"Impunity, Everyday, Everywhere in Guatemala"

- By Grahame Russell
April 1996

Of the two men who got on the bus, half way between Coban and Guatemala City, one was going to bring back nerve-wracking and troublesome memories for me, though it would take a minute or so to figure all this out.

It was 6:00 am and the sun had just come up red over the mountains of the departments of Alta and Baja Verapaz. As the bus roared down the highway, the two men shuffled and bumped down the aisle to the back. I moved from the center to the window seat, on the left hand side of the bus, to make room.

As they neared, I locked eyes with the second man. Vaguely but surely we recognized one another and I gave him an acknowledging smile. I know this man, but I don't remember from where.

Then, he was standing above me, holding onto the suitcase rack, looking down at me. He is tall for a Mayan Guatemalan - about 6 feet; a high flat forehead, under straight black hair; a long, straight nose. He is very strong looking. I wonder if he works with some human rights organization I have had dealings with.

It then struck me, like the sun that had just risen. My heart began to beat irregularly - it felt constricted. This was the man who orchestrated the hostage taking incident last June (1995) when I, along with four others, was captured by 30 men armed with clubs and machetes in an isolated rural community in the Ixcan region of the Quiche department.

Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead as the man sat down two seats over, in the aisle seat on the right hand of our bus. What was his name? Thankfully the first man sat in the aisle seat I had left vacant. I remember this man, I said to myself over and over again, as I wondered if it could really be him.

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Nine months before, I was working in the Ixcan region as a human rights observer. Along with four other foreigners we had accompanied the original land-owners of the community of San Antonio Tzeja -- SAT -- who were returning home, after living twelve years in exile in southern Mexico. The returnees had negotiated this return with the Guatemalan government. Provisions had been made for the present occupiers of the land to remain.

After the Army's scorched earth military tactics (massacres and full-scale destruction of rural communities) forced the survivors to flee in the 1980s, the Army, with government approbation, brought in other poor, land-less farmers (campesinos) to live on the "abandoned" lands. The Army set up ostensibly "volunteer" civil defense patrols in these communities, demanding and getting allegiance to the Army.

Through this extensive land-heist, the Army orchestrated a poor-versus-poor situation that would come to play itself out years later when the refugees, who had fled the massacres ("abandoned" their lands), decided to go home. The five of us got caught and captured in the middle of one such situation.

It came to me in a flash - his name is Vicente Cu. While working in the Ixcan office of MINUGUA (U.N. human rights observer mission) we had received numerous denunciations from members of the SAT community about how Vicente Cu was using violence and threats against anyone who expressed support for the returning refugees. For years the Army and certain sectors of the government have stated that the refugees are 'guerilla-supporters,' thus inventing and stimulating hatred towards and fear of the returning refugees.

Vicente Cu was (probably still is) the leader of the SAT community civil defense patrollers with strong links to the local military base number 22 in Playa Grande, Ixcan. He sits across from me, staring intently at me, remembering me; he can't place me yet. "Where do I know you from," he asks, as he and I take turns responding to questions from the friendly man who sits between us. "You know who I am," I curtly respond, and look out the window, remembering ..., watching the dusty department of El Progreso pass by.

Vicente is a brutal man. He was in control of the group of SAT men who took us hostage. We had arrived with more than 250 people after hiking two days along the most formidable jungle trails, carrying their worldly possessions on their backs. When we arrived to the edge of SAT, we were met by a group of 15 men who blocked our entry into SAT. Vicente was always walking in behind, taller than the rest, glowering, not saying a word.

Later that afternoon, the five of us walked down the mud path, crossed the foot bridge, and entered SAT to negotiate with the men (armed and gathered at the town's edge to prevent the refugees' entry) as to whether the elderly and infirm returning refugees could spend the night inside the church? The men were adamant, none moreso than Vicente -- "No."

The returning refugees settled here in the early 1970s. With no government support from, landless Mayan farmers had come to the Ixcan and literally carved their community out of the jungle, building a home and life from the ground up. They built the town center, the small-aircraft landing strip, and planted the cardamon seeds that take three years before their first harvest.

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"Where did you work?", he asks, further down the road. "You know where I worked," I answer, hard, and look again out the window. I can't look at him long, as he stares into me. I put on my dark glasses - I can then look at him directly without him seeing that I am looking at him, directly.

I am surprised at my anger and nervousness. During the time of our captivity, he was often quiet, respectful, coming into our bamboo hut and talking, or sitting quietly, just hanging out. There was not much to do in captivity, except wait, stay out of the hot sun, play cards. We were treated quite well.

But I saw Vicente when we were captured, and when he was the force behind the "No", and when he screamed in rage and pushed against the anti-riot police who pathetically tried free us --"No."

I thought: I could cry out 'Stop the bus, arrest this man, he is a civil defense patroller and hostage taker. He beats people, tortures people, threatens people - perhaps he has killed. There are judicial orders for his capture.' I don't. I am scared.

"Who did you work with?" "You know who I worked with. ... You are from SAT, right?" "Yes," he nodded, and then, finally, a knowing look came into his eyes and face.

Travelling down the highway, with Vicente staring at me, I felt, in my own small way, the over-whelming weight of impunity in Guatemala. All across Guatemala, assassins, rapists and torturers walk free, live free, many of whom have benefitted materially and economically from the atrocious use of repression to protect and promote a status quo that benefits a predominantly ladino minority.

All across Guatemala, the surviving victims of the repression see and even deal with on a daily basis the men (soldiers, civil defense patrollers, or thugs linked to the armed forces and wealthy sectors) who tortured, killed or massacred their loved ones.

At the United Nations and in high diplomatic circles of the international community, there is much talk of peace and reconciliation in Guatemala. In these same circles, there is next to no talk of justice; there is little talk of publicly naming the names of the guilty men who committed the atrocities, and profited.

As we neared Guatemala City, I wondered: what is he doing here - coming to commit more crimes, beat up some people? I wondered: Why is he free? I hop off the bus in down-town Guatemala, and stare long after it had taken Vicente away. Though relieved that I was away from him, I knew that I was lucky, while the Guatemalan surviving victims would have to go on seeing, living beside, and dealing with the men who had committed atrocious crimes against them and their loved ones, got away with their crimes, and even profited from them.