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Struggles and Obstacles in Indigenous Women’S Fight for Justice in Guatemala

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Struggles and Obstacles in Indigenous Women’S Fight for Justice in Guatemala View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UT Digital Repository Struggles and Obstacles in Indigenous Women’s Fight for Justice in Guatemala by irma alicia velásquez nimatuj TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE testimonies, especially those of women who stemming from a 36-year armed confict refers to measures both were victims of sexual violence. that lasted from 1960 to 1996 and cost the judicial and non-judicial lives of an estimated 200,000 people. The that are intended to redress Context United Nations Truth Commission Report large-scale human rights Guatemala is a small but highly unequal published in 1999 estimated that 626 mas- T abuses. In this article, I country where over 60 percent of the pop- sacres took place during the war and that focus on two recent cases of transitional ulation lives in conditions of poverty or over 90 percent of these were committed justice in Guatemala. The frst is the 2013 extreme poverty, the numbers higher for by state security forces. Within this con- trial against General and Former President indigenous communities. The country is fict, indigenous people and women bore Efraín Ríos Montt and General Mauricio run by eight families who control just over the weight of the violence: an estimated Rodríguez Sánchez on charges of geno- 250 companies, arable land, banks, and 83 percent of the victims were indigenous. cide and crimes against humanity against almost the entire economy. This small, his- Indeed, the UN report concluded that acts the Ixil people. The second is the 2016 torical elite, known as the G8, also controls of genocide were committed by the state trial against retired colonel Esteelmer the state for its own beneft. against the indigenous population. Since Reyes Girón and former military commis- Guatemala is an indigenous country, the end of the war in 1996, survivors from sioner Heriberto Asij, who were charged a fact that is often hidden by govern- all around the country have organized to with crimes against humanity for sexual ment ofcials and census data. It is also demand justice for themselves and their violence against ffteen Q’eqchi’ women a country with acute ideological conficts communities. from the community of Sepur Zarco, Iza- bal. Both cases refect the struggles and obstacles faced by indigenous people of Guatemala, especially indigenous women, when demanding justice and confronting members of the state’s security apparatus.1 My aim is to highlight how these de- mands for justice, and diligent, decades- long eforts in the courts, are complicated by the poverty of most of the indigenous and mestizo communities who are fghting for justice, but also by the fact that the jus- tice system is unequal and foreign to them.2 Reaching the trial stage requires an intense efort against defense lawyers who are experts in sabotage, and who rely on the passage of time as a deterrent to witnesses. It also requires standing up to a justice sys- tem that is racist, sexist, often politicized, and easily corrupted. Furthermore, in recent years this struggle has become more Former chief of state Efraín Ríos Montt with his lawyers, seconds after he was pronounced complex since economic and military pow- guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity by Judge Yasmin Barrios. Supreme Court ers have joined forces to discredit survivor of Justice, Guatemala, May 10, 2013. Photo by Daniel Hernández-Salazar ©2013. llilas benson portal 23 Two Cases The second noteworthy case is a very During the trial, the ffteen Q’eqchi’ The frst case I will discuss is the trial of Ríos recent one. In a trial that took place in women sat in open court with their faces Montt and Rodríguez Sánchez, which took February 2016, ffteen Q’eqchi’ women covered, the stigma of sexual violence place from February to May 2013, more from the community of Sepur Zarco, still too much to bear. Some agreed to tes- than a decade after the judicial process frst department of Izabal, were called as wit- tify in this setting, and with the help of a began.3 Both men faced charges of genocide nesses against Colonel Esteelmer Reyes translator told the judges and the country and crimes against humanity for scorched- Girón and former military commissioner of the abuses they endured. Others found earth campaigns carried out between 1982 Heriberto Asij, both charged with crimes public testimony too painful, and only and 1983 against the Ixil people of Santa against humanity. From 1982 to 1988, the their recorded testimonies were presented. María Nebaj, San Gaspar Chajul, and San military set up a camp in Sepur Zarco on Hours and hours of video were played in Juan Cotzal. It is estimated that half of the the orders of landowning families who which, weeping, the women spoke about war’s deaths occurred during Ríos Montt’s wanted to take control of lands that the the horrifc way in which the army vio- regime (March 1982–August 1983), which indigenous community was trying to legal- lated them while destroying their family means that in 17 months, an estimated ize as its own. Soon after their arrival, the structure and overall way of life. The vio- 100,000 people were killed. security forces murdered the husbands of lence was such that even the interpreters One of the most important aspects of the ffteen women, who were then raped and had a hard time translating these testimo- trial was that, for the frst time, the voices forced into sexual and domestic servitude nies. In spite of the pain, with their pres- and the testimony of survivors of the geno- for six years. ence and their voice, these women spoke cide were given national press cov- for the thousands of others who have erage. Additionally, international remained silent or who have died coverage made it impossible for the IN THE CONTEXT OF without obtaining justice. Guatemalan media, which tends to These judicial processes are often be racist, to avoid publishing frag- COUNTERINSURGENCY, celebrated due to their implications ments of the testimonies, especially for transitional justice worldwide, yet those of women, who reported acts of THE STATE SAW INDIGENOUS the victories do not always translate cruelty committed by troops against into concrete changes for the victims their families and their worldview, and their families. This by no means against their bodies and those of WOMEN AS THE MOTHERS diminishes the value of the justice or their daughters, mothers, and sis- the potential of reparations (as yet ters. In one of the most heartbreak- OF FUTURE GUERRILLAS AND unrealized), but it is something to keep ing days, one witness, whose iden- in mind. The Ixil and Q’eqchi’ women tity was protected, revealed that a THUS A NECESSARY FOE. who testifed, most of whom are illiter- seven-year-old Ixil girl had died after ate, achieved with their courage what being gang raped by soldiers and indigenous professionals or academ- civil patrollers. Until that point, the subject I served as an expert witness for this case, ics have been unable to do—they reclaimed of sexual violence was seldom discussed an experience that allowed me to learn and their dignity. This has implications not publicly. Two reports published in 1998 and spend time with the women from 2011 to only for indigenous peoples of Guatemala 1999 made mention of this crime, but due 2013. During those years, and through sev- but also for the more than 5 million indig- to limited time and obstacles of the postwar eral trips to Sepur Zarco, I heard their sto- enous peoples worldwide, who in diferent era, they were unable to show the extent to ries and observed their surroundings. It was moments of history have faced genocide which the security forces used sexual vio- painful to see the extreme poverty in which and other crimes against humanity. lence as part of their counterinsurgency they lived because it meant that to this day The annulment of the Ríos Montt and strategy to destroy an imagined “internal they are being subjected to a form of state Rodríguez Sánchez genocide sentences on enemy,” embodied largely by indigenous violence. All of the women are poorer now May 20, 2013, put a stop to court-ordered communities. In the context of counterin- than they were before the military set up reparations. At the time of this writing, surgency, the state saw indigenous women camp in their community. One of them has a special trial is under way against Ríos as the mothers of future guerrillas and thus since passed away, at a relatively young age, Montt. However, these proceedings are a necessary foe. but this is not surprising given that most of taking place behind closed doors, without During the trial, the voices of the survivors the women sufer from long-term illnesses press access or international observers, pre- were captured in legal documents, push- due to the rape and other abuses to which venting accountability and leaving the repa- ing back against the ofcial discourse that they were subjected. The Sepur Zarco case rations ordered in 2013 in a legal limbo. In called them “lying Indians,” and claimed set a precedent nationwide with the courts the case of Sepur Zarco, the accused have that “Indians exaggerated and twisted real- accepting sexual violence against indige- appealed their sentence and time will tell ity . they could not be raped since they nous women as a weapon of war in the Gua- if court-ordered reparations are instituted.5 were ugly and dirty.” The women’s testi- temalan context. Internationally, it marked When we talk about reparations in the monies of their sufering also exposed the the frst time that such a trial took place in Guatemalan context, these often include efects of state-sponsored racism.4 the country where the abuses occurred.
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