civil war. During that war, which ended in '96, over 200,000 civilians were "killed or disappeared." The Guatemalan Truth Commission found the state responsible for 90% of the deaths, but their report prompted no legal action. This is the first time the Guatemalan government has opened an investigation. By a witness
This is right after the genocide
she is a surviver from the Guatemala genocide.
She sees what they are going through!
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Music:
MY INPUT
This is my input to this post. This post is one of my best work, on blogging and i am really proud of myself. My topic was very intersting and my throghts when i read through and write this blog was really deep toward these people. I felt so sorry for them when i was reseaching on this topic. looking through the videos and pictures made me realize that there is more suffering in the world than i think. Through my life i have not seen so much violent in the communities since the civil war. I have myu best wishes to the surviers, i wish that they are treated well and at least making them feel special before they pass away.
