Guatemalan Genocide

“If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for human freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. That’s your choice.” ~Noam Chomsky

Did you know that the vast majority of Guatemalans (over 80%) are indigenous Mayan people?

I am just beginning to scratch the surface of this nation’s history, and it is not a pretty story. I read a book called Bridge of Courage by Jennifer Harbury, a Texan civil rights lawyer who came to Guatemala in the 1980s and became involved in the resistance movement of the Mayans. These people had already faced five centuries of mistreatment and genocide at the hands of Spanish colonizers, and in the late 1970s and early 80s, they were horrifically killed by the hundreds of thousands in a genocide covertly supported by the CIA. Harbury’s husband, a Guatemalan resistance comandante, was captured and tortured for over two years before being executed. After hunger strikes and protests, Harbury persuaded a CIA employee to leak… the US government was fully aware of his and 350 others’ torture. Meanwhile, most Americans had no idea that Guatemala was anything but a central American banana producer.

Her book is a collection of personal vignettes of compañer@s in the resistence movement. One young man ends his story by explaining the effect of an old man’s tall tales: “by the end of the afternoon, I realized that this man had done something really amazing with all his stories. He had pulled me in, opened my eyes, woven me into this incredible web of experiences that all of us in the movement share. All of a sudden I was not alone with my pain and my fear.” It did the same for me as a reader. Bridge to Courage is an amazing book, disturbing yet inspiring, sad, poignant and, occasionally funny. (One story is about a mischievous pet squirrel who steals food from the guerillas because they spoiled him with human food as a baby.)

I am wary of getting involved in politics here, because things are still shaky despite a “peace accord” signed in 1996. The “war on drugs” and general greed of the rich and disempowerment of the poor has led to rampant corruption and alarming crime and murder rates. If I leave Guatemala, it will be because of safety issues. Nothing has happened to me personally, but it’s always a possibility, and in some places a probability. I’m grateful for a nice, comfy home. I am forever in awe of the Mayans’ courage and drive for freedom and independence.