"Exhuming the Truth about Genocide in Guatemala"
9/4/00

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One of the most extraordinary and ongoing projects that Rights Action funds and supports in Guatemala is the "exhumation process."

Since 1992, Guatemalans --mainly Mayans-- have been digging up mass graves ("clandestine cemeteries"), searching for the remains of their loved ones, massacred in the 1970s and 1980s. Dozens of exhumations have taken place since 1992; there are thousands of mass graves scattered across the country.

The "exhumation process" is a vital phenomena of mental health recovery, individual and community healing, truth telling and justice initiation. This courageous process is motivated by the needs and desires of the surviving victims:

• to give a proper burial to their massacred loved ones;
• to publicly name the names of the victims;
• to publicly tell the truth about who committed the massacres, in this way taking initial steps towards having moral justice done;
• to initiate legal proceedings against the "intellectual" and "material" authors of the massacres;
• to weaken the impunity that exists at the village level throughout much of Guatemala; and
• to build monuments to commemorate the names and lives of the victims.

Rights Action raises funds and sends them to communities for every aspect of the exhumation process:

• petitioning the court for an exhumation;
• community popular education to properly deal with and understand what an emotional undertaking an exhumation is;
• stipends for community activists involved in the exhumation work;
• reburial of the remains with Mayan and Christian ceremonies;
• construction of commemorative monuments;
• the bringing of legal proceedings against the guilty parties.

SANTA MARIA TZEJA

Most recently, a team of forensic anthropologists has been exhuming bodies in the community of Santa Maria Tzeja, located in the Ixcan ('Ish-can') region of northern Quiche. One of the most brutalized regions in the country, the genocide committed in the Ixcan was movingly documented in "Masacres de la Selva" [Massacres in the Jungle] by Ricardo Falla. [Available from EPICA, 202-332-0292, epica@igc.org] Santa Maria Tzeja is one of the communities participating as co-plaintiff in the "genocide case" that has been brought in Guatemalan courts by the CALDH human rights group against the US-backed military government of Lucas Garcia, 1978-1981.

The exhumations taking place in SMT are providing hard evidence of the genocide.

Recently, there have been a series of death threats against SMT community members participating in this case. Moreover, in a suspected act of politically motivated arson, the SMT cooperative was burned to the ground in May, days after the legal case was formally initiated. We reproduce here excerpts of an article written by Ali, an accompanier with the Guatemala Accompaniment Project. [For more information about accompaniment work, contact NISGUA, Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala, 202-518-7638, nisgua@igc.org]

August 28, 2000

Hello SMT friends and supporters,

As many of you know, the family members of the people killed in the 1982 massacre of Santa Maria Tzeja have worked for years to get the necessary legal paperwork and authorization and technical assistance to exhume the remains of their loved ones.

In April, this year, they searched four areas around the community, finding 1 body - Diego Lario's - of the 17 they were hoping to uncover. Disappointed but not dismayed, they applied for an extension of the areas authorized to be exhumed, and are currently in the process of exhuming these places.

So far, this time, they have recovered the cadaver of Vicenta Mendoza, whose body was in the center of the community, behind the cooperative salon, on the hill next to the basketball court. . . . According to those who discovered her after she was killed, her body showed signs of rape.

During the exhumation on Sunday, August 20, . . . community members, from elders to toddlers, watched in reverence and silence as Vicenta emerged piece by piece from the earth. It was a time of immense relief and profound sadness. Relief because she was found, . . . returned; sadness, because here was the truth and the proof of her death. The bones, bits of yarn from her clothing, her tiny figure in pieces against the dirt, all made it real at once that she was completely and utterly gone from this world.

After the forensic anthropologists delicately uncovered her remains, a community catchiest spoke a prayer, giving thanks for finding this woman, asking for peace, and remembering the resurrection of Christ. The anthropologists placed her bones and clothes in bags to be taken to a laboratory in Guatemala City for further forensic examination.

Family members filled in the hole, shoveling in both dirt and the leftover bright yellow "Police Line -- Do Not Cross" tape which had surrounded this crime scene, this death scene, this remembrance scene, this sacred place.

Because 18 years have passed since the massacres took place, because the land was occupied by others in the meantime who planted and changed the appearance of the landscape, because those community members who buried the massacre victims acted rapidly in order to not get caught by the nearby rampaging army, because the survivors fled to Mexico and never thought they would return to Guatemala, much less be able to uncover and respectfully bury their dead, it has been difficult for community members to pinpoint the exact spot of the victims.

The Canil family, together with the exhumation team, community volunteers, middle school and elementary school students, teachers, international delegates and accompaniers, spent 9 days searching for the remains of their 9 family members - all women and children - who were killed. Despite digging close to 200 holes --each one with an area of 1.50 meters by 1 meter, and an average of 70 cm deep -- they did not find the bodies.

However, they found bullet casings, and based on the location of that evidence the survivors now have a better idea of where the bodies might be. It lies outside the authorized area, so they will need to apply for another extension.

I had the privilege to accompany family members as they searched for their loved ones amidst the earth. . . . For the survivors, who dig and recall what happened there, for those who wait to uncover their dismembered yet remembered loved ones, the labor has an added weight, an added charge. It is hard body work, significant soul work.

It is physically and psychologically hard work which holds yet the potential for healing.

The family members of the victims maintain hope and faith that they will be able to find the remains of their loved ones and give them a proper burial, as well as to bring the perpetrators to trial. They are waiting for the closure and the peace of mind which can begin to come to them when their shaken memory can rest with a ceremony of farewell to those torn from them, when they can bring the evidence of this hidden horror to the world and shout for justice.

Please keep the people of Santa María Tzejá in your thoughts and meditations.

Ali.

To help fund the "exhumation process" in Guatemala, and/ or to learn more about it and how to get involved in supporting this work, contact Rights Action.

General information:
info@rightsaction.org
www.rightsaction.org

Canada:
Rights Action (Canada)
Box 73527
509 St. Clair Ave. W.
Toronto ON
Canada, M6C-1C0
Contact: Grahame Russell
T: 416-654-2074
E: grussell@rightsaction.org

Guatemala:
Contacts:
Annie Bird & Kate Robinson
T: [502] 251-9803
T/f: [502] 232-1437
E: partners@guate.net

United States:
Rights Action (US)
1830 Connecticut Av., NW
Washington DC 20009,
USA
T: 202-783-1123
F: 202-483-6730
Contact: Eva Morales
E: emorales@rightsaction.org

Rights Action raises funds for rights-based community development, human rights & humanitarian relief projects in Southern Mexico, Central America & the Caribbean, and educates and advocates in the US & Canada about international development and human rights issues.