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CIAO DATE: 12/99
Should we remember?
Dealing with the Past
Reconciliation Processes And Peace-Building
June 8–9, 1998
Guatemala has just ended a 36 year internal war (1960-1996), which caused widespread death and destruction. Unofficial figures are: 150,000 deaths, including over 580 massacres (here defined as more than five killings with an intention of community destruction). 440 villages were destroyed and an extensive destruction of the social weave in the communities has taken place. 50,000 persons were abducted or missing.
Around 1 million people were internally displaced: they either escaped to the mountains, to the rain forest, (so called CPR or Communities of People in Resistance that lived for 10 years in the forest), to the coastal areas or moved to the misery belts in Guatemala city and there are thousands of widows and orphans scattered around the country. Over l00,000 people became external refugees.
Besides the statistics, there is a reality that goes much further in less quantifiable terms, but not less painful and complex: Fear, uncertainty, pain, guilt, grief and frustration. The rupture of individual and community life projects, the destruction of cultural patterns and values. The loss of trust and hope, the division, the confrontation, the silence, the social apathy and a militarization of individual minds and the society.
The most affected areas are located in the northwestern region of the country. The population of these districts are approximately 3.5 million. Most of them are indigenous people, living in the countryside in disperse, small villages with less than 1 000 inhabitants. 11 different Mayan languages are spoken in these areas.
Should we remember?
During the mourning of Bishop Juan Gerardi, an indigenous woman approach me while I was praying and told me: “We have made some reflections about Monsignor’s death: Every time before we plant the seeds of corn, we offer a sacrifice, we pour some chicken blood on the soil so the harvest will be good and healthy.
We know that for those who planned the war it could have been easy to kill Monsignor Gerardi in 1980, along with the tens of thousands of victims of his beloved Dioceses of Quiche. But the road of his life took him through a winding path with a mission: He should prepare the field of truth, of dignity, the voice of those who had died without the chance to defend themselves; a truth and dignity that would come from the people itself We believe that he has accomplished his task, he has planted the seed and moreover, he has offered his own blood to be sure that the harvest of life will be bountiful Now he has joined his people and is ready to enter in Eternity ”
Maybe the wisdom behind the above reflections, coming from simple people, may entitle the importance of the work that the Catholic Church Of Guatemala launched in April 1995 with The Recovery of the Historic Memory Project (REMHI) that led to the Guatemala: Never Again Report. This report describes the Human Rights Violations perpetrated against the civilian population during the period of war, the patterns of violence, its effects, the socio-political context of the war and the list of victims. This initiative was carried out to reinforce a weak “Truth Commission”-like the peace agreement, signed by the army and the Revolutionary forces, as a chance to give the victims a version of the truth.
The whole process took three years. 800 voluntary people gathered 5,180 testimonies, documenting 55,021 victims. This report was presented to the public on 24th of April. On the 26, Monsignor Gerardi, the project general co-ordinator was killed as a clear response to his own words in the REMHI report presentation speech: “To construct the kingdom of love requires to take risks...”
We in the office think that Monsignor Gerardi’s example gives us, not an option, but a commitment to go and seek for the truth and to tell the people that we believe their version of the truth.
Should We Remember?
First of all, it is very important to ask: has any victim forgotten?. Could they ever forget? Secondly we should ask: Who wants to forget?. Who benefits when all the atrocities stay silent in the past? A third statement would be: Is it a problem of remembering or is it a problem of speaking out the victims truth? A problem of breaking down silence and getting back the victim’s dignity?.
I would like to make a last set of questions: Is remembering an end point or is it the beginning of a real reconciliation and peace construction process?.
I should quote Monsignor Gerardi’s words: “knowing the truth may be painful, but it is without any doubt, highly healthy and liberating”.
Repression took away the people’s right to speak and push them to withstand their pain inside. Nobody was able to forget nor to speak. The prevailing speech, “the official truth” that used the media and the rumours as well, provoked a state of confusion at all levels. A testimony gathered by the REMHI project illustrates it better: “During the time (repression during 1982) we were so confused, we could not differentiate day from night, even when the sun was shining before our eyes”
It is a hard to challenge a system that is capable of creating two virtual worlds in the same geographic space: terror and misery in the countryside and a wealthy, indifferent first world- like urban area.
The prevailing speech labelled the victims: “everybody who died in the mountains is a guerrilla, a terrorist, a criminal, an enemy of the country” and the rest of the Guatemalan society accepted it, turned their backs and closed their eyes.
Some of the exhumations of the collective graves carried out by the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala Forensic Team of the massacres performed by both sides in different places in Guatemala, have found near to 20% of human bones belong to children and 15% to women, many of the children found have not yet been born, too young to become terrorist or an army collaborator. No relative was able to cry for his or her dead parents, children, brothers or sisters. Tens of thousands of bodies did not have the chance to have a grave, a mourning, they were killed and left on the ground, just like animals without dignity, without their cultural grieving rites, the grieving processes kept frozen for years. It was even worse for those forced disappeared victim’s relatives.
Then crying was not aloud, dignity was worthless. Guilt was forced into people’s lives and minds as a way of control. Suddenly the victims became guilty. Guilty for being indigenous, for living in the wrong place in the wrong time, or just because they once dreamt about a fair world, a world of justice. Then dreaming became prohibited.
So, let me go back to my previous set of questions: How can anybody remember something that has not forgotten?. How can anybody remember something that never knew? Most of the excuses not to remember say that it must not re open the wounds of the past. I can certainly say, that denying the past will never lead to the closing of wounds. They are there, fresh and painful, unless the society as a whole do something to heal them. “Forgive and forget” is always a tempting stand, often called for by those who had a role to play in the war, but sooner or later it will prove to be useless.
Remembering an end or a starting point?:
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