Victims of the War Exhumed in Guatemala CHAJUL, QUICHE AUGUSI 30, 1997 In the middle of a field of high corn, under strong sunlight, 48-year-old Caterina P6rez L6pez kneels beside a small rectangular pit. In hushed tones she identifies the remains of her husband's body, a skeleton lying face down in the ground. He is still wearing the green sweater and dark trousers he wore the day he was killed 15 years ago. Julian Santiago-a member of Guate- mala's paramilitary civil patrols known by their Spanish acronym PACs-was just one of an esti- mated 180 Ixil Mayans killed by the guerrillas in Chacalt6, a small isolated village high in the hills of Guatemala's Quich6 province. From the early 1980s onwards the armed PACs formed an inte- gral part of the military's coun- terinsurgency strategy. At one point, as many as a million men and boys-the majority indige- nous-served as the eyes and ears of the army in rural commu- nities. Today, a team of anthropolo- gists working for the Recovery of the Historical Memory (REMHI) project directed by the Arch- diocese's Human Rights Office are exhuming seven graves in Chacalte. Although the process of exhuming clandestine graves in Guatemala began in the early 1990s, this one has gained notori- ety for being the first exhumation of victims of the guerrillas. Arnoldo Noriega, a spokesperson for the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), says the 1982 battle in Chacalt6 was exclusively between the guerrilla and the PACs. "It took place just as the army was putting into practice the concept of the civil patrols," he says, "and because of this the URNG hadn't found a political formula with which to confront them.... Therefore we dealt with the mat- ter in the framework of battle." According to testimonies col- lected by REMHI, however, members of the guerrilla entered Chacalt6 early in the morning of June 13 and killed men, women and children. Roberto SAnchez, who was nine years old at the time, says he hid with his mother and little sister under their bed. Sinchez later escaped, but his mother and sister both died. Following the killings, the army -suspecting the continued pres- ence of rebel informers-report- edly returned to the community, killed survivors and burnt Chacalte to the ground. The exhumation in Chacalt6, because guerrilla forces are implicated, brings a new dimen- sion to the historical picture. On one hand, it runs the risk of equating levels of violence com- mitted on both sides. On the other, it is a crucial part of com- ing to grips with the past, as Frank La Rue, director of The Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH), points out. "l...believe that the Guatemalan military is responsible for 95% of the atrocities," he says, "but...the five percent under the responsi- bility of the URNG should also be investigated." The exhumation of Chacalt6 is yet another building block within REMHI's efforts to reconstitute the historical memory of Guate- mala which has, until now, remained suppressed as a result of the vicious counter-insurgency strategies of successive military governments. It is part of the ongoing attempt to record what happened during 36 years of civil war which left at least 150,000 Guatemalans dead or "disappeared." Similar efforts are also under- way by other organizations, including the official Truth Commission set up as part of the 1996 Peace Accords. These attempts to recognize and give voice to the country's violent his- tory are only the beginning of a long process. It is clear that many people now want to speak about those things which before were never even whispered. Guate- malans such as La Rue hope that by "reliving" the violence, the country will give birth to a stronger society no longer based on silence. "It might not be what you'd like to remember," says the human rights activist, "but all countries and all peoples have to be able to acknowledge their past to build their future. Otherwise they have no new future." -- Ann Birch Clodomiro Almeyda, 1923-1997 SANTIAGO. SEPTEMBER 1, 1997 C lodomiro Almeyda, a promi- nent Chilean socialist, died on August 25, at the age of 74. As a member of the Socialist Party (PS) since 1940, he served as a party official, member of Con- gress, ambassador, and cabinet minister. Almeyda first held national office as Minister of Labor and Minister of Mining during the Ibafiez Administration (1952-1958). With his sights set on winning the strongman's mass following to socialism, Almeyda galvinized support for lbaiiez-a populist-turned-dictator-within the Party. The move provoked a split, and Socialist leader Salvador Allende ran his own campaign with support from a Socialist minority and the Com- munist Party (PC). When Allende won the Presidency in 1970, he entrusted Vo XX IN 3 N /Ic 19971 I I I I l IIIII Vol XXXI, No 3 Nov/DEc 1997 1NEWSBRIEFS Almeyda with the Ministry of Foreign Relations, where he broadened relations with Cuba and the socialist bloc, negotiated integration to the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, tended to the maintenance of normal rela- tions with Latin American and Western European countries, and attempted to minimize conflict with the United States. Briefly leaving the cabinet in early 1973, Almeyda returned as Minister of Defense around mid-year, soon after an attempted coup. After the military coup of September 1973, Almeyda and other prominent left politicians were imprisoned on the notorious Dawson Island, in Chile's Ant- arctic South. Expelled from Chile in 1975, Almeyda was exiled in Romania, then Mexico, and finally East Germany. In exile, he served as Executive Secretary of the Popular Unity and, later, as Secretary General of the PS. During this period, sharp divi- sions emerged among the Socialists in exile. Almeyda championed a Marxist-Leninist perspective and supported armed strategies to overthrow the mili- tary dictatorship. Following the victory of Chile's pro-democracy forces in the 1988 plebiscite and in the subsequent elections, Almeyda served as Ambassador to the Soviet Union for the Aylwin Adminstration, drawing international attention in 1992, when he granted former East German dictator Erich Honecker asylum in Chile's Moscow embassy. The contro- versy resulted in Almeyda's resig- nation. Besides his prominent career in politics and government, Almeyda was a journalist, book editor, author and academic. He was Dean of Sociology at the Uni- versity of Chile when he died. His August 26 funeral was attended by former President Patricio Aylwin and current President Eduardo Frei. -Alejandro Reuss Indigenous/Peasant Protests Disrupt Ecuador QuITO, OCTOBER 14, 1997 n September 28, an array of indigenous and peasant orga- nizations began a series of nation- wide mobilizations that converged on October 12 in Quito for the convening of a popular National Constituent Assembly. These recent mobilizations come only months after the massive nation- wide demonstrations in February that forced the impeachment of former President Abdala Bucaram and demanded fundamental changes in the workings of the Ecuadorian state. Central to the February "Popular Mandate" was the call for a National Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution. In late July, how- ever, interim President Fabidn Alarc6n decreed that the Assem- bly must be postponed for another year. In August, thousands of Ecua- dorians protested the govern- ment's postponement of the Assembly, claiming the deferral sought to weaken popular demands for participation in the creation of a "new democracy." Through unprecedented support from a wide spectrum of civil society, the February "Mandate" affirmed citizens' rights to con- demn corrupt and discriminatory rule. The August protest further emphasized that right and de- nounced the government's con- tempt for the Mandate. The government's inaction led to a national strike which virtu- ally paralyzed the country. On August 11, thousands of indige- nous and campesino women and men dug ditches and hauled trees across Ecuador's major roads. The coordinated uprising halted Continued on page 45 Demonstrators in Quito, protesting President Fabian Alarc6n's postponement of a National Constituent Assembly burn a casket they had just borne through city streets, labeled "Popular Mandate. " transport for 48 hours and sent a forceful message to President Alarc6n about the power of popular conviction. The following day, 500 demonstrators in Quito staged a wake and funeral procession for the February, 1997 Mandate. Solemnly clothed men bearing a massive cas- ket led the procession through city streets. Ending their procession outside the National Congress, pro- testers set the casket ablaze. August's roadblocks interrupted commerce and travel throughout the country. The military's presence was strong, leading to sporadic confrontations. In Azuay Province, an angry trucker ran a blockade injuring three protesters. On the principal highway north of Quito, soldiers intimidated protesters and repeatedly shot tear gas into the crowds. Conservative politicians characterized the August mobiliza- tion as "violent" and "destructive." Popular leaders insisted, however, that the paro was the only means at their disposal for confronting "an antidemocratic, exclusionary, and authoritarian" regime. Like the February mobilizations, the pro- tests also challenged neoliberal economic reforms, demanded con- gressional ratification of an ILO labor-protection convention and denounced government plans to privatize the peasant social security agency and many state enterprises. As the first march to the capital got underway in Puyo-a city 325 miles away from Quito-on Sep- tember 28, local and national indigenous and peasant leaders repeated their call for a truly partic- ipatory Consituent Assembly. As the president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) noted, no political regime could dismiss the participation of peasant and indige- nous organizations in the genera- tion of a genuine democratic debate. -Suzana Sawyer Guerrillas Disrupt Local Elections GACHALA, COLOMBIA, AUGUST 10, 1997 Just after midnight on August 4, residents of Gachali, an Andean village about 40 miles east of Bogota awoke to the sound of their police station being blown to bits. Bursts of gunfire went on for about four hours. Then a bullhorn mounted on a car told residents to assemble in the town square. They came out of their homes to find over 200 combatants of the Revolu- tionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the plaza. The rebels, who had just executed two men they accused of being army infor- mants, delivered a short message: Gachald will not participate in the upcoming municipal elections. The morning after its midnight action in Gachali, every candidate for mayor and town council with- drew, and several of them left town. Gachali is one scores of towns in Colombia which sat out of the municipal elections on October 26. The FARC, which in the past had declared election day cease-fires in order to support sympathetic candi- dates, changed its strategy after the leftist Patriotic Union party-which was loosely affiliated with the guer- rillas-dissolved itself following the assasination of 3,000 of its members by paramilitary squads. Now, along with the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), it has resolved to impede elections until a satisfactory peace agreement is reached between the government and the guerillas. Threats by armed groups on the left and right have figured in local elections for years in Colombia, but never in the last 31 years of civil conflict have the elections been shut down. Rebel tactics include mid- night meetings like the one in Gachali as well as kidnapping can- didates. Threats from guerrilla and paramilitary groups affected nearly 10% of the municipalities in Colom- bia, in which over 26,000 candidates had registered for the October 26 elections. The practice of electing local gov- ernments has become very popular since it was introduced in 1988. Eduardo Pizarro, a political scientist at the Universidad Nacional notes that voter turnout is much higher in local elections than in national ones. The guerrillas have lost some sup- port in rural areas where residents see their governments working, he says. "It's indisputable that the pop- ularity of elected mayors has taken support from the guerrillas," agrees Gilberto Toro, director of the Colombian Federation of Muni- cipalities. "The local community now sees that electing someone has an immediate result. The communi- ties have really taken to the process, and it's returned some credibility to state institutions." The government has not yet pro- posed a solution for towns that had no elections, but townspeople fear that military mayors will be appointed - a move that will serve the guerrillas politically and militar- ily. "It will break the link between the people and their central govern- ment. And it's going to imply that the army has to occupy areas where the guerrillas are strong. The guerilla strategy is going to be effec- tive," says Pizarro. With a military presence, the conflict will be inten- sified in areas previously untouched by the war. SOURCES: Ann Birch is researcher with CERIGUA, an NGO in Guatemala City. Alejandro Reuss is a graduate student in Latin American Studies at Tufts University. Suzana Sawyer teaches anthropology at the University of California, Davis. David Aquila-Lawrence is a freelance journalist based in Colombia. InterPress Service is an international news service based in Italy. Its dispatches can be read on-line in the Peacenet confer- ences: ips.espafol and ips.english.
