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Struggles and Obstacles in Indigenous Women’s Fight for Justice in

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 , 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. commitments that should already be the re-

24 llilas benson portal prostitutes. This argument was even used by the defense lawyer, who in his closing statements claimed that due to their pov- erty, the ffteen indigenous women had resorted to prostitution in the military bar- racks. Thus, went the argument, no crime was committed against them. To this day, the military maintains con- trol over the state and the public sphere. The narrative of the security forces and army as national heroes is undefeated in the popular discourse and has now found its way into academic history books. Addi- tionally, the military has mobilized indig- enous populations to protest against the trials and to deny genocide. The economic elite of Guatemala has joined the eforts of the military asso- ciations, fearing that the trials will reveal their direct involvement in the genocide Together with hundreds of human rights activists and representatives from foreign insti- as fnancers of scorched-earth campaigns. tutions, the author (center-right) holds hands with her daughter as the guilty verdict is In 2013, it was the country’s chamber of read in the Ríos Montt trial. Supreme Court of Justice, Guatemala, May 10, 2013. Photo by commerce, CACIF, that forced the Constitu- Daniel Hernández-Salazar ©2013. tional Court to annul the Ríos Montt geno- cide conviction. During the Sepur Zarco sponsibility of the state. In the Sepur Zarco rights activists. That same year saw the cre- trial, evidence and survivor testimony case, for example, some of the measures ation of the Foundation Against Terrorism, made it clear that the military detachment included the construction of a health cen- an extreme right-wing organization with had been placed in the region to defend ter and housing for the women, as well as secret fnancing, composed of former mili- the interests of area landowners against scholarships for youth in the community to tary. The foundation uses propaganda, paid the land claims of Q’eqchi’ peasants. attend middle school and high school. Yet ads, and media manipulation to defame The actions of the state do not difer from providing access to education and health members of civil society, academics, dip- those of the extreme right-wing associa- services should not constitute reparations. lomats, judges, and anyone else, national tions. Through institutions created to focus These are basic obligations of the Guatema- or foreign, who works on human rights– on the “peace process,” the Guatemalan lan state to guarantee the life of its citizens, related topics. Under the banner of freedom state has blocked access to fles related to especially those most afected by poverty of expression, it promotes hate speech in the armed confict, spreading a culture of who live in remote regions and permanent television programs and opinion columns, silence about the past that denies genocide. exclusion. facing no legal consequences to date. It has At the same time, many communities that even gone so far as to bring charges against are still fghting to protect their land and Obstacles human rights activists. natural resources are being remilitarized. While these cases have provided hope in ma- Similarly, the Association of Military One ofcial who has pushed to promote ters of justice and human rights, the politi- Veterans of Guatemala, AVEMILGUA, has impunity and silence is Antonio Arenales cal, military, and economic sectors in Guate- focused on creating rural and urban sup- Forno, who served as Secretary of Peace mala are to this day campaigning forcefully port bases. In rural areas and communi- during the government of General Otto against these proceedings, using strategies ties afected by war, the association has Pérez Molina (2012–2015), heading an aimed at criminalizing the survivors, fam- tapped into community divisions created institution created to ensure compliance ily members, and witnesses who are seek- by the civil defense patrols to generate with the peace agreements. In testimony ing justice.6 Similarly, as the lack of repara- support.7 In Guatemala City, members of before the Inter-American Court of Human tions shows, the Guatemalan state has done AVEMILGUA founded the political party of Rights in Costa Rica and at a meeting on very little for the victims of state-sponsored the current , Jimmy the Convention against in Geneva, crimes committed during the civil war. Morales, and its members now serve as Arenales Forno not only denied Guatema- Since 2013, diverse sectors in Guatemala senior advisers and congressmen. During lan genocide but attempted to minimize have waged a battle to shape the histori- the Sepur Zarco trial, members of the asso- the severity of human rights violations, cal memory of the country. With the start ciation and their recruits installed them- emphasizing instead the army’s civil secu- of the genocide trial, sections of the army selves outside the courthouse with banners rity functions. In April 2016, he penned an and the national elite began a campaign to and megaphones, defending the accused op-ed in the national newspapers arguing discredit witnesses, survivors, and human while denouncing the Q’eqchi’ women as against the ongoing fght for justice. As a

llilas benson portal 25 Notes 1. The 1998 report Guatemala: Never Again! pre- pared by the Human Rights Ofce of the Archdi- ocese of Guatemala (Spanish acronym, ODHA) contains detailed information on activities of the army, national police, civil defense patrols, commissioned ofcers, and death squads during the armed confict. A 1999 report by the His- torical Clarifcation Commission, “Guatemala: Memory of Silence,” details disparate levels of sufering among indigenous peoples. It lists 626 massacres attributed to state forces as part of a campaign of extermination. 2. In December 2015, the National Institute of Statistics released the results of the “2014 Survey of Living Conditions” (Spanish acro- nym, ENCOVI), which shows that poverty and extreme poverty have increased considerably. The national poverty rate reached 59.3%, an Indigenous women witnesses cover their faces at a hearing during the Sepur Zarco increase of 8.1 percentage points over levels war crimes trial. Supreme Court of Justice, Guatemala, February 9, 2016. Photo by found in a 2006 survey, while extreme pov- Daniel Hernández-Salazar ©2016. erty increased from the 2006 level of 15.3% to 23.4% in 2014. It is estimated that poverty general, Pérez Molina was stationed in the To this day, the majority of indigenous afects 9.6 million people out of a total of 16 Ixil region during the genocide campaigns, women who were victims of sexual violence million (that is, nearly 60% of the total national yet he has publicly denied that genocide have not come forward and many have died. population), with 3.7 million living in extreme took place in Guatemala. Eyewitness testi- Denouncing these crimes requires work and poverty, most of whom are indigenous. mony says otherwise.8 Pérez Molina is cur- awareness within indigenous communities, 3. The flm Dictator in the Dock (October 2013) rently serving a sentence for corruption. and will necessitate an even more tenacious documents the trial of Ríos Montt on charges fght against the patriarchy that plagues the of genocide and crimes against humanity. See Conclusion country. http://skylight.is/flms/dictator-in-the-dock/. I would like to highlight three points on Finally, I stress once again that repara- 4. Audio available at https://soundcloud.com/bea the courageous struggle of Ixil and Q’eqchi’ tions, while difcult to achieve, are neces- -gallardo-shaul/sets/dra-irma-alicia-vel-quez. women survivors of the armed confict in sary for a country as unequal as Guatemala. 5. Audio of Sepur Zarco sentence available at Guatemala. First, we must be careful to Judicial processes are required so that one https://soundcloud.com/juicio-sepur-zarco/sen not idealize the legal proceedings. These day, the ofcial narrative will change, and tencia-sepur-zarco. are not just legal precedents, but cases that Guatemala will once and for all force its 6. Attempts to discredit the victims and their directly afect the lives of people, many of citizens to accept difcult truths: that the families have included accusations that they are whom live in conditions of extreme poverty state, its security forces, and the economic guerrillas, that they are parasites taking advan- and for whom justice is long overdue. It is and cultural elites, guided by racism and tage of the system, that charges were brought important to remember that the struggle economic greed, committed inhumane acts for economic gain and revenge, and that foreign does not end when the trial does; survivors against indigenous people. The struggle of governments have bankrolled their lawyers and still face a society and a state that continue this group of Ixil and Q’eqchi’ women is an stand to gain from convictions. to criminalize them with accusations that inspiring example of hope for the future. 7. These paramilitary-style patrols, strengthened they are communists, guerrillas, terrorists, That these survivors and their descendants during the war years, are composed of rural and freeloaders. might reclaim their dignity is a small step men forced to monitor their own communities. Second, the cases mentioned in this arti- toward repairing the damage and brutality 8. Otto Pérez Molina has been linked to human cle dealt with topics that are taboo in Guate- of the armed confict. ✹ rights violations during the time he was sta- mala. To speak about and denounce sexual tioned at the military base in Nebaj, one of the violence is not only difcult, but dangerous. Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj is a journal- regions hardest hit by the counterinsurgency, Guatemala is still a patriarchal society and ist, social anthropologist, and international where he was known as Major Tito. It has also indigenous communities are not immune; spokeswoman who has been at the forefront long been thought that he was involved in the these crimes afect the internal dynamics in of struggles for respect for indigenous cultures. 1998 plot to murder Bishop Juan Gerardi, a the- the victimized communities. Fear and shame A LLILAS alumna, she is the frst Maya-K’iche’ ory documented by the Guatemalan-American have forced many indigenous women to woman to earn a doctorate in social anthropol- writer Francisco Goldman in his book The Art of remain silent and keep these crimes hidden, ogy. She was a Tinker visiting professor during Political Murder (2007). even from their own husbands and families. spring 2016.

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