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| Morning visit in Nebaj |
November 23:
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| Fredy |
In the
morning, our first stop in Nebaj was meeting the team at 'Movimiento deDesarraigados' (Organization of the Displaced) with which the organization I am with, Equipo Forense Interdisciplinario (EFI) partners in this field region. The organization was first created
before the '96 Peace Accord.
Their first goal was to claim back what lands
citizens in the area had been lost. Following this was to find people that were
lost and taken. Since the other members only spoke Ixchil, there was
some double translating.
Fredy spoke the most during our stay as he was fluent
both in his native tongue and Spanish. Cristian as always, was our translator.
Fredy, like the individuals he serves, lived through the atrocities of the
conflict, being 12 years old when he escaped to the mountains. He is now the
economic coordinator, dealing with the politics of the limited amount of money
that goes in and out of the organization.
He notes that in the last years the
finances have gotten worse. This organization, like Blanca Hernandez's FAMDEGUA, is
greatly affected the international cuts and removals due to the continuous
corruption of Guatemala.
Anna helps with the legal aspects for families
in seeking helping finding their missing to applying for the reparations that
are supposed to be granted. The first things these families need is personal
identification who they are looking for to the organization RENAP when
Guatemalans must go to register for birth and death certificates. the problem
with this, is many from the rural communities living during the conflict, never
received identification. She says she does not stop until these families get
their reparations.
The third individual is Gabriel of which we are honoured to
be in the field with. He is the orienter as he knows these mountains inside
out. He conducts the first interviews with families for descriptions of where
the remains might be buried. He then scouts out the geography where he believes
the remains are buried.
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| Anna |
During the
discussion with these three members, we discussed some of the main setbacks which limit them from providing effective and successful support for their community.
In the initiative's infancy, the main question was 'how do you
coordinate and organize people to approach the State when you are hiding in the
mountains with no power or roads?'
The first step was to empower the
communities so that the silence could come to an end. The goal remains to approach
every single form of government in order to show how
important reconciliation work is in order to influence long-term social healing and progress.
To some extent, after the Civil
War, they were able to get access to a military garrison where "our people
were tortured". The organization, comprised of locals no different from their community members they try their best to support, still are waiting for answers from the government.
Especially Civil War cases like this, they wait till all the family members are available to be a part of the uncovering process. As EFI member Juan Carlos reminds us, he had never experienced the trauma of the civil war while coming here as a scientist to do his job. He reminds us that we must never forget that we are all humans.
He says many people including professionals tend to push this aspect out of the way or to separate themselves from the family and the work of uncovering bodies. Even though you are dealing with bones and uncovering remains, you should not think less of these people. This is especially important for the family members you are doing this for. Even though it may be difficult, at first, to work when they may want to be all over the excavation site, you must be understanding, leave time for their prayers or ceremonies, but most of all to work together.
Particular in the remote and rural areas, the interview processes towards a forensic anthropological exhumation with EFI, must take
into consideration the language barriers and language that is lost in
translation. This is the case even for native Spanish speakers because there
are many dialects and Mayan languages. That is why the forensic anthropologists in the field, bring a colour
scale to ensure an accurate description when interviewing
family members for both searching for the unmarked grave location and in identifying the remains. Not only do you need to ensure the right understanding, but you must also ensure cultural sensitivity.
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| Gabriel and Juan Carlos |
They reminded us that governments and aid workers cannot
forget that even when the remains are back to the family, there are scars that
cannot heal unless helped to mend. Initiatives must consider these issues and
thus follow through to the end.
Like Indigenous peoples within Canada, they understand that the root to so much modern violence is the result of undiagnosed and unsupported post-traumatic stress these families continue to suffer with and alcohol as a coping mechanism. They say, that is why initiatives like 'Movimiento deDesarraigados' assist the families till the end; they know the reconciliation process is not set up for actual assistance.
The
organizers emphasize they will be there before to help break the silence, they are
there during to help with documentation and legal process for the
exhumation and to be able to mourn in dignity. They then make sure they are
there after the bodies are found. This is not only because it takes
months if not years to process and get confirmation currently from the Guatemalan government for
small amount of reconciliation fees, but also because there is very little
support or initiatives helping with psycho-social and mental health issues.
Despite what little funds they have themselves, they do not charge families,
while helping assist with transportation to the city offices for documentation
processes.
Fredy says the organization does not care if individuals were in the army, guerrillas, or civil patrollers, they give no favours if they committed crimes even though they cannot deny 97% were ordered by the government.One of the girls on my team asked if this work was their therapy since they've experienced the same trauma.
"Our work makes us stronger, even if we cannot find or take back what happened to our friends and family, we can at least use our emotion to help others," Fredy answered, similarly to Norma and Blanca (refer to previous posts)."We all have experienced loss and trauma."
He uses the example of families affected by the 9/11 Twin Towers
tragedy of people who still cannot find family members, who have
no sense of closure, and are still putting candles at Ground Zero. He adds,
what about the First Nations in Canada and all the missing persons from the
past to today.
Guatemala has made November 1st a commemoration of Day of the Dead, a
day for paying tribute and memory to their deceased loved ones at the cemeteries,
thousands of people have no grave to go to. But if you do not know where they
are buried, the family cannot be at peace. They have had 80-year-old woman
begging them to help find their loved ones so they can have a proper burial for
them before they die themselves.
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| A lost and murdered loved one |
Locating
bodies are always difficult despite clues from interview processes where
witnesses may remember vaguely where the victim was last seen. But
because of so many missing, disappeared and displaced during the Civil War era,
the odds are that victims can be buried anywhere. That is why when citizens
find out that an exhumation is about to take place, the excavators will have a large audience of families, just in case it may be another's family
member.
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| Justice and Genocide |
Fredy says the major
contemporary setback since the international and national community
agreed during the '96 Peace Accord to provide reparations to those who have
suffered and lost members during the Civil War, is that these funds have barely
been seen.
From the 1996 Peace Accord, the international community had set out some 300 million Quetsales
for the National Program of Reparations under the responsibility of the
Guatemalan government. There were supposed to be five major active programs
including the investigation of genocide,
taken land claims, development, housing and hiring psychologists.
Unfortunately, so much of these apparent funds have gone missing says Fredy. What housing
that has been built were discovered by some building inspections that they were
not even proper to live in. Programs are still doing their part and sending
proposals in search of funding, but still the citizen created initiatives are
not seeing any improvement but rather a decline since the 19 years since the
Accord.
If this is
not frustrating enough for those who are already working with no form of payment to
help these victims, the Guatemalan government's existing reparations and
justice application processes are extraordinarily unattainable for those they were
set up for in the first place.
As I now have heard the inside of the
hard-working initiatives of Movimiento de Desarraigados, EFI, INACIF,
FAMDEGUA, and Fundacion Sobrevivientes, they are all struggling continuously
with these unattainable processes. With fee after fee, miles of extra
transportation, limited access and time to assist these victims and their
families, people begin to feel helpless and hopeless.
The Public Ministry and
the National Reparations Program expect monthly reports from these forensic
anthropologists, archaeologists, lawyers, and/or psycho-socialists who are
assisting the families. The extent to which these reports are demanded is
limiting to their work and efforts on further investigation progress, losing
weeks to months, and in cases years need to complete the final stages of the job.
This, in of itself, Freddy and Cristian describe as another form of genocide by
halting the process and making it inaccessible for the victims. By waiting for
these people to die, the government does not have to give out the money. Using
these discouraging methods the victims begin to lose hope, or to just not
bother because they cannot afford the time and money, meanwhile continuing to
live in fear and pain.
I wonder if the international community that involved
themselves do not care to follow through, just how their money and effort is
being spent. Do they ever talk to the individuals and organizations directly
affected?
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| Basta Ya protesting outside Cultural Palace |
Here,
much more so than other countries, it is understood you can buy out crime in
any aspect of life. One of the first things done, is getting out of paying
taxes. No one seems to be able or has the inclination to go after the nationals,
not until the recent establishment by the international community of the
International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala. As mentioned above, the
Guatemalan organizations that I was able to meet with are facing the
consequences of the systemic political corruption, many of their critical
funders are leaving the country, such as Embassy of Holland and next year
Norway, because they are seeing no progress.
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| Karli Zschogner, 2014 |
I had the opportunity in my undergrad to study indicators, the effects of corruption and what the international initiatives have done to promote greater transparency. One of cases within the fifteen former USSR countries where I asked: “With this consideration it was asked, does a perceived high level of corruption of a state also correlate to a loss of freedom of civil liberties for these independent former Soviet states?”
The variables of the Freedom House
Index focus on political rights as an electoral processes, participation, and
functioning of the government, and also civil liberties as surveys of freedom
of expression, organizational right and personal autonomy. The index measures
‘freedom’ of states on a scale from 1 through 7. The scores of perceived
corruption the Transparency Index range from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), and include the
measurement from surveys of perceived legitimacy, petty corruption, bribery
within politics, and the limit on access.
From graphing the scores from these
two databases I confirmed that there is a correlation between the two
variables. In other words, it was found that less civil liberties and political
rights available within a country were present where there is greater perceived
corruption. Where there is higher perceived corruption there is also evidence
that the sense of legitimacy in their government is low and where civil unrest
grows.
Even though it is incredibly useful to compare country cases to grasp a
fuller understanding, you can never fully get accurate, realistic, and useful
findings to put into practice until you factor in all of that country's, history,
culture, geography, values or connections, of which many cannot do unless
having lived in it and among its population for a long time. For example in the
case between Estonia and Uzbekistan, what is evident is that it is almost
impossible to buy foreign currency at the official exchange rate in the banks
of Uzbekistan. This is why the black market was the only available source where
people could acquire foreign currency (Urinboyev; Svensson, 2013, pg. 377).
Maybe then, if it is common in that country for police not to take an investigation into the black market or politicians deal with bribes, it is seen
as normal and therefore citizens will not see any difference and will not
proceed to prevent it.
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| "Justice is like a snake, it only bites the Barefoot" |
From what I
can conclude from the many experts and people who have lived among such
impunity, if you want to combat international corruption and atrocities, you have to internationally hold governments
accountable through monitorization of those who do not respect universal human
rights.
As marked in the 10 stages to genocide, when governments and leaders use their power to tell citizens they must
join one force or die (this includes what we have seen through humanity's
history once we have labeled individuals as enemies as Communists, guerrillas,
homosexuals, terrorists) these are grave warning
signs that the worst indeed is about to happen.
To the international
community, young or old we must act to ensure this force is de-legitimized and
punished. For what I have seen, the worst thing you can do to someone is put
them in a position that jeopardizes their life or their family's if they
refuse to cooperate.
One can use these situations to easily predict mass atrocities where civilians become the perpetrators. You cannot make humans choose between their and their family's life and safety. Fear creates monsters; it the worst psychological torture you can put someone through.
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"Even though I am not coming back to see you Acracia (anarchy) [Democracy] will prevail" |
I guess that is why governments, armed groups and other civilians across the world and across history have used this tactic, as it will quickly disperse their own responsibility, and aligns the justifications for their actions they are about to commit. Just consider the aftermath of the Holocaust, Rwanda, child soldiers, the Cold War, and in this case, the creation of Guatemala's Civil Patrollers forced to capture, murder, and rape their own neighbours.
Before we left, Fredy reminded
us that we were welcome back anytime and welcomes anyone who is interested in
these issues. This is a multidisciplinary issue and therefore important to
have multidisciplinary academic and skill.
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