Guatemala: Breaking the Silence

In May I was fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in Breaking the Silence’s 22^nd annual delegation to Guatemala. I learned so much while I was there by meeting some truly amazing, inspirational and strong individuals. It allowed me to do some important hands on learning and has affected me profoundly. Not only did this trip provoke a lot of emotion, but it provoked a lot of thought and inspiration for me, which made it a real invaluable and once in a lifetime experience. Despite its history and the long list of problems it faces (which have only been added to in the past months), the beauty in Guatemala cannot be captured in words or pictures. I think what really resonated with me was the beauty of the people. Despite the violence, suffering and repression they have endured and continue to endure, they continue their struggle and remain hopeful that change will happen. They are eternal optimists who are facing challenges that we, as Canadians, cannot even imagine. Here is a general overview of some of the things we did during our two weeks.

Upon our arrival in Guatemala City we met Jennifer Harbury an American lawyer who married a Guatemalan guerrilla leader; he was later murdered by the military. For the past 20 years she has fought to bring justice surrounding her husband’s death which has included various hunger strikes and working with the Inter-American Court system as well as the United States Supreme Court. She was a wealth of information and really an inspiration to me not only because of her passion and dedication, but because she essentially is doing what I want to do - international human rights law and refugee law. We then traveled onto a town called Rabinal, which was an area that was hard hit by the civil conflict. We met a man by the name of Jesus Tecu  Osorio who runs a Legal Clinic that is trying to bring justice surrounding the genocide, and hold the intellectual authors of the genocide (those high up military leaders) accountable. It is proving to be a difficult battle but remains close to Jesus’ heart as he witnessed the murder of almost his entire family. We also visited a school that Jesus established in 2003 called the New Hope Foundation; it provides educational support to Maya-Achi youth whose parents were victims or survivors of the genocide. We then traveled to an extremely remote area called Rio Negro (where Jesus lived as a boy). It use to be a small river valley in which many indigenous people lived, however in the early eighties they were evicted from their lands by the government who wanted to build a hydro-electric dam. The communities were relocated to an area outside of Rabinal and those who refused to leave were killed by the Guatemala military; almost 500 Maya Achi were murdered in the Rio Negro Massacre. Today, fourteen families have returned to the area to try and make a living in their original homestead, however it is proving extremely difficult because of the poor land that is left for them to settle upon (the fertile land is covered by the dam’s water) and the remoteness and inaccessibility of the area. Rio Negro quickly became one of my favorite places that we visited because not only is the landscape beautiful, but the beauty of the people and their story really effected me. The strength of the Maya people really resonated in Rio Negro and how they refuse to forget what happened to them and are continually fighting for justice.

            We then returned to Guatemala City for an evening and began the second part of our journey that moved away from the past, and more towards the problems that Guatemalans face in the present. This began with a meeting with a woman named Claudia Samayoa who is the director of UNEFEGUA, an organization that protects human rights defenders in Guatemala. Here we learned a lot about the impunity that dominates Guatemalan society (99.8% impunity rate) as well as union struggles, the problem of organized crime, and the trafficking of women and children. We then traveled to Chimaltenago where we met with BTS’s oldest partner, the Women’s Kaqchikel Presbytery. These women are working on community development and reconstruction through such projects as heath promotion. These women are challenging the traditional female role in Guatemala, by entering the public sphere through this work and by becoming economically independent by making crafts and selling them. We then traveled to Lake Atitlan and stayed in the community of San Lucas Toliman. While in the area we visited the coffee co-operative Comite Campesino de Altiplano (CCDA). Not only does the CCDA participate in producing fair trade coffee, but the organization is also striving to achieve structural change by proposing agrarian reforms which call for more equal land distribution that would allow more people to have access to land and reduce the need for families to work on large fincas, where they essentially work as slave labor. We continued along the lines of sustainable agriculture in our visit to the Mesoamerican Institute for Permaculture (IMAP). They advocate for sustainable development by applying and teaching methods of permaculture, in the hopes of maintaining biological and cultural diversity in Mesoamerica. On our visit we saw many of their projects that include the building of new technologies, such as more sustainable stoves, the many ways in which they compost and preserving different types of seeds. These visits emphasized the importance of land in Guatemala; land equals not only power, but also life, which is why many work so hard to preserve and protect it.

            In the final part of our trip, we focused on the very recent problem of mining in Guatemala. We traveled to the Marlin Mine in San Miguel where the Canadian mining corporation Goldcorp has been operating since 2005. I would have to say that this part of the trip was the most heartbreaking because it was hard to find hope for a solution. The mine has essentially torn the local communities, and families, apart between those who support the mine and those that do not. We visited an organization called ADISMI who are fighting the mine as well as visited the homes of individuals who are resisting the mine. The communities are torn because some benefit from the mine being there because it provides employment and has built new schools and hospitals in the area. However, those resisting the mine claim that it is illegal because it did not consult the local communities when the mine was built, and point to the negative consequences that are already being seen such as major health problems in children and those who work in the mine; they worry about the long term impacts of the presence of the mine, especially of the tailings pond (more like lake) and the contamination of local water sources. We went to one woman’s home which is literally cracking in half because of the explosions in the mine; another woman told her story of how her brother threatened to kill her if she did not stop her resistance against the mine; another woman’s husband has become extremely sick from working with chemicals in the mine. Those who resist are a small minority who actively speak out against the mine which has an infinite amount of money and resources to spread slander against them (which they do) and has the support of the Guatemalan government, because in the end, it comes down to money.

            I would like to thank the Truro Rotary Club for their generous donation that allowed me to participate in this unique opportunity. I hope my experience has also allowed you to learn a little bit as well, because knowledge is power and here in Canada, we have the power to support these struggles in Guatemala.

Sincerely,

Erika Young