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Violence, Fear, and Resistance in Urban Guatemala

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Violence, Fear, and Resistance in Urban Guatemala Copyright by Denis Roberto Martinez 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Denis Roberto Martinez Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Youth under the Gun: Violence, Fear, and Resistance in Urban Guatemala Committee: Charles R. Hale, Supervisor Bryan Roberts Christopher Salas-Wright Joao Costa Vargas Shannon Speed Youth under the Gun: Violence, Fear, and Resistance in Urban Guatemala by Denis Roberto Martinez, Licenciado, M.S. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2014 Acknowledgements Ethnography is by definition a collaborative work. Anthropologists never work alone: many people provide them with information, share experiences with them, question them, argue with them, and sometimes offer them friendship and caring. This was true in my case. This project took over three years, and I thank everyone who helped and supported me to make it happen. First, I thank the young people and community members of El Mezquital, who gave me trust, friendship, and joy. I appreciate the collaboration and trust of the MOJUVI Network members, who believed in my work, helped me, and encouraged me during my fieldwork. I thank each one of the Network’s member groups: Asociación Alianza Joven (Youth Alliance Association), Asociación Rincón Juvenil (Youth Corner Association), Asociación Grupo Ceiba (Ceiba Group Association), Grupo Artiis (Artiis Group), and Jóvenes por la Vida (Youth for Life, JOVI). Regrettably, for reasons of confidentiality, I cannot cite individual members’ names; but I hold all of you in my mind and heart, and I admire your tireless struggle on behalf of El Mezquital’s youth. I thank the community leaders and women who founded El Mezquital. I was very fortunate to meet you and learn from you about the communities’ history and your struggles to make a better life for your children and neighbors. Thanks to the Franciscan friars who facilitated my fieldwork, and to the Catholic Church members who treated me with great kindness. I also thank the chavos (folks) from Caja Lúdica for their collaboration and their admirable example of respect, joy, and solidarity. I also thank the gang members who trusted me and dared to confide in me despite the context of pressure and fear; they taught me so much about the intense human drama lived by El Mezquital’s youth. Finally, I thank Elubia Velásquez, my guide during my fieldwork, a brave, cheerful woman who is committed to her community. Thank you for your trust, joy, and kindness! iv Second, I thank my professors, who provided theoretical and methodological orientation in conducting this study. I thank my advisor Charles Hale and the members of my committee: Shanon Speed, Joao Vargas, Bryan Roberts, and Christopher Salas-Wright. Likewise, I thank Professor Laura Lein, who gave me great support and guidance during my first years at the University of Texas. I am also grateful for the financial support granted by the Drugs Security and Democracy Fellowship (DSD) from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to conduct my fieldwork in El Mezquital, and the funding from the International Fellowship Program (IFP) from the Ford Foundation to complete my coursework at the University of Texas. Third, I thank my family for their support and patience, especially my mother Lidia de Martínez for her tireless support, her understanding, and her admirable example of hard work and perseverance. I cannot fail to mention the support from my friends Bernarda Mendoza, Gabriela Flores, Jaime Alves, Jeanne Rikkers, Manuel López, Oscar Reyes, and Rafael Argueta, who very patiently listened to me talk time and again about this dissertation and shared important reflections which improved my work. Finally, I thank Marlies Stappers, who supported me with great caring every step of the way: her support was crucial in times of joy, sadness, and anguish; without her help it is unlikely that I would have been able to complete this work. Thank you Marlies for your friendship and your admirable example of commitment to Guatemala! v Youth under the Gun: Violence, Fear, and Resistance in Urban Guatemala Denis Roberto Martinez, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisor: Charles R. Hale This study examines how violence affects youth in marginalized urban communities, focusing on the experiences of three groups of young people: gang members, activists, and the “jóvenes encerrados”, youth who live confined to their homes due to fear. Based on 14 months of ethnographic research in El Mezquital, an extensive marginalized urban area in Guatemala City, I explore the socio-economic conditions that trigger violence in these communities, the responses of young people and the community to violence, and the State’s role in exacerbating violence in impoverished neighborhoods. In this dissertation I argue that gang members and activists are expressing a deep- seated social discontent against the exclusion, humiliation, and social stigmatization faced by young people in marginalized urban neighborhoods. However, the two groups express their discontent in significantly different ways. Initially, gangs used violence to express their discontent, but they gradually resorted to a perverse game of crime, in complicity with the police, and they distanced themselves from their own communities; in this work I analyze gangs’ process of transformation and the circumstances that led to this change. Activists express their discontent through community art and public protest, but their vi demonstrations have limited social impact, since public attention continues to focus on gangs; here I examine activists’ motivations, struggles, and obstacles. However, the vast majority of young people live in a state of fear, preferring to keep quiet and withdraw into their homes; here I show how violence, fear, and distrust affect the generation born into postwar Guatemala. This study illustrates the perverse role of the State in impoverished urban neighborhoods and its responsibility for the escalation of urban violence in Guatemala. On the one hand, the State shuns residents from these neighborhoods and systematically denies them basic services; it criminalizes and abuses young people, even forming social cleansing groups to eliminate gang members. On the other hand, the State fosters crime in these communities and acts as gangs’ accomplice in extortions, drug trade, and robberies. As in many other Latin American countries, the Guatemalan State penalizes crime, but simultaneously encourages and benefits from it; the State is complicit in crime. vii Table of Contents List of Tables ......................................................................................................... xi List of Figures ....................................................................................................... xii Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 An Ethnography of Youth .............................................................................5 Violence and Gangs in Poor Urban Neighborhoods ...................................8 The Youth of Guatemala ..............................................................................15 Guatemala City .............................................................................................17 Collaborative Research / Methodology .....................................................21 Chapter 1. We Built these Communities! The Struggles of the People of El Mezquital .......................................................26 1.1. The Emergence of El Mezquital ..........................................................27 1.2. The Struggles for Water and Land .......................................................37 1.3. Local Development .............................................................................43 1.4. Women’s Struggles ..............................................................................48 1.5. People Stopped Participating / Decline of Local Organizing ..............56 Chapter 2. Maras are in Charge Here! The Emergence and Transformation of Gangs ..................................................67 2.1. The Maras Appear................................................................................68 2.2. La MS and La 18 Arrive in the Communities......................................72 2.3. Extortion Begins ..................................................................................83 2.4. Pandillero Visto, Pandillero Muerto / Social Cleansing ......................90 2.5. Women and Children in Gangs ............................................................95 Relationship Between Gangs and Police ...........................................103 viii Chapter 3. Youth Stuck at Home Fear and Distrust in the Communities ..............................................................108 3.1. It’s Scary to go out to the Streets .......................................................109 3.2. I Don’t Want to Stay in School ..........................................................116 3.3. All Youth are not the Same ................................................................123 3.4. I can’t get Work .................................................................................131 3.5. You get Used to Violence ..................................................................135
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