Emerging out of the fog

The following article that I wrote was posted on the Latin American Bureau website earlier this month.
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The image of our goodbye in his village is one I won’t forget. We had arrived at his one-room adobe house just before dusk. There had been a tropical downpour earlier that day, but it had only lasted 30 minutes. So we weren’t too concerned when the heavy rain started again as we sat and chatted.

Half an hour later the storm was showing no signs of letting up. Nevertheless, we decided to go: walking in the village after nightfall was not a good idea, especially given the security situation during a trial.

His house is at the top of a small path. But the path is just earth which the rain had predictably turned to mud. After a few steps there was no going back. I looked apprehensively at the man we had visited who had become my friend. “Come on, I’ll help you,” he reassured me.

He kept me on my feet as I edged down the treacherous slope, wrapped in a bin-bag in a futile attempt to keep dry. We parted when I had just one more step to take. And the image of him which I have burned in my memory is him on that slope, looking down at me with fatherly concern through the fog of the heavy downpour.

The real storm

This was just a prelude to the real storm that was about to rage, this one in the courtroom. The next day, when I saw him for the final time before I left Guatemala, the encounter was brief and formal. The trial opened that day and he was a witness. I could hardly believe that finally the court case was beginning. I’d been visiting the witnesses for nine months as an international accompanier, and progress in the case had been painfully slow. But, of course, I had only been with them for a fraction of the time of their suffering.

For the witnesses it had been 28 years since their relatives were forcibly "disappeared" from their rural village, El Jute, in the department of Chiquimula. Eight members of the community were taken on the 19th October 1981, during the worst period of the long years of violence of Guatemala’s internal armed conflict (1960-1996), by a former army colonel and three former military commissioners (similar to paramilitary leaders). The witnesses I saw on a regular basis would tell me of that day and the terror it brought. Terror followed by a silence that continues to this day.


Silence is a characteristic of the crime of "forced disappearance", which is recognised internationally as a crime against humanity. In Guatemala, over 45,000 people were “disappeared” during the internal conflict. Victims simply vanished as though into a fog, never to be seen or heard of again, and their relatives were denied information as to their whereabouts or fate. Without knowledge of what happened, the relatives often stay in limbo.

Interviews with relatives of people who were "disappeared" reveal time and again behaviour such as continuing to set a place at the dinner table for their loved one, even though they have been gone for many years. The lack of any kind of final ceremony or proper burial means that there is no opportunity to close the grieving process. The link between the living and the dead is particularly pertinent in Mayan culture, which emphasises the way in which deceased relatives guide their loved ones through life, thus the severance of this link causes great distress. Worth bearing in mind when one considers that 83% of the victims of the conflict were indigenous Maya.

In Guatemala, the fog of past forced disappearances continues to this day and effectively obscures a large part of the country’s recent brutal history.

"Forced disappearances" or kidnappings?

Judges are reluctant to classify cases as “forced disappearance”. Most of the relatively few cases currently under investigation have been classified as “kidnapping”. The difference? Because of the multiple human rights violations involved and the role of the State, "forced disappearance" is defined as a crime against humanity, whilst kidnapping is not. Thus kidnapping could technically be granted amnesty under the Law of National Reconciliation of 1996, a law that grants amnesty for crimes committed during the armed conflict (provided that they are not crimes against humanity). In a somewhat Orwellian fashion, this law often seems to stand in the way of judicial processes that might lead to reconciliation and compensation for the victims.

In the case of El Jute, the panel of judges dismissed the classification of "forced disappearance" on multiple occasions during the hearings, yet in the final sentence they did convict the former colonel and three former military commissioners for that crime. Before that, only one case had been accepted as "forced disappearance": the case of Choatalúm.

The Choatalúm trial

I also observed this trial. I was in the packed courtroom on 31st August 2009 as we collectively held our breath and heard the judge say the words that would make history: “Our belief in Cusanero's innocence has been destroyed.” With that, former military commissioner, Felipe Cusanero Coj was sentenced to a total of 150 years of imprisonment for the "forced disappearance" between the years 1982 and 1984 of six members of the Maya Kakchiquel community of Choatalúm in the department of Chimaltenango.

The Choatalúm conviction was the first in Guatemala for the crime of "forced disappearance". It marked the end of one phase of a long struggle for those involved in the case. There had been many hurdles to overcome.

One month after the trial’s opening in March 2008, the defence claimed that the trial violated Article 15 of the Guatemalan Constitution, which states that laws cannot be retroactive. The events took place between 1982 and 1984, but the crime of "forced disappearance" was only formally recognised in Guatemala in 1996, so the defence argued that the case could not be tried.
An injunction was sought in April 2008. The Guatemalan Constitutional Court took 15 months to announce the resolution in favour of the prosecution. The resolution made reference to international conventions on "forced disappearance" and concluded that the crime is permanent in nature, the key issue being not when the crime started but rather when it ceases to be committed. With the fate and whereabouts of the victims still being kept secret, the crime continues to this day.

The Choatalúm decision is highly significant for its potential to set a precedent for other cases. Hearings in the El Jute case opened just weeks after the Choatalúm sentence and in December 2009 each of the accused was sentenced to 53 years in prison. Significantly, this is the first time that a high-ranking member of the Guatemalan military has been found guilty of "forced disappearance".

Still a long way to go

It seems that, with the sentences in the cases of Choatalúm and El Jute, some of the fog surrounding "forced disappearance" in Guatemala is starting to disperse. But the process is far from over.

In both cases, the victims’ relatives expressed that, above all, they just wanted information on their loved ones’ fate and their whereabouts. In one way, the trials brought justice but they still did not reveal information about what happened to the “disappeared”. The continued silence on this means that the suffering of the relatives continues.

Then there are the numbers. Two cases. Twenty-eight years have passed. Over 45,000 victims.

It’s definitely a long road. But every journey has to start somewhere.

Update: Threats in case of El Jute

The newspaper, Diario de Centro América, reported on the 6th of January that relatives of the victims in the case of El Jute had been receiving threats. This comes after the passing of 53 year sentences against a former colonel and three former military commissioners last month for the forced disappearance of eight members of the community El Jute, Chiquimula in 1981. A few days prior to the Diario's article, came the news of the death of one of the recently sentenced former military commissioners, José Domingo Ríos Martínez.

¡Próspero año nuevo! (Happy New Year!)

(Para leer la entrada en castellano, haz click aquí)
Photo: A Guatemalan cat... gazing over the wall of 2009 at all the possibilities of 2010.

I'm struggling to come to terms with the fact that 2009 is nearly over. It's been a year that has changed my life.

I spent most of the year (from the start of January to the end of September) working in Guatemala as an international accompanier. The experience was incredible. I met so many amazing and inspiring people who are determined to continue in their struggle for human rights, often facing threats, intimidations, and very real dangers.

There have been some very encouraging outcomes this year, many of which I have written about on my blog. The case of Choatalum was the first case of forced disappearance to have a sentence passed in Guatemala. Former military commissioner, Felipe Cusanero Coj, was sentenced to 150 years of prison, 25 for each of the six victims that he forcibly disappeared between 1982 and 1984. Those were six of the over 45,000 victims of forced disappearance during the internal armed conflict in Guatemala. That sentence was passed in August. I was at the hearings and spent a lot of time with the brave relatives of the victims, who had stood up in court and given evidence.

A few weeks later, the trial in the case of El Jute opened. I only attended the first hearing, as I left the country just days after. But I had been following the case very closely since my arrival in Guatemala in January, and had been accompanying members of the community. It was really hard to leave them, not knowing what the following months would bring. So it was very emotional to hear earlier this month that the four accused had been found guilty and sentenced to 53 years. As well as being only the second sentence ever to be given for the crime of forced disappearance, it was the first time that a high-ranking member of the military, in this case former army colonel, Marco Antonio Sánchez Samayoa, was sentenced.

Photo: El Jute... a really beautiful place.

These were fantastic advances. I could talk about some of the complications. But I shan't. I've mentioned them before on my blog, so for now I'm going to leave those cases on the positive note that they deserve and that is tribute to the brave witnesses who stood up in the face of intimidations and stood by their campaign for truth and justice.

It seemed as though advances were also being made in the campaign for justice for past atrocities when a February deadline was given for the handing over of four military archives detailing massacres which took place during the internal armed conflict. The deadline set was symbolic, the national day for the dignification of victims of the internal armed conflict. So it was perceived as a complete snub when in fact only two of the four archives were handed over.

Along with my colleagues, I was following the news story in the papers each day. It was the subject of breakfast-time conversation... whoever had got to the papers first would share the news with the others. At first we felt that the remaining archives would be handed over soon. But then the excitement waned. It was still of major concern to us. But soon it got relegated to page three or four of the newspaper: to something we talked about over our mid-morning coffee rather than our cornflakes.

Photo: Graffitti in Guatemala City, "Justice for Genocide"

This gave me an insight into what the struggle for justice means to the people involved in Guatemala. It seems that in order to continue with the daily, weekly, monthly knockbacks, you have to remain collected. Somewhat cynical. And not allow yourself to get carried away by a piece of good news, when two pieces of bad news could be around the corner. I'm not being pessimistic, but this seemed to be a common defence-mechanism. I had naively and excitedly rushed to talk to people about the release of the archives in the beginning. Finally I understood why they had seemed reserved in their responses.

In terms of the archives, there have been advances, they've just come slower than I'd originally (naively) anticipated. Earlier this month a Spanish judge heard expert witness testimonies in the genocide cases. And finally the third military archive, Plan Sofia, was handed over.

With regard to taking good news with a healthy dose of cynicism, I'm reminded of the case of the trade unionists of SITRAPETEN. In February this year their reinstallation in the company was ordered. Has it happened? No. In fact not only have they not been given back their jobs, but a few weeks ago they were subject to a violent eviction in which they were removed from the makeshift huts from which they had been staging their protest. This comes nineteen months after they lost their jobs, in May 2008.

Photo: Front page of La Hora in May this year. This headline came in the midst of the "swine flu" crisis, reading "The epidemic of violence is worse than the flu."

So, today I've been reflecting on my past year. Seems that the Guatemalan newspaper La Hora has done the same thing recently. They reported that between January and October 2009 there was an average of 20 murders per day. That's up from the 17 per day average of 2008. And it's worth noting that the newspaper headlines at the start of this year reported 2008 to have been the "bloodiest" in the history of the country. I cried when I read the article in La Hora. Where will the violence stop?

On a personal level, this year has touched me more than I would have thought possible. I arrived back in the UK two months ago, and realised that I had very little money, no job, and didn't know where I was going to live. On top of that, I had left behind many people that I care deeply about. I was sitting on the tube in London and I felt the tears well up. But then I thought about some of the people that I'd worked with. About their determination and the horror of the things that many of them had suffered. That gave me strength - THEY have given me strength, and it's a strength that I will carry with me in the future.

I've met some really incredible people. And I've formed some great friendships with people with whom I share values, and people who have walked alongside me through really difficult and emotional experiences.

It's hard living in London now. It's hard to live in such a money-oriented society when you are still in the frame of mind of being grateful for running water every time you turn on the tap, or stunned by the sheer quantity of food that is available (not to mention wasted) all the time. In terms of security it's still something of a novelty to be able to walk in the streets alone after nightfall (dangerous in Guatemala City, even though it gets dark at only 7pm). And to feel pretty much free to say what I want, where I want, to whom I want (within reason!!). But most of all it's hard to be away from the people in Guatemala who have inspired me. And who will continue to inspire me for years to come.

Photo: The stunning Lago Atitlán