"Refugees and Hostages in the Ixcan"

- By Grahame Russell
October 1995

Summary: The author, along with four other internationals, was taken hostage in the Ixcan by civil defense patrollers in June, 1995.

Tuesday, June 27, 6 am: Santa Maria Tzeja Village (Guatemala) 1995

The San Antonio returning refugees spent last night, Monday, June 26, in Santa Maria Tzeja, resting for the final leg of the return to their home community of San Antonio, in the Zona Reina of the Ixcan, in northern Quiche. They have been away close to 14 years, most of that time spent in Mexican refugee camps -- no land, no rights, no future, but of course no massacres.

In the early 1980s hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans, this group from San Antonio among them, fled to southern Mexico, driven from their homes and communities by the massacres and scorched earth military campaigns. Since 1993 many Guatemalans are going home, to their country of apparent contradictions, one being that some Guatemalans don't want them to come home.

The San Antonio refugees began their return over two months ago. But, through threats of violence, the illegal detention of a government official, and the physical blocking of a strategic foot bridge, they were kept out of the Zona Reina by civil defense patrols (PACs), military commissioners, and members of the ARAP-Ksi Association (Association), an organization ostensibly created to help farmers gain title to their lands. In fact the Association has spent much of its time organizing farmers to oppose the return from Mexico of refugees.

These illegal actions were spearheaded by Raul Martinez, founder and president of the Association and the intellectual author of the hostage taking. The PACs, Commissioners and Association have long and apparently strong ties to the Military Base #22 in the Ixcan.

I am one of five international observers accompanying this return. Our role is to observe the human rights situation along the way and be an international presence in hopes of helping to avoid the outbreak of violence. We certainly never thought that we would become victims of Guatemala's ongoing conflict, that we would be taken hostage by the San Antonio civil defense patrols and members of Raul Martinez's Association.

A man, who owns a tiny store by the roof/shelter where the returnees slept in Santa Maria Tzeja, leans on his counter, looking at the San Antonio returnees getting ready to march. "It was in 1982, on February the 14th," he tells me, "that the people fled Santa Maria. The army massacred 13 people the day before."

In 1982 the army carried out massacres throughout much of Guatemala, wiping out over 400 entire communities. Guatemala is known for having the most successful counterinsurgency strategies of any country in the Americas over the past 20 years. Put another way, the government forces of Guatemala have killed more of its own citizens than any other country in the Western Hemisphere.

At 6 am, the San Antonio returnees eat their last meal (tortillas and beans) provided by Santa Maria folks, themselves poor and recently returned from Mexico, before setting out on a 4 hour hike that will probably take 12. Many here are too young to know what lies ahead. Their homecoming? A letter arrived last night from the San Antonio PACs: 'The returnees are not welcome and we have the paths blocked off."

The PACs have been and are a destructive and divisive counterinsurgency military tactic: arm 1,000,000 men in PACs around the country, and use them to control themselves and their communities. Much of Guatemala's countryside is militarized, full of fear and mistrust. The Zona Reina region is no exception. The returnees will walk on anyhow -- in their lives of wait and want, they have few options, and the other ones are no good. Many of the young here are dressed better suited for a night out with friends than hiking to, at best, a hard rural future in the Ixcan jungle. They were brought up in refugee camps in Mexico, and some could travel to and get odd jobs at beach resorts for the wealthy, like Cancun -- luxuries that most Guatemalans will never have, but some will want.

Their parents and grandparents are the ones that most want and need to go home -- there is no other place for them. Some young will stay, some may go. The torn lives of refugees.

A small prayer is said, asking for support along the way and a peaceful entry into their lands, then the 280 people load up their too big loads. They place the youngest children facing backwards on top of their loads, fill their hands with other odds and ends, and slip and slide down the trail.

Footwear: an assortment of rubber boots, soccer shoes, sneakers with holes, flip flops, etc., or nothing at all. No footwear here would meet the standards for an Outward Bound survival course in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains.

I walk at the end of the line, deep in mud like everyone else. The man walking ahead is burdened by two huge bultas (strong bags normally used to transport corn, coffee, etc., to the market) strapped on his back, with rope around his head. One hour into the march, he stops and lets his 2 year old daughter down. Violently ill, she vomits everything. On the muddy trail, in a bit of shade in the jungle, a doctor comes back.

She works with Doctors of the World (France). A small bed is improvised, some curative syrup prepared that the little girl then vomits up. The doctor advises the father to hike his daughter back to Santa Maria Tzeja to rest and let the girl cure. "No. Her mother is on ahead and I have no where to go to back to." That's true.

Half way up the next hill, I almost bump into Paulino, over eighty years old, wheezing and gasping for breath, a huge pack on his back, the rope around his head. He can go no further. His wife sits him down and unloads his pack. To the doctor he slowly says: "Everything I have eaten for eight days I have vomited. I feel weak." He has fatigue and sadness in his eyes.

Having been blocked from returning to their community by the army-backed PACs, the San Antonio returnees stayed in the Cantabal Catholic Church, waiting for the government to solve their situation. The government didn't. The 280 people lived in precarious conditions of shortage and increasing frustration. They knew that one hour down the road, in Veracruz, other returnees have been stranded (no land; no work; houses of wooden posts, dirt floors and plastic sheet walls) for over two years. They couldn't fathom two years in the Church. They saw no other solution than to walk home.

I take Paulino's pack and on we go; he is still too tired. Though I am taller than these men, and look healthy and fit, I realize, rope around my head and the sack in place, that I don't have half the endurance of these men and women, who have been carrying too much weight, too far, all their lives.

A barefoot girl of 4 slips off the end of a muddy log that crosses a small river and bog; splat in the mud. Her father, close behind, weighted with packs and another child, kicks at her. She darts to the side, cowering. Tension and tempers flare on the never-ending trip home. He winces at his reaction and quickly takes her hand. They go on together ... to where armed men await them, up ahead, in San Antonio.

An eight months pregnant woman walks barefoot, huge belly, struggling with two other daughters and a knapsack.

Up another steep, slippery, rocky hill, I follow Paulino, a Chicago Bulls patch on his knapsack. A small but booming industry in Guatemala is second and third hand clothing shipped from the US to Ropa Americana stores around the country. These tienditas are almost the only place where the poor can shop -- traditional Mayan clothing often costs too much.

At a rest site, people collapse exhausted, leaving packs on, resting in the grass, on a log, in the mud. Few get up to walk back and help. Apparently, the community has less to offer than solidarity -- survival is all. Yet survival together, in the harsh conditions of their lives, is the deepest level of solidarity. Usually, when someone slips and falls exhausted in the mud, a round of friendly laughter, hooting and catcalls ripples through the rest.

1 2 3 4