Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit: Guatemala Under General Efrain Rios Montt, 1982-1983 0195379640, 9780195379648

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Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit

RELIGION AND GLOBAL POLITICS SERIES SERIES EDITOR John L. Esposito University Professor and Director Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding Georgetown University ISLAMIC LEVIATHAN Islam and the Making of State Power Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr RACHID GHANNOUCHI A Democrat within Islamism Azzam S. Tamimi BALKAN IDOLS Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States Vjekoslav Perica ISLAMIC POLITICAL IDENTITY IN TURKEY M. Hakan Yavuz RELIGION AND POLITICS IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu PIETY AND POLITICS Islamism in Contemporary Malaysia Joseph Chinyong Liow TERROR IN THE LAND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Guatemala under General Efraı´n Rı´os Montt, 1982–1983 Virginia Garrard-Burnett

Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit Guatemala under General Efraı´n Rı´os Montt, 1982–1983

VIRGINIA GARRARD - BURNETT

1 2010

3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

Copyright # 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garrard-Burnett, Virginia, 1957– Terror in the land of the Holy Spirit : Guatemala under General Efraı´n Rı´os Montt, 1982–1983 / by Virginia Garrard-Burnett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-537964-8 1. Rı´os Montt, Efraı´n—Political and social views. 2. Rı´os Montt, Efraı´n—Religion. 3. Guatemala— Politics and government—1945–1985. 4. State-sponsored terrorism—Guatemala—History— 20th century. 5. Political violence—Guatemala—History— 20th century. 6. Mayas—Crimes against—Guatemala—History—20th century. 7. Human rights—Guatemala—History— 20th century. 8. Guatemala—Politics and government—1945–1985. 9. Christianity and politics—Guatemala—History—20th century. 10. Presidents—Guatemala—Biography. I. Title. F1466.5.R56G37 2009 303.60 409728109048—dc22 2009010681

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Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

To John, who has been right alongside me through it all.

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Preface: Some Notes on Appropriateness in the Writing of History

I am not a particular fan of postmodern disclosures of personal subjectivity, but it seems unavoidable here, because the writing of this book is in part my effort to sort through a period of Guatemala’s history that intersected with and in many ways has helped to shape my own life. In making this disclosure, I hasten to add that I do not wish in any way to privilege myself in the writing of this history; this is a story about Guatemala and Guatemalans, and not about the beholder and her own myopic gaze. As Colombian historian Marta Zambrano reminds us, however, there is always a double hermeneutic : “historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnohistorians . . . are subjects of history as much as they are constructors of history, as much as the subjects that they investigate.”1 There is, then, no way to get around the how and the why of my writing a book that for many years I refused to touch because of my long-held conviction that this story was best told by Guatemalans, not North Americans. I embrace it today only because I have come to believe that this dark period in Guatemala’s history needs as much light cast on it as possible, and that light can come from many directions. There is today within Guatemala and outside of it a vigorous and evolving historiographical debate about the nature and meaning of the thirty-six-year struggle. At the time, both the Right and the Left framed the motives behind the war within the construct of revolution and counterinsurgency—that is to say, as part of the ongoing narrative of the Cold War. More recent historiography of the period offers a

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more nuanced view. Much of this work derives from and reflects the analysis of the truth commissions that published their findings in late 1998 and which I explore in more detail in chapter 1. The (2004) two-volume companion study produced by the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamerica (CIRMA) and edited by Arturo Taracena Arriola, Santiago Bastos, and others set the standard for framing our basic understanding of the armed struggle and the counterinsurgency in both geopolitical and ethnic terms.2 The armed struggle, under an ambitious Marxist leadership, sought to overthrow the corrupt and brutal military government. This government represented only the interests of itself, the United States, and the entrenched and rapacious ladino planter class that had governed Guatemala since 1954, when the CIA and local elites had engineered the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz. The government’s response to this threat—which represented not only a political challenge, but also a racial one, was to defeat the popular movements at any cost. The war of counterinsurgency against a communist threat, fueled by racism, disdain, and violence, would eventually escalate into genocide against the Mayan people. Several strands of debate follow from Taracena and Bastos’s basic framework. Greg Grandin and Daniel Wilkinson directly link the roots of rebellion in the 1970s and 1980s to the unfulfilled promises and aspirations of the 1940s and 1950s. In The Last Colonial Massacre (2004), Grandin traces the leadership of the milestone 1978 Panzo´s uprising (in which the Guatemalan military gunned down a group of Q’eqchi’ campesino organizers during a protest to reclaim their land) directly back to the campesino unions that formed, with government support, during the reform of the 1940s. In his 2002 book Silence on the Mountain,3 Wilkinson tracks a similar trajectory in the department of San Marcos, identifying former labor organizers and peasant leaders from the Ten Years of Spring who reemerged from the shadows three decades later to support the armed struggle. These works were among the first to draw a direct line from the aborted hopes and expectations of one revolution to those of the next. A second current of debate is driven largely by the work of social scientists and has a largely presentist orientation. This literature emphasizes the role played by racism and ethnic identity in both the war and the construction of the peace. The emergence of the (political) Mayan movement in the late 1980s, the quincentenary of Columbus’s arrival, and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Rigoberta Menchu´ in 1992 are richly explicated in Diane Nelson’s A Finger in the Wound (1999), which explores the nexus of ethnicity, violence, and the construction of contemporary Guatemalan society in the early 1990s.4 Finally, works by Mayan intellectuals and activists such as Demetrio Cojtı´ Cuxil and Enrique Sam Colop, along with Mayan novelist Gaspar Pedro Gonza´les,

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emphasize the pernicious roles that racism and ladino policies of assimilation played not only in the army’s conduct of counterinsurgency but throughout the “nation’s”—a term that Cojtı´, among others, might reject—history.5 Within this ethnic debate lies another branch of contestation over the agency of the Maya themselves during the war: were they active participants—informed cadres—in the armed struggle, or were they simply innocent victims caught up in a wave of genocidal nationalism? This heated debate has played out in several different venues, but the most passionate discussion emerges from the work of, and reaction to, American anthropologist David Stoll. In two books, Between Two Armies and Rigoberta Menchu´ and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans, Stoll argues that the Maya were, by and large, caught “between two armies,” victims of both the Guatemalan army and the guerrillas who took advantage of them. Nevertheless, Stoll’s work, especially his work on Menchu´, who he argues falsely portrayed herself as a political naı¨f and fabulist in her popular autobiography, was a catalyst for raising again the controversy over agency, of Maya in the war, and also over the role that foreign academics should or should not play in the creation of other people’s national histories and symbols. The fierce criticism that other scholars levied against Stoll for both the tone and the content of his work, much of which is collected in a volume edited by Guatemalan literary theorist Arturo Arias, titled The Rigoberta Menchu´ Controversy (2001), makes it clear that the historiography for this period is still very much under construction.6 It is one of the purposes of this work to pull the focus back from these contentious and presentist arguments for a wider shot of what happened in Guatemala during the Rı´os Montt period. This is not to suggest that these debates are unimportant; to the contrary, they inform this work at every level. But I am seeking to develop a fuller context to understand why the events that took place in Guatemala in the early 1980s unfolded as they did. I wish to reveal competitive narratives of historical memory and the social metaphors that make extreme violence possible. I am interested in the ways that fear, acquiescence, and selfinterest contribute to popular support for bad government. I am concerned with how competing moral discourses can result in what are, subjectively speaking, immoral consequences. Finally, borrowing from James Joyce’s observation that “in the particular is contained the universal,” I want to explore what lessons we can draw from Guatemala’s recent history to better understand what happens when race, class, nationalism, politics, and religion, utopianism, cynicism, messianism, and fear all come together in violent collision.7 I first went to Guatemala as a young and very naive graduate student in 1980. It was only a few months after the Spanish Embassy fire, an event I knew of

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only by having stumbled across something about it in Time magazine. I asked an advisor at Tulane if it was a safe time to go to Guatemala, and he replied, “If you wait for a safe time to go to Guatemala, you’ll never go there,” a reply that was both generally true but also specifically wrong, in that Guatemala in 1980 was in the upswing of an unprecedented and catastrophic cycle of political violence. Having spent a long summer in Lucas-era Guatemala— where I was warned not to go to Guatemala City, out of fear of being shot at a stoplight by armed men on motorcycles (a threat I now recognize as more metaphoric than real)—I returned to New Orleans. Shortly thereafter, the director of the Guatemalan institute where I had taken classes was dramatically forced into exile, along with a history professor who had befriended me; my friend Julio had left by dark of night after the security forces had mistaken another family for his and had killed them—including the young children— in their home. Like many intellectuals, he ended up holding up his end of the revolution from Europe. Back in New Orleans, over the course of the next two years, we would hear rumors of horror and try to piece together what news we could from Guatemala—the 1982 Amnesty International report, the visits from scholars, health workers, teachers, journalists, and activists who had escaped into exile, news of friends and conocidos who had vanished or, worse still, died violently; but in an era predating e-mail and the Internet, reliable information was not easy to obtain. What little we did hear left us both disbelieving and despairing. I returned to Guatemala again in 1983 and continued to live there most of the time through 1984. When I first came back in May 1983, things had changed dramatically. General Efraı´n Rı´os Montt had taken power and was still in office (at least for a few months more); the worst of the violence had already passed and an enforced calm was evident everywhere. On the road between Guatemala City and Antigua, slogans were inscribed in large, white, emphatic letters: “La Nueva Guatemala es Paz y Desarrollo” (the New Guatemala Is Peace and Development); “Otra Obra Ma´s Del Gobierno” (Another Government Work); “La Nueva Guatemala es desarrollo y progreso” (The New Guatemala is development and progress). Rı´os Montt’s blue and white anticorruption posters, portraying a blue hand against a field of white, below which was written: “No robo, no miento, no abuso” (I don’t steal, I don’t lie, I don’t abuse), were ubiquitous in the public places where the government was in control. It was difficult and sometimes impossible to travel to many parts of the highlands, especially those the government still called the “zones of conflict.” Even outside those areas, evidence of what had happened was everywhere, from burned-out buildings, fields, and buses—even along the main tourist artery, the Pan American Highway—to the civil patrols doing drills in every

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municipio, wearing new straw hats supplied by the government and carrying “weapons” (often just machetes or even wood roughly carved to look like a rifle) and spanking-new Guatemalan flags. New evangelical church storefronts competed with the flapping yellow and white banners left over from the March visit of Pope John Paul II. On one ill-advised trip with friends to Panajachel in August 1983, we passed a civil patrol that had just killed a man; they had impaled his body on their flagpole and hung him out on display, right on the edge of the Pan American Highway. We arrived in Panajachel, the tourist mecca, to find that we were the only visitors in town save for a family of Salvadorans who had unwisely thought that Guatemala might provide a temporary respite from their own war. At the end of Calle Santander, the street still lined with shops and booths chock full of faded, unpurchased tı´pica, a camouflaged soldier was stationed in a machine-gun nest surrounded by sandbags. A few blocks away, the Hotel del Lago, once the town’s most elegant inn, stood in ruins, a large blackened crater marking the place where the guerrillas had reportedly planted a large bomb. Not even the Instituto Guatemalteco de Turismo’s most picturesque and theme park–like village had escaped, and this was not the worst of it by far. Most striking during this period were the people we met—thin and haunted women; a few men; dirty, runny-nosed, and sickly children; women trying to nurse famished babies at desiccated breasts. Many bore the look of bewilderment, shock, and disbelief that I recognized from a time in my childhood when a tornado had touched down close enough to our house to suck some of our possessions out of the doors and windows, but then capriciously jumped away to kill our neighbors a few blocks away. Numbed into silence by fear and trauma, people were attempting to reconstruct their lives, but their own muteness was overshadowed by the larger official silences. Information was scanty, erratic, and astonishingly contradictory: The communist insurgents had forced the government’s hand. A scorched-earth campaign had taken place to root out subversion. The government had reclaimed an active presence in the highlands, and was doing good works and public action to help people recover from the horrendous acts of violence that had recently been perpetrated by . . . well, whom? This official discourse—gleaned from media coverage, official pronouncements, and general chisme (rumor)—ran something like this: The subversion itself was really quite small and ineffective, made up largely of foreigners, especially Cubans, who had no idea of Guatemala’s reality and who were widely distrusted by the “Indians.” Or the guerrillas had gained so much support among the Indians that they threatened to overthrow the government

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and put a Cuban-style communist government in its place; only a counterinsurgency as brutal and effective as the one in 1982–1983 could defeat them once and for all. Or the people’s victory was just within reach. Or the Indians were so locally oriented, insular, and hostile to outsiders that they would never succumb to the guerrillas’ promises. Or the guerrillas controlled no territory; the guerrillas controlled most of the highlands. Or the Indians supported the guerrillas, but only due to coercion and duress. Or the indigenous were true revolutionaries, and their full incorporation into the popular movement represented an overwhelming threat to the Guatemalan army and to the national security state. Or most of the guerrillas were actually Cubans, Nicaraguans, Indians, ladinos, Coca-Cola workers; compared to El Salvador, actually there really weren’t very many guerrillas at all and they didn’t represent a real threat, but they were going to take over the country if something drastic wasn’t done. And what of the counterinsurgency? Here too were many versions, some mirror inversions of others: The military campaign’s brutality caused the deaths of many innocent people, especially indigenous people, who had the misfortune to be “caught between two fires,” the army and the guerrillas. Or the military strategy “drained the sea in which the fish swam” so effectively that the ocean of subversion in Guatemala was at last run dry, to the benefit of all—the solucio´n guatemalteca. Or there were no massacres of civilians, only the killing of guerrillas. The sign painted on the mountainside read “OTRA OBRA MA´S DEL GOBIERNO.” Promise or threat? Or the Guatemalan army was incapable of violating human rights, although the Special Forces—Kaibiles— took such great pride in being trained killers that they dismembered live chickens on television. Or most of the human rights violations took place under Lucas, not Rı´os Montt. Painted on a billboard: “La nueva Guatemala es paz y desarrollo.” A variation on this theme: charges of human rights violations were the product of solidarity groups and other leftists who wanted to desprestigiar (take prestige from) Guatemala in order to bring about a Marxist victory. And who was this General Rı´os Montt? Rı´os Montt was a righteous man of God who stood for honesty and morality. Or Rı´os Montt was a wild-eyed religious fanatic who didn’t have any idea what was going on in the countryside. Or Rı´os Montt was a skilled military commander who brought order and an end to violence in the highlands. Rı´os Montt was a mass murderer. Rı´os Montt was a pawn of the United States. At least he was better than Lucas. And so on. Still louder than the rumors were the silences, holes in time and space. In the early 1980s, people rarely spoke openly of what they had seen and heard; the term la violencia was never uttered, though people would sometimes speak quietly of la situacio´n. I at first attributed the great silences to people’s

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understandable unwillingness to confide in a stranger, or to an inability to communicate dangerous and intimate information in a language—Spanish— that was not native, often to either of us. I also thought at first that silence might be a matter of misplaced deference, a long-established habit of distance and filtering that has served generations of subaltern people. All this, probably, was true: silence can also be a form of communication. I still believe that silence, to a great extent, is a tactic of survival: as Linda Green has noted in her study of Mayan widows, “apparent Maya obsequiousness has served as a shield to provide distance and has also been a powerful shaper of Maya practice.” But Green also makes a careful distinction between silence and silencing, the transitive form of making-silent. She writes, “Silence can operate as a survival strategy; yet silencing is a powerful mechanism of control through fear.” Borrowing from Marcelo Suarez-Orozco’s work on Argentina, she adds a cautionary note that has special resonance for the historian: “Silence imposed through terror [became] the idiom of social consensus in the altiplano.”8 The shifting sands of rumors, disinformation, misinformation, wishful thinking, self-delusion, and lies make the production of history for this period unusually difficult; when our colleagues caution against “positivist” linear narratives, one wonders if such a thing could even be possible. Nevertheless, Guatemalans have, over the past decade, found it important to try to come to grips with this history. The “recuperation of the historic memory,” a phrase used by the Catholic Church’s truth report from the Recovery of Historical Memory Project, describes the process by which activists, politicians, scholars, and, especially, public intellectuals from both the Mayan and non-Mayan community have attempted to construct an acceptable framework through which they can capture and contextualize the past and use that to construct a better future9—to consciously construct the kind of “imagined community” that Benedict Anderson famously described.10 But they, along with all Guatemalans, and in fact all who deal with history, must also come to grips with what Freud called Nachtra¨glichkeit (afterwardness)—a consciousness that memory, as it functions in the present, must inevitably also incorporate some sense of “what we didn’t know at the time” and the guilt that goes along with that knowledge.11 Thanks to the work of two separate truth commissions and to the rich scholarly gaze that has been cast upon it, at this moment in Guatemala there is currently something resembling a consensus on a historic memory of the early 1980s. In the public intellectual forum, this consensus centers on racism and genocide as the point of departure for understanding the nature of state violence and for establishing a common base on which to (re)build civil society.

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Since the end of the civil war in December 1996 and the repatriation of many leading intellectuals, perhaps because of the high visibility of the Mayan movement in the 1990s, Guatemala has been surprisingly open to entertaining the kinds of “tertiary discourses” that subaltern theoretician Ranajit Guha describes as a “[leftist and subaltern] literature [that is] distinguished by its efforts to break away from the code of counterinsurgency.”12 In this reading, the voice of the subaltern (here the Mayan voice) takes precedence over elite historicist readings that emphasize basic economic and political factors.13 As time goes on, proximate memory recedes, and different political agendas arise, however, this view may eventually give way to another; in fact, it may be changing even now. Drawing from the work of Walter Benjamin, Sergio Tischler Visquerra writes of history as a “critical constellation,” in which antagonists construct history, producing a “negative” or “against the grain” (contrapelo) history based on each one’s perceptions of oppression by another.14 Because the political violence in Guatemala was so prolonged and so virulent (and so enduring, as political violence has given way to even more pervasive “common” violence), the polysemic strands of historic memory of the years of armed struggle remain tendentious and strained: it is not merely a binary contest between the narratives of antagonists, but the multiple historic memories of people— powerful and powerless alike—whose lives touched the violence. In postconflict Guatemala as elsewhere, social actors seek to rationalize and make logical the events that make up their own lives and those of their communities. In so doing, they work within a milieu of memory that the theorist Pierre Nora has defined as “subjective, often emotionally charged or flawed, [with an] awareness of a still-present past that emerges within a community, of an environment of identity and experience.”15 It is little wonder, then, that varied and even conflicting narratives emerge. Steve J. Stern, in his trilogy Chile under Pinochet (a setting not completely unlike Guatemala under the rule of the generals), elaborates on this process: “The point of . . . historical research becomes not only to establish the factual truth or falsehood of events . . . but also to understand what social truths or processes led people to tell their stories the way they do, in recognizable patterns.”16 Given that it is the historian’s task to try to derive some order from these diverse patterns, Stern suggests the image of a “memory box” as a way in which selective and competing memories and historical narratives can give meaning to and eventually find legitimacy within a traumatic community past. Stern describes this metaphorically as a “giant, collectively-built memory chest . . . that is foundational to the community, not marginal; it sits in the living room, not the attic.” He writes: “It contains several competing

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scripted albums, each of them works in progress that seek to define and give shape to a crucial turning point in life. . . . The memory chest is a precious box to which people are drawn, to which they add or rearrange pictures and scripts, and about which they quarrel or even scuffle.”17 The metaphor of the memory box helpfully points us away from the binary and antagonistic readings that often cloud recent history; it also offers a way to deal with the epistemological detritus that Stern calls “loose memories”— factual tidbits, rumors, personal animosities, scandals—that do not fit into tidy historical narratives. However, the complexity of historic memory—comprising not only the kinds of “artifacts” that fill a memory box but also the dark matter of silence, olvidio (forgetting), and oblivion (the opposite of remembering, but also part of it)—suggests many other metaphors as well. A better image, at least in this case, might be Indra’s net—the image in Buddhist philosophy of a celestial net with a jewel at each vortex, each of which reflects every other jewel in the net. History can be thought of as made up of disaggregated “jewels” that exist separately but which are also radically interconnected, since the whole is implied or contained in each part.18 This is not to suggest that every memory or interpretation carries, or even deserves, equal value or consideration—they do not—but simply that each interpretation is affected by and reflected in the others. This work, then, promises to be neither positivist nor definitive, but it attempts to cast history’s net over the 1982–1983 period. An insufficient note of acknowledgment and thanks to all those who helped guide me through the early 1980s and in the writing of this book. I have received financial and moral support for this project from several organizations, especially the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas, which has provided me with Mellon, Title VI, and Houston fellowship funds to support my research, and to the University of Texas Department of History for the gift of time to work on this. At Oxford University Press, special thanks to Cynthia Read, and also to Andrew Chesnut for pointing me in her direction. My heartfelt thanks go to all the people who asked that their names not be used but who were willing to talk to me even when their voices were shaking. In no particular order but with great gratitude I would like to thank Chris Lutz, Julio Castellanos Cambranes, Ralph Lee Woodward Jr., Francisco Goldman, Jean-Marie Simon, Dennis Smith, Antonio Otzoy, Matt Sampson, John Watanabe, Arturo Arias, Charlie Hale, Marı´a Elena Martin, Arturo Taracena, Marı´a Rosenda Camey, Irma Otzoy, Rick and Betty Adams, Albertina Pop, Bruce Calder, Bill Malone, Greg Grandin, Paul Kobrak, Peter Hubble, Kate Doyle, Anne Dibble, Adriana Dingman, Ann Twinam, Rau´l Madrid, Nicolas Shumway, Alan Tully, Mark Lawrence, and my anonymous

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readers. Above all, I would like to thank David Stoll, who graciously shared his rich trove of Rı´os Montt files with me. To those who are no longer with us to read this note of thanks: Anson Ng, Bob Rosenhouse, Bill Swezy, and Barbara Ford. Special thanks to my former and current students who have helped in a variety of ways with this project: Alejandra Batres Granados, Patrick Timmons, Bonar Herna´ndez, Susana Kaiser, Guy Lawson, Paula Winch, Garry Sparks, David Lauderback, Mauricio Pajo´n, Sam Frazier, Creighton Chandler, Cheasty Miller, and Marı´a Vela´squez-Aguilar. Special love and thanks also go to my parents, James W. and Mary Ida (Mib) Garrard, who trusted me enough to let me to go to a dangerous place even though I was very young. A penultimate word of thanks to my children, Willie, Grant, and Helen, for being the lights of my life as I have been writing about a very dark time. Last but decidedly not least, my love and thanks to John, who has been close by my side, at least in spirit, through it all. The responsibility for this book, for better or worse, is, of course, entirely my own.

Contents

1. Rı´os Montt Earns His Place in the History Books: Debates about la Violencia, 3 2. Guatemala’s Descent into Violence, 23 3. Rı´os Montt and the New Guatemala, 53 4. Terror, 85 5. “Los Que Matan en el Nombre de Dios”: Rı´os Montt and the Religious Question, 113 6. Blind Eyes and Willful Ignorance: U.S. Foreign Policy, Media, and Foreign Evangelicals, 145 Epilogue, 167 Notes, 179 Bibliography, 233 Index, 255

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Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit

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1 Rı´os Montt Earns His Place in the History Books Debates about la Violencia

El Silencio Guardare´ silencio Para escucharte . . . Pero No hable´s Para callarme. —Humberto Ak’abal, Raqonchi’aj, Grito

General Jose´ Efraı´n Rı´os Montt was Guatemala’s first Pentecostal chief of state, an enigmatic and paradoxical figure who simultaneously spoke of bringing both God’s love and scorched earth to the countryside without apparent contradiction. Rı´os Montt served as Guatemala’s head of state for seventeen tumultuous months in 1982–1983, a period now known in Guatemalan history as la violencia, although it was spoken of at the time, if at all, in hushed tones, simply as la situacio´n. This sobriquet places Rı´os Montt’s administration at the core, the violent and bloody nadir, of the nation’s thirty-six-year struggle between a leftist armed insurgency and the Guatemalan military government, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. The violence of the early 1980s places Guatemala squarely in the company of nations that in the twentieth century purposefully did great harm to their own citizens in order to “save” the state and its interests from a hostile ideology that seemed to, or in fact did, threaten its demise. Historians of the future may well come to define the twentieth

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century by the number and scope of its genocides—a neologism coined, appropriately, in midcentury to describe a government’s killing of its own people on a massive scale. If so, the Rı´os Montt administration by all rights has, as the cliche´ goes, earned its place in the history books.

Recovering the Historic Memory The signing of peace accords in December 1996 finally brought an end to Guatemala’s civil war, an asymmetrical struggle that stands out even by the sanguinary standards of the late twentieth century for its efficient use of state terror and its disproportionate deployment of violence against noncombatants. Since that time, Guatemala, confronted by the findings of two separate truth commissions and the demands of a variety of political and social movements, has been forced to begin to come to grips with—even to reconceptualize—its own contemporary history, a process that the Catholic Church’s truth commission called the “recuperation of the historic memory.” This process places history at the center of the (re)construction of civil society, and is mindful of theologian Jon Sobrino’s indictment that “there are millions who do not utter a word, and we know nothing of how they live or how they die. We do not know their names or even their exact number.”1 By recovering names and events and placing them within a new historical narrative, Guatemala is engaging in what historian Robert Moeller has called (in reference to Germany) a “search for a usable past,” by which the nation can wrest some kind of meaning out of its national trauma and move forward into a better and more just future.2 The construction of nationality through the writing of history has been a key task of historians since at least the nineteenth century, but the creation of a new national narrative is especially crucial in a country seeking to make a clean break with a recent and deeply traumatic past.3 There is no mistaking that the process of recuperating history is as much political as it is academic or juridical, as it assigns guilt and innocence and tries to recover and resignify names, places, and events that earlier regimes had attempted to erase from the public record and personal memory. As Martha Minow notes, the process of reconstructing traumatic history, especially through truth commissions is important for “confirming what some had suspected and what others had refused to believe.”4 William Beezley and David Lorey, writing about truth commissions in general, point out that as society moves from war to peace, a truth commission functions on three levels: (1) personal catharsis, (2) moral reconstruction, and (3) political action to placate trauma.5 The purpose of truth commissions is, precisely, not to exact vengeance

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to punish perpetrators and wrongdoers, but rather to build a new narrative based on national reconciliation. As Greg Grandin and Thomas Klubock note in their recent work, “The imperative to build forgiveness and reconciliation translated individual modes of working through trauma to the national social and political sphere in the name of building social and political consensus. In the end, the focus on specific cases, individual victims, and individual perpetrators abets the slippery move from individual experiences of trauma and healing to social structure and political process.”6 In the words of the report from the Catholic Church’s Recovery of Historical Memory Project (REMHI), “Historical memory has an important role to play in dismantling the mechanism that made state terrorism possible and in exposing the role terrorism plays in an exclusive political and economic system. . . . The distortion of events and of accountability for them elevates the risk that ways will be found to legitimize the instigators of the war, placing Guatemala’s future in grave jeopardy.”7 One must bear in mind that in this process there is no such thing as “neutral” knowledge, although actual facts do exist (dates, events, and persons—though even these sorts of data are not always hard and indisputable). It is the interpretation of these facts as we understand them that makes the creation of a common history a consummately political task; it requires that activists, historians, and other national mythmakers privilege certain types of knowledge and interpretations and downplay or even exclude others outright. It is within this framework that truth projects create a new official memory (history) for the decades of war, the new imaginaire (imaginary)—a common, collective, but also self-consciously constructed vision—for postconflict Guatemala.

The Truth Commission Reports One of the immediate tasks that faced Guatemala after the signing of the peace accords was the development of a truth commission to sort out the facts of the long armed struggle. In 1998, the nation received extensive reports from two truth commissions, one known as the Comisio´n para el Esclarecimiento Histo´rico (CEH), and the other, created by the Catholic Archdiocese of Guatemala, known as the Proyecto Interdiociano de Recuperacio´n de la Memo´ria Histo´rica (REMHI).8 The two truth reports differ slightly in tone, in interpretation, and in their statistics: REMHI, for example, records that 422 massacres took place during the armed conflict, while CEH counts 626 massacres, a significant difference that one may attribute to differing methodologies and confusion in place names that may have resulted in either the overcounting or

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undercounting of massacre reports.9 While the two reports vary somewhat in focus and analysis, the conclusions of both are firm: the military committed the vast majority of the human rights violations that took place over the course of the thirty-six-year conflict. There is also clear, documented evidence of guerrilla-directed violence, particularly in the matter of targeted assassinations, but the violence that occurred during the armed conflict was overwhelmingly lopsided: REMHI found the state responsible for 83 percent of the killings, while CEH charged the state with slightly more than 90 percent of the killings that occurred over the three and a half decades of armed conflict. A preponderance of these violations took place in the early 1980s, reaching a pinnacle in 1982.10 Both projects unequivocally lay responsibility at the feet of Rı´os Montt and his military planners. These are the ones, the commissions charge, who executed the scorched-earth campaign (tierra arrasada) that left hundreds of thousands of Guatemalan citizens dead, exiled, or emotionally maimed, and came close to destroying one of the world’s great native cultures.

Building a History for Civil Society Within this new historical narrative—which demands villains as well as heroes—lies the question of the role of Rı´os Montt and his culpability in the brutal counterinsurgency campaign against the Marxist guerrilla groups that took place on his watch. There is little question that the most extensive statesponsored political violence occurred during his presidency from 1982 to 1983. Some estimates suggest that within the seventeen-month period of Rı´os Montt’s rule, the military launched actions against some 4,000 villages and drove 1,200,000 people into either internal or external exile.11 According to the two truth commissions, more than 200,000 people died in political violence over the course of the thirty-six-year war, the vast majority, upward of 90 percent, by all accounts at the hands of the security forces—the army, special forces, and civil patrols; of this grim total, according to CEH, 43 percent died during Rı´os Montt’s seventeen months in office.12 Despite the foregoing recitation of statistics, it is important not to lionize the precise numbers that come out of the truth commission reports. The figure of 200,000 is an estimate,13 based on an extrapolation of clearly and definitively documented specific cases of human rights abuses which, when used alone, may (or may not) understate the number of people “disappeared” and massacred in unreported or underreported, or even unremembered

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events.14 If the figure 200,000 is correct, this would mean that somewhere close to 86,000 people died during Rı´os Montt’s tenure, an astonishing total not (yet?) borne out by forensic excavations of mass burial sites but which, at least, lends symbolic ballast to the charge that large, perhaps incalculable, numbers died at the hands of the regime.15

The Mayan Holocaust Of those killed in the early 1980s, the majority—the truth commissions estimate upward of 80 percent—were Mayan, a fact that sharply distinguishes this period from earlier phases of the armed conflict, when the war’s victims tended to be ladino (nonindigenous): campesinos, trade unionists, students, reformist politicians, and the military’s conscripted foot soldiers.16 The sharp focus of violence on Mayan people during the early 1980s has given rise to the phrase “the Mayan holocaust.” This refers not only to the loss of Mayan lives, but also the loss of culture that resulted from the political violence, as rural Maya exchanged their indigenous identity for that of poor ladinos in order to live in relative anonymity in Guatemala’s cities. Tens of thousands fled to refuge in Mexico, elsewhere in Central America, and to the United States, where they assumed new conflated and hybridized identities as Guatemalans (a self-identification that many indigenous people only embraced in exile) or, more broadly, Latinos, Hispanics, or even, in U.S. immigration courts, OTMs—Other Than Mexicans. The counterinsurgency campaign of the early 1980s was the worst calamity to befall Mayan life and culture in Guatemala since the sixteenth-century Spanish conquest. So invasive was the assault on Mayan lives and culture during this period that one elderly Mayan woman referred to it as desencarnacio´n, the loss of flesh, or loss of being—an antonym of “incarnation.”17 Data on human rights violations are more difficult to collect than one might expect: in addition to official efforts to repress information and people’s understandable fear and reticence about offering witness and survivor’s testimony about traumatic events, even reports on specific cases can be redundant, inaccurate, and incomplete. The International Center for Human Rights Investigations (CIIDH), a group that supports investigations into genocide and human rights violations in many parts of the world, has compiled a third set of data on human rights violations during the armed conflict and contributed to the CEH report. CIIDH collected 10,000 cases for review from newspapers, 4,000 from additional documentary sources, and 5,000 oral testimonies.

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Noting the difficulty of collecting accurate accounts of human rights violations, CIIDH reports that sometimes “the same violation . . . appears in different sources,” while “different mass killing might be mentioned by various witnesses in a human rights denunciation, all of which give differing information about the names and numbers of victims or about the violations committed on those victims.” With additional layers of analysis built in to compensate for these weaknesses, the CIIDH determined that its database was “unlikely to exceed” a 2–3 percent margin of error for any given count of human rights violations that it collected for the entire duration of the armed conflict, although data were more abundant and perhaps more reliable for information gathered about the war’s most recent decades.18 The CIIDH found data for targeted killings and disappearances to be most trustworthy, particularly for high-profile victims whose disappearances or deaths tended to be wellchronicled and easily verified in the public record.19 The collection of data was further complicated by the classification of acts of violence, but even more so by the problematic distinction between victims and perpetrators. REMHI framed this dilemma in a series of questions posed by its own informants: “‘In what category does being forced to kill one’s own brother fall?’ (Chiche, 1983). ‘What concept should be applied to public ceremonies where everyone is obligated to beat the victim over the head with a stick until he dies?’ (Chichupac, 1982).”20 Such questions lay bare the many ambiguities of information obtained from testimonials, as self-justification, shame, guilt, trauma, and self-interest reconfigure individual and community memory. Despite the inherent difficulty in collecting such freighted data, the REMHI and CEH reports offer an almost incomprehensible litany of horrors. Because so much of Guatemala’s large-scale political violence—that is, the systematic destruction of lives and property—took place during the Rı´os Montt regime, many, although certainly not all, of the testimonies of eyewitnesses come from that period of the early 1980s. Together, the two major truth commissions offer up data and survivor testimony for more than 37,000 witnesses to the political violence—victims and “victimizers” (victima´rios) alike offer their recollections of unthinkable events with an immediacy that only eyewitnesses can provide.

Voices, Memory, and Silence In an article on the politics of memory, anthropologist Charles R. Hale underscores the admonitions of subaltern studies theorists,21 as he strongly urges us

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to listen to indigenous voices, while literary theorist Arturo Arias cautions against “First World scholars speaking in the name of the subaltern subject.”22 These are important concerns, but I have decided against trying to reproduce the testimonies of the truth commissions. The retelling of violent acts can quickly degenerate into a type of pornography, as sympathetic readers are unwittingly transformed into voyeurs. For the most part, I do not attempt to record such acts here, except by way of illustration—a young mother’s realization that the warm sensation down her back is the life’s blood of her infant, shot dead in its blanket; a seven-year-old girl, watching her parents die as she herself is raped by soldiers; the screams of an entire congregation as they are burned alive in their church; the husbands, sons, and brothers taken away by the army, only to reappear decades later in unmarked mass graves, identifiable only by rubber work boots and other modest personal effects; a widow’s plaintive remark, “I was left like a bird on dry branches.”23 Such stories, multiplied by the hundreds, constitute a haunting litany of calamity, summoning fundamental questions, questions that have also emerged in the aftermath of other historic tragedies in which governments have killed, or allowed the killing of, large numbers of their own citizens: Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda—How could these things happen, and to what end? In the Guatemalan context these kinds of questions are relatively new, the product of the people’s efforts to “recuperate history” and to make accountable those who brought such grief and suffering to their country. As we have noted, such a process is political, but it is also psychological; it is one way in which a society attempts to recover from its historical pathology. The process, while painful, is also catharsis; as Frederick Crews notes, “the very idea of repression and its unraveling is an embryonic romance about a hidden mystery, an arduous journal, and a gratifying neat denouement that can ascribe our . . . pains to deep necessity.”24

Rı´os Montt as Popular Hero In Guatemala, the process is all the more difficult because until quite recently Rı´os Montt was a popular political figure for many who considered him the embodiment of honesty, law and order, and national integrity25—a formula that political scientist Edelberto Torres-Rivas has described as “una visio´n liberal pervertida” (a perversion of the liberal vision) but also, perhaps, a consummate expression of that vision.26 Rı´os Montt’s support came not only from predictable sectors—the conservative urban middle and upper classes— but also from many rural indigenous people, including, astoundingly, many

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who lived in areas most affected by the scorched-earth campaigns of 1982– 1983. This support is clear in the public opinion polls taken by credible international pollsters (such as Gallup) around the presidential contests of the late 1980s and later. In a country like Guatemala where freedom of expression has been absent for decades, public opinion polls are probably not as reliable as they would be in places where people are not afraid to speak their minds. Even so, such polls reveal a remarkable level of support for the General in the years following his rule. Though the 1985 Guatemalan Constitution specifically prohibited former leaders who had taken power in a coup d’e´tat from running for office (a stipulation that the 1984–1985 Constitutional Assembly drafted with Rı´os Montt specifically in mind), the General handily led in popularity polls during presidential campaigning throughout the 1980s and 1990s. A 1989 survey— taken just before the second presidential election to follow military rule— posed the question, “For whom would you vote if the elections were held today?” Rı´os Montt won handily, even though he was not even a candidate for president.27 The explanation, perhaps, lay in the “presidential ideals” that Guatemalans seem to have believed he embodied. Another survey around the same election identified in descending order of preference the most desirable characteristics that Guatemalans at that time sought in a freely elected president: “honorable, honest,” “responsible,” “lives up to promises,” and “a hard worker.”28 As we shall see, these are the very characteristics with which Rı´os Montt branded himself throughout his presidency in 1982–1983. He also ensured that his political surrogates won the presidency at regular intervals. Rı´osmonttistas of one stripe or another claimed the nation’s highest office in 1990, 1995, and 1999. In the 1995 election, the Frente Republicano Guatemalteco, the political party formed by the General, claimed a majority of votes in nearly every single department where the violence during his administration had been the worst: Alta and Baja Verapaz, Huehuetenango, San Marcos, and, especially, El Quiche´, where the party won over 21,000 of the 37,000 valid votes cast in the election.29 In the 1999 race, just before the election, polls showed that Rı´os Montt, still not a legal candidate for office, enjoyed the support of at least 50 percent of the voters in the zones of conflict where presumably among his supporters were both witnesses to and even survivors of the massacres that had taken place under his administration.30 One observer has referred to this as Rı´os Montt’s “amazing ability to pluck the strings of moral economy,” but it is also an illustration of the highly selective nature of memory.31 It is a testament either to the enduring power of fear or the power of alternative discourses of reality that during the late 1980s and the early 1990s

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many indigenous informants who spoke with pollsters, human rights workers, and visiting anthropologists showered Rı´os Montt with encomiums, describing him as a visionary leader, a champion of law and order, and a messenger of hope in the midst of despair. More than a few indigenous survivors spoke of the Rı´os Montt era as one in which the nature of the violence changed for the better. Anthropologist Paul Kobrak’s work on Huehuetenango, among others, illustrates this line of thinking. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Kobrak writes that many huehuetecos continue to “think that Lucas Garcı´a [Rı´os Montt’s predecessor] is responsible for the massacres of 1982, that Rı´os Montt put an end to the violence or was only following Lucas’ plan.”32 The CIIDH report concurs, noting that “many rural people . . . view the Rı´os Montt coup d’etat as an historical turning point, rather than a continuation of state terror as data for the whole country would suggest.”33 David Stoll, an anthropologist who worked in the ravaged Ixil area in the early 1980s, suggests that “what counts is a critical difference: . . . Rı´os Montt replaced chaotic terror with a more predictable set of rewards and punishments, that is, what passes for law and order under the country’s normal level of repression.”34 He recounts the telling solecism of an Ixil man in Nebaj who misidentified Rı´os Montt’s 1982 ley de Amnistı´a (amnesty law) as the ley de Amistad (friendship law).35 Another Ixil health promoter defended Rı´os Montt against charges of massacres, crying out, “Lies, lies! If it weren’t for Rı´os Montt, we would all have disappeared! Before there were killers on the corner and you couldn’t go out because they would kill you. But Rı´os Montt took away all of that.”36 As recently as 2000, survivors living in the Uspanta´n area, a zone that once vigorously supported the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (Ejercito Guerrillero de los Pobres, EGP) and which suffered greatly in the armed conflict, still shared this perspective: “What we saw is that when Rı´os Montt came in the thing calmed down [la cosa se calma], and then we started to feel calmer, more tranquil. . . .You could always see a change.”37 Not until July 15, 2003, when Rı´os Montt (after he was discredited not only on the grounds of human rights violations but also because of the rampant corruption of his political cronies) made his final bid for legal election to the presidency, did it become clear that the General had begun to lose not only his popularity, but also his heretofore unchallenged claim to moral rectitude. On that day, Rı´os Montt made a campaign stop in his bid for president in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, a municipality that had suffered fierce retribution during the counterinsurgency campaign of the early 1980s. There, angry villagers greeted Rı´os Montt with a shower of stones and shouts of “¡Culpable!” (Guilty!) At that, the discourse of acquiescence began to evaporate.38

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People’s earlier responses and their enduring apparent support of Rı´os Montt, at least until quite recently, bears examination. The methodological challenges are obvious—there is surely no better example of Foucault’s Panopticon than a people who are living under the authority of a state that considers them to be “internal enemies,” as the Guatemalan state once defined the indigenous population.39 The question is complicated by issues of coercion and compliance, which, as James Scott has noted, are conditions that occur largely when “elites control the ‘ideological sectors’ of society . . . and can thereby engineer consent for their rule. By creating and disseminating a universe of discourse and the concepts to go with it, by defining the standards of what is true, beautiful, moral, fair and legitimate, they build a symbolic climate that prevents subordinate classes from thinking their way free” (emphasis mine).40 The Rı´os Montt military government’s ability to manipulate images and information, create new social constructions of “reality,” and, above all, its deft use of terror—threatened, deployed, or withdrawn—not only engineered consent for its rule, but in some sectors even generated outright enthusiasm for the regime. The internal logic of Rı´os Montt’s symbolic “moral climate” influenced even those who lived in what the army called zones of conflict. Many people whom his government’s policies affected directly, even those who had lost family or livelihood, were nonetheless willing to entertain the notion that Rı´os Montt offered some sort of coherent moral vision of safety and order. The CIIDH report suggests that, “unlike the Lucas government, Rı´os Montt offered peasants a way out of the uncertainty of the army-guerrilla conflict.”41 Sheldon Annis, a cultural geographer who worked in Guatemala in the early 1980s, notes that Guatemala’s armed conflict was always a psychological as well as a military struggle. “Beyond merely wiping out the guerrillas’ bases of popular support,” Annis suggests, “the larger challenge faced by the army was to create a psychological identification and new social organization that would allow campesinos to be non-guerrillas,” a feat that Rı´os Montt accomplished by “claiming the moral high ground from the guerrillas.”42 Rı´os Montt gained this “moral high ground” through adept manipulation of images and discourse, but also through the measured use of violence—a mano dura (loosely, iron fist) that some Guatemalans, at least, appreciated for its velvet glove. When people expressed their admiration for Rı´os Montt, at least some of them must have meant exactly what they said. While some Guatemalans supported Rı´os Montt out of ignorance and fear, and because of the regime’s ability to manipulate ideas, others seem to have genuinely embraced the General’s vision of a new Guatemala, formed, as it were, from a potent

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admixture of religion, racism, security, nationalism, and capitalism. If we fail to recognize that Rı´os Montt enjoyed genuine support (as opposed to the many who supported the regime out of, say, fear or opportunism), we find ourselves guilty of the charge levied by the theorists of subaltern studies: “The subaltern historian finds him/herself in the . . . role of a facilitator unwilling to articulate a counter-hegemonic project that is ‘extraneous’ to the histories unearthed.”43 While this reading of history runs somewhat against the grain of current scholarly interpretation, it makes the point that the failure to take people’s words at face value is dangerous. It can rob them of their agency and render them silent, a historian’s choice that Michel-Rolph Trouillot describes as “an active or transitive process: one ‘silences’ a fact or an individual as one silences a gun.”44 Rı´os Montt’s resounding electoral defeat in 2003 suggests, however, that the General’s discourse has now been replaced by an alternative symbolic universe, framed around the reports of truth commissions, forensic reports, “recovered” historical memory, and the exigencies of new constructions of racialized politics that have emerged within civil society since the war’s end.

Rı´os Montt as Genocidist One of the prevailing theoretical frameworks for making sense of the violence in the early 1980s is genocide. The CEH report has called the violence of the 1982–1983 period genocide: the intentional destruction of a people on the basis of their membership in a religious, racial, or ethnic group. The CEH is careful not to attribute the war’s excesses strictly to the Guatemalan government’s desire to provide a “final solution” to what its first Nobel laureate, Miguel Angel Asturias, framed as “el problema indio” as far back as the early 1920s.45 It does, however, charge that “in the majority of cases, the identification of Mayan communities with the counterinsurgency was intentionally exaggerated by the State, which, based on traditionalist racial prejudices, used this identification to eliminate any present or future possibilities of the people providing help for, or joining, in the insurgent project.”46 The CEH states that the military’s “disproportionately repressive response can only be understood within the framework of the country’s profound social, economic and cultural conflicts,” which permitted the military to define the Mayan population as the “collective enemies of the state.”47 The military’s disproportionate actions were a response to the Marxist threat, then, only in the most proximate sense. Its real roots lay in what historian Arturo Taracena Arriola has called a highly asymmetrical “bipolar nationalism” between ladinos

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and Indians, in which developmentalist politics “gave the appearance of the politics of assimilation that would facilitate the integration of diverse ethnic groups” but which in reality were nothing more than the politics of segregation and exclusion.48 In her study Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala, forensic anthropologist Victoria Sanford argues passionately that the Rı´os Montt regime used the rhetoric of the Cold War to willfully and intentionally commit genocide against the Mayan people, thus solving the Guatemalan state’s historical “Indian problem” once and for all. This argument is persuasive given the basic standard that no government willingly kills off large numbers of its own people unless it identifies a class, racial group, or sector to be a fundamental threat to the existence of the state. Sanford demonstrates that the counterinsurgency campaigns in the early 1980s clearly bear the mark of genocide, citing the CEH report’s finding that the vast majority of the victims of la violencia were Mayan. The genocide argument contends that the government’s program also systematically sought to eradicate Mayan culture through such strategic and symbolic actions as the burning of cornfields (corn being at the heart of the Mayan diet and also at the center of traditional Mayan religion), the forced use of the Spanish language in model villages, and the material destruction of Mayan culture through the incineration of many hundreds of villages during the scorched-earth campaign.49 The use of the word genocide first appears in the context of the Guatemalan conflict in early 1982, when the EGP began to use the term in its communique´s to describe military violence in the countryside. In May 1982, the nation’s bishops issued a condemnation of the violence that also used the word genocide, thus introducing a new framework of interpretation to a public long accustomed to conceptualizing the struggle in strictly political terms.50 Solidarity groups and other observers outside of Guatemala, including dissident groups such as the Guatemalan Church in Exile, began to use genocide as an explanation for the military’s disproportionately repressive response, but the common understanding within Guatemala—perhaps reflecting the general public’s sometimes willful ignorance about the scope of the violence in the countryside—until at least the mid-1980s remained fundamentally political, and based on the rhetoric of the Cold War. Rı´os Montt himself articulated this view succinctly in a conversation with U.S. president Ronald Reagan in 1983, when he described his counterinsurgency campaign as “not one of scorched earth, but of scorched communists.” It was not until after 1986, when civil government was allowed to assume power with the election of Vinicio Cerezo to the presidency and political violence abated significantly, that the genocide interpretation began to gain wider credence. People began to assess what had

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happened to them and, with the help of “formal” narratives crafted by the truth commissions and new political discourses, began to create a new landscape of memory that would allow them to get on with rebuilding their lives. Anthropologist and cultural theorist Diane Nelson points out that “it is the work of solidarity to articulate a hegemonic narrative of Guatemala as ‘an international pariah.’ . . . [This narrative is constituted from] complex articulations among the desires, resistances, manipulations, sections and lobbying of many Guatemalans, gringos, officials or various states and UN workers. The negotiations involved in making a particular story into common sense . . . are about articulations that momentarily constitute identities.”51 We see this clearly in the formation of the pan-Mayan movement, begun by indigenous leaders, who built a political movement out of the ashes, or the idea of the ashes, of the Mayan holocaust.52 Rejecting the interpretive lens of the Cold War and anticommunism, indigenous leaders, with strong support from people outside their communities, particularly anthropologists, began to reinterpret the recent violence in terms of racism and genocide.53 This reinterpretation demanded a wholesale reconsideration of the Mayan experience vis-a`-vis the Guatemalan state and called for a fundamental reassessment of the role Mayan people might play in postwar Guatemalan society and culture. This came to be known as the movimiento maya, the Mayan (or pan-Mayan) movement, which played a large role in bringing Mayan demands to the peace accords and Mayan political influence to the early days of postwar civil society.54 Mayanist thinking frames its political ideology solidly within the context of understanding that the Guatemalan state has existed since its inception to promote a racist ideology that legitimates and empowers ladinos and others (including the planter class and foreign interests) at the expense of the indigenous population.55 The inverse of this equation is the state’s denigration of a category of people—not an ethnic minority, but actually the majority—that it has been historically understood to be socially backward and resistant to modernity.56 The excesses of the 1980s were almost an inevitable, even natural, outcome of a repressive and racist state’s fervent desire to perpetuate its ideology and interests. Despite the strong arguments in favor of designating the events of the early 1980s as genocide, through a historical lens the notion of genocide, rigidly defined, offers an incomplete view of the government’s motives for sponsoring the large-scale killing of its own citizens. The killing of Mayan people was geographically confined to the “red” and “pink” villages and zones where the guerrillas were active—a Venn diagram of tragedy where anticommunism met racism in overlapping circles of death.57 While not unheard of, army incursions were much less common in densely Mayan regions of the

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country (such as western San Marcos or Totonicapa´n) where the guerrillas did not have a particularly significant presence. In places where the army did not consider the Mayan people to be politicized or where they considered them “domesticated”—that is, Maya who did not seem to represent a political risk to the state—the military largely left the civilian population alone. This suggests that ethnic cleansing in this context was subordinate to the formal political discourse of anticommunism. Nelson elaborates: “When we call Guatemala’s counterinsurgency war genocidal, we are taking for granted that the fundamental division is between Maya and ladino. Why, then, were so many ladinos killed both in the early 1980s and the 1960s?” But, she continues, “Why have indigenous people actively engaged in counterinsurgency? If we understand the fundamental division to be class, that the war is about control of the means of production . . . we miss the almost biological meaning assigned to subversion and cannot explain the horrific extent of the violence.”58 One should also point out that the atrocities committed by the guerrillas— less common than those committed by military and civil patrols but a reality nonetheless—also usually took place in indigenous areas. Guerrilla atrocities, which the CEH reported accounted for just under 20 percent of the violence, differed from those committed by the counterinsurgency in that they tended to be systematic and targeted, usually involving the killing of local officials, soldiers, and individual civilians singled out for “revolutionary justice.” Guerrillas were less likely to commit massacres, which they believed to be “an ineffective means of winning hearts and minds.”59 Even so, during la violencia, the guerrillas did perpetrate at least seventeen outright massacres, almost all of them in 1982 after communities had been militarized into civil patrols.60 From another perspective, the greater danger lay in the guerrillas’ willingness to put villages in harm’s way, even when it became clear that to do so would bring down lethal retribution from the military; this point is one that anthropologist Yvon Le Bot emphasizes in his 1992 work, La guerre en terre maya: commune, violence et modernite´ au Guatemala (1970–1992).61

Between Two Fires? In his 1993 study of the armed conflict, Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala, anthropologist David Stoll concurs with Le Bot, noting that “the chronology of events shows that army repression began in reaction to guerrilla actions, while the guerrillas refused to accept their own responsibility in triggering the escalation of military violence.”62 This seems to distribute

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culpability fairly evenly to both sides of the armed struggle and ascribes very little agency to the Maya themselves. Stoll actually does not assign equal blame to the guerrillas and the army, but other scholars have charged that he incorrectly draws primary responsibility for the violence away from Rı´os Montt and the military.63 Stoll, LeBot, and others have also been raked over the academic coals for their contention that the Maya were largely quiescent political actors, victimized by their unwitting position “between two armies” or, as one Kanjobal observer phrased it, “between two thorns”—the Guatemalan army and the armed opposition.64 Either way, by 1984, the EGP leadership recognized privately that it had for all intents and purposes lost the struggle: “The popular and revolutionary error was, fundamentally, that [we did] not objectively appreciate the exploiting class’s and its army’s force, capability, and will to fight a counterinsurgency war,” an internal assessment read, but the guerrillas continued to prosecute the war anyway.65 In January 1997, immediately after the signing of the peace accords, however, the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) posted on its Web site an acknowledgment that its strategy had been tragically flawed in the way that it had endangered Mayan lives.66 Indeed, one of the key complaints raised by Mayan leaders is that the guerrillas’ continued use of triumphalist rhetoric even in the face of imminent defeat and their willingness to sacrifice Mayan lives for their own political ends were only further indications of the depths of racism found in Guatemalan society.67 A second point to consider regarding the charge of genocide is that many ladinos (up to 20 percent of those killed in rural regions but the majority of those killed in urban areas) also died at army hands during la violencia. Ladinos are by definition not indigenous and so should have been inoculated against the effects of genocidal violence. Nevertheless, many thousands of ladinos died during this period, not because of their collateral association with the Maya, but because of their politically “subversive” activities as teachers, health promoters, students, union organizers, radical Catholics, and guerrilla combatants or supporters. During an earlier phase of the war, in 1967, General Carlos Arana Osorio launched a military offensive against guerrillas in the eastern provinces so violent and effective that it earned him the nickname the Butcher of Zacapa. This campaign, like Rı´os Montt’s counterinsurgency, although targeting a much smaller guerrilla force of approximately 500 combatants, lasted about two years and killed about 8,000 civilians, the vast majority of whom were ladino, not indigenous, campesinos.68 We are again drawn back to the question of the role that racism and racialized stereotypes played in even a highly politicized war of counterinsurgency. Given that the military’s stated objective—the elimination of an armed

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Marxist opposition—remained the same from 1967 to 1982 and even 1996, how else to account for the disproportionate number of casualties among obvious noncombatants—including children, the elderly, and unarmed women—during the early 1980s? Robert McNamara, the architect of much of U.S. policy during the Vietnam war, observed (without apparent irony) that “proportionality should be a guideline of war.”69 Yet, given the Guatemalan government’s repeated claims at the time that the guerrillas were a weak and poorly armed force, the magnitude of the counterinsurgency campaign was out of all proportion to the perceived threat. Thus, while the evidence militates against the argument that the Guatemalan government in the 1980s followed a clearly defined and sharply intentional policy of genocide against indigenous people, the effects and undertones of its counterinsurgency policies were, nonetheless, clearly genocidal. The counterinsurgency campaign, underscored by profound class divisions, an ideology of racism, and essentialized stereotypes of indigenous cunning, was genocidal in its effects, if not in its ideological discourse. It was, then, a de facto war of genocide if not a de jure one. This difference between genocide, strictly defined, and genocide in effect may be an important legal distinction, but perhaps not a moral one.

A Chronology of Violence To make sense of the chapters that follow, it may prove helpful to provide a brief overview or timeline of major events that occurred during Rı´os Montt’s term of office (Table 1.1). The chapters to follow will flesh out this bare-bones outline, although they follow a schematic rather than a chronological organization. Chapter 2 provides background for understanding the armed conflict in Guatemala. Chapter 3 explores Rı´os Montt’s imaginaire for a new Guatemala, as expressed through his public rhetoric, and the official rationales for the conduct of the war of counterinsurgency. Chapter 4 takes a fine-grained look at the effects of violence on Mayan communities, while chapter 5 explores the religious question during the Rı´os Montt era. Chapter 6 examines the role of outside players and observers: the U.S. government, evangelical groups, and the media. The epilogue provides a conclusion in which I discuss some of the broader moral, legal, ethical, and military implications of state-sponsored violence. Some of the information for this book comes from secondary sources—the recovery of its history has become something of a preoccupation for Guatemalan intellectuals, and a substantial output of scholarly work has rushed in to fill the silence that once surrounded Guatemala’s armed conflict. This study is also

TABLE

1.1 A Matrix of Key Events, March 23, 1982–August 8, 1983

The March 23, 1982, Coup General (retired) Rı´os Montt takes power in a coup led by disgruntled army officers against the regime of General Romeo Lucas Garcı´a and the fraudulent election of General Anibal Guevara to the presidency. Rı´os Montt, a born-again Pentecostal, declares that he rules through “God my king; only he gives and takes away authority.” Rı´os Montt shares power with two fellow officers as a part of a three-member junta: Brigadier General Horacio Egberto Maldonado Schaad, commander of the Honor Guard Brigade, and Colonel Francisco Luis Gordillo Martı´nez, commander of army general headquarters.a Law and Order: Mid-March to Early April 1982 Soon after taking power, Rı´os Montt clamps down on violence in Guatemala City. Declaring “no more cadavers in the streets,” he brings an end to urban death squad killings. He begins a series of weekly Sunday “sermons”—television addresses—in which he urges Guatemalans to respect authority and return to morality. He also demands that all public officials take a pledge of anticorruption: “No robo, no miento, no abuso” (I don’t steal, lie, or abuse). All of these measures are part of Rı´os Montt’s effort to restore law and order to Guatemala’s major cities, especially the capital. These programs greatly reduce both common and political crime in urban areas, contributing to urban residents’ sense of personal safety and thus lending social support to the Rı´os Montt regime, especially among the urban middle and upper classes. April 10, 1982

Rı´os Montt announces the National Growth and Security Plan, the stated goals of which were to teach the populace about nationalism and to integrate the campesinos and indigenous peoples into the state. As such, it is a rhetorical prelude to Victoria 82.

June 9, 1982

Rı´os Montt forces his two fellow golpistas to step down and declares himself sole chief of state. The U.S. Embassy expresses concern that Rı´os Montt does not enjoy the full support of the army high command (Alto Mando del Ejercito), which he indeed does not; his regime survives at least two serious coup attempts during its seventeen months in office and eventually succumbs in August 1983.

Victoria 82: The Counterinsurgency Campaign Amnesty: May 27, 1982–June 20, 1982b

In May 1982, Rı´os Montt declares a one-month general amnesty for all political “enemies of the state.” The amnesty fails to attract many guerrillas or other “enemies of the regime” but it does provide Rı´os Montt with the legal and moral basis he needs to commence his full-scale counterinsurgency campaign, which begins in late June 1982.

June 20, 1982: Fusiles y Frijoles

Victoria 82 (its first phase known as Fusiles y Frijoles, or “rifles and beans”) is a scorched-earth campaign, wherein villages that the army assess to be sympathetic or supportive of the guerrillas are occupied, punished (either through the selective killing of individuals linked to the guerrillas or by the elimination of the entire population), and the fields, homes, and possessions of the (continued)

TABLE

1.1 (Continued) villagers burned to the ground (Fusiles). Villagers may seek protection from the army and be placed in resettlement camps known as “development poles” or model villages, where they live under military protection and surveillance and receive emergency assistance (Frijoles). As a second means of reclaiming the highlands from the guerrillas, Rı´os Montt dramatically expands a Lucas-era innovation, the civil patrol program, in which all eligible men from the highlands serve on a rotational basis in local militias that are accountable to the army. By 1983, well over half a million men, most of them indigenous, are involved in the civil patrols.

July 1, 1982

Rı´os Montt declares a state of siege and suspends many fundamental civil rights. Under the terms of the state of siege, freedom of the press is also severely curtailed.

September 1982: Techo, Trabajo y Tortillas

In September 1982, the first phase of Victoria 82, Fusiles y Frijoles, comes to an end. By this time, more than 440 villages are destroyed, tens of thousands of civilians are dead, and at least 1 million Guatemalans are in exile. The URNG guerrillas are all but defeated. With the military phase virtually ended (although several large-scale massacres are yet to come), Rı´os Montt initiates a civil action phase of counterinsurgency, known as Techo, Trabajo y Tortillas (Roof, Work, and Tortillas). This program continues to advance the civil action measures begun as Frijoles: the movement of people into model villages, the expansion of the civil patrol program, the allotment of government emergency relief aid to victims of the violence who are under government control, and the continued pacification of the highlands.

“Winning the Peace”: Domestic and International Issues December 4, 1982

Rı´os Montt meets with President Ronald Reagan, but fails to get U.S. military aid restored to Guatemala. Reagan attempts to have Guatemala recertified as a component of the Reagan Plan in Central America, but Guatemala’s human rights record and Rı´os Montt’s refusal to call for democratic elections, a sine qua non for overt U.S. support, makes this effort futile. The United States does agree to sell helicopter parts to Guatemala, since this does not require congressional approval.

July 1982

Rı´os Montt establishes fueros especiales, special secret courts where political prisoners can be tried and executed without recourse to legal representation or regular due process of law. These special courts violate Guatemala’s legal prohibition against capital punishment, but their creation also suggests to some cynical observers an improvement in a political system where very few political prisoners survive long enough to receive due process of law.

March 1983

Pope John Paul II visits Guatemala for the first time; despite the pope’s request, Rı´os Montt refuses to grant clemency to six men

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scheduled to be executed by the fueros especiales. Guatemala’s economy, in decline since the late 1970s, goes into free fall, due to capital flight and serious losses in key industries, especially tourism. June 1983

Rı´os Montt, already considered to be a loose cannon, further alienates members of the army high command by his reliance on advisors from his church instead of comrades in the military. His continued refusal to hold presidential elections forestalls hope for the restoration of U.S. aid to the military and threatens continuismo. The effective subjugation of the countryside suggests that Rı´os Montt’s mano dura is no longer needed and has become a liability to Guatemala’s military and planter class, as well as to aspiring middle-class politicians.

July 1983

Fearful of a coup, Rı´os Montt declares a national state of emergency but calls for elections to be held in one year’s time (July 1984). This declaration comes too late to save the regime.

August 1, 1983

Rı´os Montt levies a value-added tax, further alienating the middle class.

August 1983: The Countercoup August 8, 1983

Rı´os Montt is ousted in a coup led by General Oscar Humberto Mejia Vı´ctores, his former minister of defense. The purported grounds for the coup are that Rı´os Montt is a religious fanatic. The coup leaders accuse him of being part of “a fanatical and aggressive religious group that took advantage of their position of power as the highest members of government for their benefit, ignoring the fundamental principle of the separation of Church and State.”c In fact, the reasons behind the coup have more to do with Rı´os Montt’s lack of accountability to the army high command and the various interests that it represents.

a. Peter Calvert, Guatemala: A Nation in Turmoil (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), p. 111. b. Decreto Ley #27-83, official copy, Secretaria de Relaciones Pu´blicas de la Presidencia de la Repu´blica, Guatemala, SA. c. “Motivos del golpe: abusos de un grupo de religiosos, fana´tico, y agresivo,” La Razo´n, August 9, 1983; “Golpe contra la secta ‘El Verbo’ y la corrupcio´n,” La Razo´n, August 9, 1983.

heavily reliant on primary sources that up until this time have remained relatively untouched. These include the papers recently acquired by the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales (CIRMA) in Antigua, including the personal papers of EGP leaders Mario Payeras and Yolanda Colom; documents from Catholic Action and from the Comite´ de Unidad Campesino; a smaller collection of separate EGP documents, and other papers from the popular resistance housed in CIRMA’s INFOSTELLE Guatemala collection, an archive that had been housed in (East) Germany until 2006. I also draw on a diverse group

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of guerrilla documents that had been warehoused in the Netherlands (the Holandesa Collection). Both of these collections had arrived so recently at CIRMA at the time I consulted them that I took them directly out of their packing boxes; as the CIRMA staff had not yet had the opportunity to catalogue them, they bear no further archival notation other than the name of the collection from which they came. Outside of CIRMA, I utilized a selection of church-related documents having to do with Catholic Action that are housed at the Centro Ak’Kutan in Coba´n, Alta Verapaz. I have also made extensive use of documents from the U.S. State Department and U.S. intelligence services that have been declassified and organized by the privately run National Security Archives based at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Finally, I have used a large collection of documents and ephemera— domestic and foreign newspaper clippings, published government decrees and public statements, official copies of legislation, government-run public service ads, press releases, human rights reports, guerrilla pamphlets, papers, posters, and propaganda broadsides, and government-generated visual propaganda, including posters and signs; I also utilize covert reports put together by exile groups, transcripts of Rı´os Montt’s “Sunday sermons,” and personal interviews that I and others collected back when we were living in Guatemala. This personal collection will eventually find its way into the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin. The careful reader will notice that I never had the opportunity to interview General Rı´os Montt myself, which is a pity, but it was not for lack of trying. In July 2006, Rı´os Montt offered one of his only public comments referring to the extensive human rights violations that took place under his watch in the early 1980s. “During my government, the army obeyed its orders, and some violations [desmanes] occurred, but I was never told,” he said. “All these kinds of accusations are part of the political persecution [of me] on the part of terrorists who lost the war.”70 This remark suggests that a conversation might not have been very fruitful anyway, as the intervening decades have apparently not left the General in a reflective frame of mind.

2 Guatemala’s Descent into Violence

Va´monos patria a caminar Va´monos patria a caminar, yo Ahora quiero caminar ˜ o. contigo, relampagueante. te acompan Acompan˜arte en tu jornada, Yo bajare´ los abismos que me porque soy un hombre digas. del pueblo, nacido en octubre para la Yo bebere´ tus ca´lices amargos. faz del mundo. Yo me quedare´ ciego para Ay, patria, que tengas ojos. a los coroneles que orinan tus muros Yo me quedare´ sin voz para tenemos que arrancarlos de raı´ces, que tu´ cantes. Yo he de morir para que tu´ no colgarlos de un a´rbol de rocı´o agudo, violento de co´leras de pueblo. mueras, Por ello pido que caminemos juntos. para que emerja tu rostro Siempre flameando al horizonte con los campesinos agrarios de cada flor que nazca de mis y los obreros sindicales, huesos. con el que tenga un corazo´n para Tiene que ser ası´, quererte. indiscutiblemente. Va´monos patria a caminar, yo te Ya me canse´ de llevar tus ˜ o. acompan la´grimas conmigo. —Otto Rene´ Castillo, Va´monos patria a caminar

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Although current history blames the Rı´os Montt regime, along with that of his predecessor, General Romeo Lucas Garcı´a, for the worst excesses of Guatemala’s armed struggle, the period during which they ruled, la violencia, was a culmination of, not an aberration in, the experiment in governance that Jennifer Schirmer has called “the Guatemalan military project.”1 Though coming nearly a full three decades after its proximate cause, la violencia offered, from a military perspective, a “final solution” for the multiplicity of political and social problems that had formed in the wake of the forcible overthrow of the freely elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. From the 1950s to the 1960s, the Guatemalan military basically inverted its fundamental orientation, from being (part of ) the vanguard of reform during the 1944–1954 revolution to acting as the defender of the interests of the ultraright by the mid-1960s. The post-Arbenz military project, forged in violence from its inception, sought to control or eliminate a dizzying and metastasizing array of political challenges to the state, an entity that the military as an institution increasingly came to see, over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, as little more than a reflection of itself. On the other end of the political spectrum, disillusionment with the Arbenz overthrow manifested itself in a small armed Cuban-inspired popular movement that was at first overshadowed by a widespread sentiment in favor of political reform and economic development. The government’s repression of and intractability toward even the most modest challenges to the status quo pushed moderate voices of reform from the political center to the radical Left by the mid-1970s. By the end of that decade, both the military and the popular resistance, both armed and confident in the moral surety of their respective causes, were poised for what both sides believed was a primal battle for Guatemala’s political soul.

Setting the Context While the man Newsweek magazine once dubbed “Guatemala’s ayatollah” attributed his rise to power to the will of Almighty God, General Rı´os Montt’s religion and his strong identification as an evangelical Protestant had virtually nothing to do with his political ascendancy.2 This he owed to his 1974 presidential bid when he had run as a Christian Democrat—and a Roman Catholic. The golpe de estado that brought Rı´os Montt to power in March 1982 had nothing whatsoever to do with the General’s Pentecostal religion, as many would later claim. Instead, the coalition of so-called junior officers—something of a misnomer for the paunchy, middle-aged colonels who opposed the Lucas

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Garcı´a cabal—who authored the coup did so with the backing of the powerful Far Right political party, the Movimiento de Liberacio´n Nacional (MLN), as well as most of the army high command. In early March 1982, Lucas had engineered the election of one of his cronies, an unpopular and ineffectual general named Anibal Guevara, to the presidency. Even in a setting as undemocratic as Guatemala was at the time, the move was pure political ineptitude, as Guevara had neither the backing of the military nor the access to power that he needed to serve as chief of state. On March 23, 1982, a sector of the army launched the coup that placed Rı´os Montt and two other generals in the office of the presidency. The sector of the military and the civilian Far Right that helped bring Rı´os Montt to power saw the coup against the “election” of Guevara as a means of signaling its displeasure with Lucas-era politics that had overseen increased corruption and a significant escalation in political violence without the desired effect of cutting off the roots of the growing political and armed opposition. A former U.S. military advisor described the reasons behind the coup in these terms: “From the point of view of the junior officers, the internal corruption within the army as an institution and Guatemala’s international isolation stemming from international human rights concerns were not only hampering the fight against the guerrillas, but also jeopardizing the army’s very survival.”3 Indeed, the insurgency had expanded quite dramatically in the late 1970s, as peasant opposition, pushed to the wall by Lucas’s brutal and even irrational politics of violence, coalesced around the guerrillas and grassroots popular organizations. By early 1982, the armed resistance was on the verge of taking over the highlands, with an active presence, reportedly, in as much as 90 percent of the altiplano.4 The global and regional context within Central America in the early 1980s fanned the flames further. In July 1979, the leftist Sandinistas had led their successful uprising to overthrow long-time dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The new revolutionary government in its early days enjoyed enormous popular support, so in 1981, before the effects of the Contra war and Sandinista missteps had begun to take their toll, Sandinista Nicaragua seemed an avatar of Central America’s neo-Marxist future. Closer to home, by 1980, El Salvador’s armed opposition, the Frente Farabundo Martı´ Liberacio´n Nacional (FMLN) appeared poised to seize power—a prospect that both the Guatemalan military and the U.S. State Department considered to be not merely possible, but virtually imminent. As both the military and State Department also realized, one of the key reasons behind the success of both the Sandinistas and the FMLN was that they had been able to dramatically expand their base of support from a small

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core of ideological cadres to include a broad spectrum of heretofore apolitical players: campesinos, workers, radical Christians, and, in the case of the Sandinistas, even middle-class businessmen. While the Guatemalan guerrillas had also begun to court these sectors with some success in the mid-1970s, it was the polarizing violence of the Lucas regime that actually did more than outright guerrilla recruitment to drive people outside the political system and into the armed opposition. These were the factors, fused in a crucible of political mobilization and violence, that helped bring Rı´os Montt to power in March 1982.

The Origins of the Popular Movements The Guatemalan military, of course, had experienced a much longer history of dealing with internal opposition than had any of its Central American neighbors. The Guatemalan guerrilla movement dated back nearly to the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup that had overthrown the democratic leftist government of Jacobo Arbenz to prevent “red communism from gaining a beachhead” in Latin America.5 As one former U.S. military advisor to Guatemala reflected, “The question as to how much damage had actually been done to Guatemalan society as a whole by Washington’s anti-Arbenz politics and how the overthrow of the legitimate Arbenz government might foment the development of a revolutionary backlash was soon answered in the years that followed.”6 The Arbenz overthrow set off a cycle of political violence and counterviolence that would last for more than three and a half decades, and from which the country has even yet not fully recovered. Against this backdrop, Guatemala’s armed movement emerged early, and from what would later seem an unlikely source: the military. On November 13, 1960, a group of disaffected pro-Arbenz army officers (nicknamed los escorpiones) consisting of perhaps as much of 30 percent of the lower officer corps, who were outraged by President Miguel Ydı´goras Fuentes’s willingness to allow U.S.-sponsored Cuban exiles to train secretly in Guatemala for the Bay of Pigs invasion, called for an uprising (levantamiento) against the government.7 The coup failed, but it was the first volley in what would eventually be Central America’s longest running and bloodiest civil war. Despite, or perhaps because of, the debacle of the November 13 coup attempt, a loosely formed antigovernment insurgency, made up of the remnants of the Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajadores (PGT) and Arbenz-era workers and peasant organizations that had gone underground after the 1954 coup, soon stabilized into a formal revolutionary faction.8 Inspired by the example of newly revolutionary

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Cuba, this group, along with Arbencista former military officers and disaffected students, established the Movimiento Revolucionario 13 de noviembre (MR-13) in 1961 and the Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR), also a pro-Cuba movement, in 1962.9 As an armed insurgency, the guerrillas’ initial goal had been to restore the revolution of 1954, but in the wake of Castro’s triumph, they quickly coalesced around a single objective: to bring Cuban-style socialism to Guatemala. The start of what was soon a Cuban-supported Marxist insurgency electrified the Guatemalan political landscape. The very day of the first attempted coup on November 13, the president, General Miguel Ydı´goras Fuentes, temporarily suspended the national constitution and set the stage for the creation of formal military government.10 It was Ydı´goras who established what would eventually become an elite and greatly feared special counterinsurgency military force, the Kaibiles. Ydı´goras also suspended civil rights and launched the nation’s first modern counterinsurgency campaign, thus setting into motion the cycle of rebellion and counterinsurgency that would catastrophically define Guatemala’s internal politics for the next four decades.11

The Rise of the Counterinsurgency Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, the government was largely successful in keeping the opposition, which was active almost exclusively in the eastern provinces of the country (the oriente) and to a lesser extent in Guatemala City, in check. The government accomplished this through a variety of measures, some of them fairly draconian. Most important among these was the institutionalization of military government in the early 1960s. Although almost all of Guatemala’s presidents and chiefs of states in the twentieth century had been military men (including Jacobo Arbenz, who was a colonel, as well as Ydı´goras Fuentes, who was himself a general),12 it was not until 1963 that the military as an institution assumed its true praetorian function, in what it termed an “assumption of regnancy [regnidad].”13 Despite Ydı´goras Fuentes’s stridently anticommunist position, he was an unpopular president even within the military, and ultimately he paid a price for his inability to restore the social order. The army ousted Ydı´goras in a coup d’etat on March 30, 1963, and replaced him with Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, who served as a figurehead for the army’s outright assumption of executive power.14 The same day that Peralta took over, the defense minister formally suspended Guatemala’s 1955 constitution on

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the grounds that the “communists take advantage of the broad freedoms that the constitution concedes,” thereby making it “impossible to resolve [the country’s] grave problems within the constitutional framework.”15 This single act brought a de facto end to civilian government that would last until 1986.16 A new constitution codified this change in 1965 by naming the military as the arbiter of the nation’s “independence, sovereignty, [and] honor” against all threats, both foreign and domestic.17 Around the same time, the military adopted the Doctrine of National Security (DNS), which provided a new rationale for dramatically expanding and redefining its role in society.18 The DNS was the ideological centerpiece of U.S.-inspired anticommunist strategy in Latin America, which made its first appearance in Brazil when the military took over that government in 1964. With assistance from the United States, the Brazilian military government implemented the strategy as a way to eliminate internal Marxist threats and to support the United States’ anti-Soviet strategy within Latin America. As a strategic policy, the DNS, which governments all over Latin America that faced challenges from Marxist insurgents soon adopted, allowed the military to legitimize repression of the Left by further contextualizing Guatemala’s struggle within the international war on communism. It was also within this context that the Guatemalan army began utilizing significant amounts of military assistance and strategic methods that the United States was developing concurrently for the Vietnam war. Most important, the DNS provided an internationally recognized legal rationale for the elimination of individuals and groups that the state defined as “internal enemies” through the exigencies of a new kind of “irregular warfare” that it deemed necessary to defeat Marxist rebels at their own game, not only in Guatemala but all over Latin America.19 The rationale of internal enemies freed the military to use whatever means necessary to eliminate opposition, including but not limited to all-out military campaigns against the insurgency. From 1966 to 1967, Guatemalan General Carlos Arana Osorio utilized this approach in his “program of pacification” against the idealistic but poorly organized and internally divided FAR, MR-13, and PGT guerrillas, who were then conducting guerrilla activities out in the oriente, most notably in the provinces of Izabal, Zacapa, and the Sierra de las Minas area.20 The eighteen-month pacification campaign killed at least 8,000 people and virtually wiped out Guatemala’s guerrilla movement, at least for the time being, giving Arana Osorio cause to proclaim, “The country has been pacified.”21 The scale of killing in the oriente was unprecedented in modern Guatemala, and the scope and effectiveness of the campaign left an impression on a young military officer named Efraı´n Rı´os Montt, who

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became Arana’s army chief of staff when the latter assumed the office of president in 1970. The DNS also sanctioned irregular warfare such as covert operations, assassinations of prominent politicians, the disappearances of activists, and, by the mid-1960s, paramilitary death squads, a method of terror that, if it did not actually originate in Guatemala, came into its own there.22 As an iconic element of terror, death squads would become so ubiquitous in some areas of Latin American in the late Cold War (roughly, the 1960s through the 1980s) that they would inspire the Spanish neologism desaparecido (disappeared person). This word refers to the death squads’ methodology: they would typically kidnap a political target from his or her home or from a public space, then torture and usually kill the victim. After death, the victim continued to serve as a political example. Some reappeared as corpses, a public warning to others. Many others simply disappeared, never to be seen again, leaving family members in a permanent limbo of uncertainty and grief. It is important to underscore that the use of forced disappearances and death squads was not a by-product of counterinsurgency but a specific strategy of it, having as its goal not merely the extermination of politically troublesome individuals but also the subjugation of the general population through fear, intimidation, and uncertainty. At the time, the local governmentdriven media portrayed death squads as cadres of irate and patriotic private citizens who had banded together to rid the country of the communist menace, an image that seared itself into the popular imagination. In fact, the death squads were anything but organizations of spontaneously organized, civic-minded patriots. As declassified U.S. government records demonstrate, Guatemalan death squads organized and operated with the direct support of the army, and their membership often included active-duty members of the armed forces. For example, a U.S. State Department intelligence cable from May 1970 described the makeup of one death squad, Ojo por Ojo, as “a largely military membership with some civilian cooperation.”23 The fiction that death squads were made up of private citizens, however, served two important purposes. First, it created an imaginary moral distance between the government and illegal assassinations (a tactic that the guerrillas also used with some regularity at that time and which the general public widely deplored). Second, the death squads’ handiwork, so feared and so capricious, also contributed to a general climate of uncertainty and distrust, an effective tactical use of terror that Jorge Tapia Valde´s describes as one that “breaks the enemy but dissuades the indecisive.”24 As a method of political and social control, this sort of irregular warfare, a form of institutional violence, proved to be remarkably effective in the short

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run. In 1966 began the first of what would eventually be thirty-five death squads operating freely in the country; within a year, fourteen more such organizations had formed out of the primordial political muck.25 The death squads, generally made up of ultraright political militants, military officers, and employees of conservative finca (plantation) owners, targeted, abducted, and murdered select victims such as politicians, political activists, labor leaders, and teachers. They would typically leave their victim’s body in public view, often with a distinguishing mark to identify the killers, such as a hand dipped in white paint, the tag of the eponymous Mano Blanca. That the death squads operated at night and with complete impunity made them a choice method for enforcing terror throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, forming, in the words of Carlos Figueroa Ibarra, a “perverse recourse of counterinsurgency” that authoritarian governments in other parts of Latin America as well as Guatemala effectively utilized for the next quarter century.26 The targeted assassinations of political figures by militants on both the left and the right also increased throughout the same period. Although the Left never adopted the use of death squads per se, the guerrillas did engage in their own form of terror: the kidnapping of prominent citizens, both for publicity and for ransom money. As the guerrillas began to regroup in the mid-1970s, they also began the selective assassination of finca owners and local political leaders such as alcaldes who were associated with conservative political interests. Against this backdrop of escalating violence, the United States actively supported the Guatemalan military through military aid and covert training throughout this period, lending, as the U.S. State Department privately phrased it, “full . . . support [to] . . . police improvement programs and . . . military psychological warfare training and additional counterinsurgency operations training.”27 Although Washington had taken an active role in the Arbenz overthrow, it was not until the time of the Kennedy administration, in the wake of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, that the United States developed a fresh three-pronged program for Guatemala, which included economic assistance, counterinsurgency, and military training, which also involved intelligence gathering and covert paramilitary activities.28 Within Guatemala, U.S. military advisors trained Guatemalan officers in new counterinsurgency techniques currently being used in Vietnam through the Department of State’s International Military Education and Training Program.29 Despite this close relationship, U.S. officials were dismayed to discover that neither the Guatemalan military nor the elite were especially pliant clients and that they often took the war against communism in directions that were effective enough, but at odds with the U.S. State Department’s (public)

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insistence on political and humanitarian probity. As early as 1967, U.S. intelligence reported “accumulating evidence that the counterinsurgency campaign is out of control.” Nonetheless, behind closed doors, the U.S. government privately commended the Guatemalan military on its “successful use of terror” through the formation of clandestine counterterror units to carry out abductions, bombings, torture, and summary executions of “real and alleged communists.”30

A Lull in the Storm: 1967–1974 From a Guatemalan military perspective, such tactics proved effective enough to allow for cyclical periods of reduced repression and even modest reform, including the military’s approval of the election in 1966 of a civilian, Julio Ce´sar Me´ndez Montenegro, to preside over a brief but full term as president.31 The Me´ndez Montenegro presidency (1966–1970), largely a showcase to improve Guatemala’s international status, nonetheless witnessed a period of substantive economic development, which was also a key goal of the DNS. Although Guatemala did not experience the kind of “economic miracles” of other DNS states such as Chile, the economy expanded dramatically during the 1960s; between 1960 and 1974, in fact, Guatemala’s export agricultural sector outperformed Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.32 This impressive economic expansion stemmed largely from the flowering of Guatemala’s “Green Revolution”—the diversification and expansion of agriculture. The Green Revolution drew much of its inspiration and support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Catholic priests and other social activists popularized such programs by helping to introduce new agricultural technologies such as inexpensive pesticides and fertilizers into Guatemala’s densely populated and desperately poor rural areas.33 By many quantifiable measures, the Green Revolution accomplished some of its key goals: increased productivity and crop diversification enabled Guatemala to reduce its dependence on traditional agricultural exports, namely coffee and, to a lesser extent, tropical fruit. These changes helped push the nation’s annual economic growth rate up to 6.8 percent, thus marking a transition from what had been basically a residual hacienda system to a modern agribusiness-based economy. By 1970, in fact, Guatemala enjoyed one of the most dynamic economies in all of Latin America.34 But despite this remarkable achievement, the Green Revolution did not end rural poverty. Its reforms, based on a classic free-market desarrollista, or development model, brought substantial improvement to Guatemala’s national economy but did not address—and in

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fact actually exacerbated—the many fundamental inequities and imbalances that undermined Guatemalan society at large. Jeffrey M. Paige, writing of the introduction of new crops and the transition to agribusiness, describes this historical movement as one in which two “new” classes emerged within Guatemala: “cost-conscious capitalists whose principal form of capital was still land, and migratory rural proletarians who still lived in Highland [sic] peasant communities.”35 At the same time, beginning in the 1960s, improvements in medicine and public health services, many of them provided by private and governmental foreign aid, produced a significant population boom. Between 1950 and 1980, Guatemala averaged an annual 3 percent population growth rate, while the national population doubled, increasing from just less than 3 million to just under 6 million people in only thirty years.36 While urban migration served as a safety valve—the capital, Guatemala City, nearly tripled in size between 1950 and 1980—population pressures in the countryside became increasingly acute.37 Most of the growth occurred within the marginalized and poorly served indigenous population, thus putting additional pressure on a land and labor structure already stressed to the breaking point by a rigid and deeply inequitable latifundial system.38 The combined effects of dramatic population increase and the diversion of additional lands for export crops precipitated an acute land shortage for indigenous and ladino peasants. The government eventually tried to mollify these sectors by opening up government lands in the remote rain forests of the Pete´n, Alta Verapaz, and the Ixca´n along the Mexican border (an area known as the Franja Transversal del Norte) for colonization in the mid-1960s, a process that the government turned over to private organizations, including NGOs (nongovernmental organizations, an acronym anachronistic to the 1960s), and, most important, the Catholic Church. The program received significant funding from USAID, which had also played an active role in helping to convince doubtful generals and large landowners that in allowing the creation of cooperatives, they were not throwing open the door to communism.39 By 1967, 27,000 rural campesinos, distributed through 145 cooperatives, had joined the movement.40 In 1969, the Catholic Maryknoll Order, in collaboration with the Diocese of Huehuetenango, bought up a large strip of public lands between the Xalbal and Ixca´n rivers known as the Ixca´n Grande, and opened the area to cooperatives for the production of fruit and staple crops.41 The optimistically named and government-run Institute of Agrarian Transformation granted the land to the Maryknolls with the understanding that the order would colonize the land as private property, although what the Maryknolls envisioned was more along

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the lines of Israeli moshavim, or private farms with communal centers.42 By year’s end, the colonization project had attracted some 181 parcelarios, 92 percent of whom were indigenous people from Huehuetenango.43 Although the thin soil and isolation of these zones made them unsuitable for large-scale settlement, the colonization projects were nonetheless attractive to immigrants from the land-pressed altiplano and oriente. These new immigrants eventually found the cooperatives to be fertile ground not only for the production of agricultural crops but also for the dissemination of new political ideas. Around the same time, the army, which was beginning to diversify its considerable interests and become more entrepreneurial, began to give out large grants of land in this underpopulated area to favored officers, a practice that began in the late 1960s and continued throughout the 1970s.44 (Following the Left’s rout in 1967, General Arana had directed that, with its work of counterinsurgency handily completed, the army needed to look to new challenges and take advantage of the budding economy. “The military must not be a tool of private initiative,” Arana declared, “but its partner.”)45 While confrontation between these two sectors—the cooperatives and the military—was probably inevitable, it became even more so when Guatemala’s nascent mineral development industry discovered small amounts of petroleum and nickel in the region.46 Nevertheless, by the mid-1970s, Guatemala had one of the largest cooperative movements in Latin America, comprising more than 500 cooperatives and 132,000 members.47 This new kind of migration and social organization, combined with political violence and other pressures of modernization, all conspired to put additional stresses on traditional patterns of land ownership, community and kinship obligations and loyalties, and even religious identity by the last years of the 1960s.48 As politically active Catholics moved into positions of leadership within many cooperatives, the military soon came to deeply regret its small gesture of agrarian reform. By Rı´os Montt’s time as chief of state, it had begun to actively repress the colonization projects.49 Nevertheless, these desarrollista reforms, which the state mandated and the Church helped to see through, brought not only economic but also substantial social changes to the Guatemalan countryside. In areas penetrated by new highways, built to transport colonists to the hinterland and cash crops to market, the Spanish language, rather than indigenous languages, came into more common use, especially among men. Thus “breaking the barrier of monolingualism,” as Arturo Arias describes it, indigenous men gained access to new kinds of power and information. Catholic educational programs formed a centerpiece of community life in the cooperatives, not only teaching people to

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read and write but also introducing them to new ideas and categories of knowledge that extended well beyond the traditional boundaries of language and community. Access to new language—in terms of both print and the spoken word (Spanish)—and to new technology, in the form of cheap transistor radios, dramatically expanded rural Mayas’ political awareness and also helped raise their social and consumer expectations. By the late 1960s, these “modernizing” efforts had greatly extended the boundaries of the so-called Mayan world. Yet they did so without proposing any change to the ladino power structure that would have made campesino access to social or political capital within that larger world possible.50

The Segundo Momento Guerrillero Against this backdrop, the government’s carrot-and-stick approach had been relatively effective in keeping Guatemala’s armed opposition at bay until the mid-1970s, but at that point the political landscape began to change dramatically with the emergence of what partisans came to describe as the segundo momento guerrillero.51 After assessing their failures and near-defeat in the late 1960s, the guerrillas began to reorganize in the early to mid-1970s, forming the Eje´rcito Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla Army of the Poor, EGP) in 1972 (although it did not launch large-scale offensives until around 1976)52 and the smaller Organizacio´n Revolucionaria del Pueblo en Armas (Revolutionary Organization of People in Arms, ORPA), which had its origins in the older FAR but broke away also in 1972.53 Initially, both were conventional Marxist-Leninist groups that drew inspiration and support from the earlier movements in Guatemala and from Cuba. Like their Sandinista counterparts in Nicaragua, however, the Guatemalan guerrilla movements soon expanded their ideological and strategic base by reaching out to other types of popular organizations that were then emerging on the political landscape.54 The EGP operated primarily in the Transversal del Norte and expanded south in El Quiche´ and in Quetzaltenango; ORPA’s theater of operations was mainly around Lake Atitla´n and, to accomplish its objective to “break the agrarian bloc,” within the rich farming region on the Pacific south coast, known as the costa cuca.55 The FAR, recovering from its decimation by Arana Osorio, began to rebuild in Alta and Baja Verapaz, gaining a significant following with a largely indigenous leadership in and around Rabinal, Baja Verapaz.56 The revived guerrilla movement also found common cause with Guatemala’s beleaguered labor movement, which still retained strong ties to the

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older Arbenz-era communist workers’ party, the PGT, despite the fact that many of its leaders had disappeared or had been assassinated outright over the years. During the 1960s and 1970s, industrial growth and Guatemala’s entry into the Central American Common Market encouraged the significant expansion of organizations of industrial workers, especially unions, but government repression of labor paralleled or even surpassed the growth of the labor movement.57 By the late 1970s, government repression of organized labor intensified; in 1980 alone the government or paramilitary groups assassinated 110 union leaders and disappeared at least 55 others.58 By the time of the Rı´os Montt coup, Guatemala’s labor movement, which had never been terribly strong, in the words of the sympathetic Central American Report, “for all practical purposes had been annihilated.”59 Not all sectors of the popular movement were so weak. Unlike the earlier guerrilla movement, which had consisted mainly of disaffected Arbencistas, including former members of the military, trade and campesino unionists, and members of the PGT, the new popular movement had a much broader appeal to a generation of young Guatemalans who had come of age since 1954. The revolutionary groups had an active presence in the capital, particularly among radical students and faculty at the University of San Carlos, who lent the armed movement both strategic and intellectual support.60 Included among these were university students and professors—the same sector that had produced some of the most vociferous opponents of the Arbenz regime in the 1950s. This dramatic defection to the Left by faculty and students at the university, forced by Guatemala’s climate of repression, disillusionment with the “democratic” process, and infatuation with the new Cuban model, stood in stark contrast to the previous generation, when San Carlos University students had formed the intellectual core of the anticommunist, anti-Arbenz sector in the early 1950s. It had, in fact, been the student leaders of the virulently antiArbenz Comite´ de Estudiantes Universitarios Anticomunistas (CEUA) at the University of San Carlos who had gone on to found the MLN, a coalition of militantly anticommunist students, military men, conservative Church activists, and business leaders who, with help from the CIA, had supported Carlos Castillo Armas in his overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz.61 In the 1960s, the MLN coalesced into a formal political party, but it was also much more than that. Arguably the nation’s most powerful and feared organization outside of the military, the MLN was a powerful conglomeration of conservative politicians, military leaders, and businessmen who worked behind the scenes to help the army ensure that the events of the 1940s and 1950s would never be repeated.

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As late as the 1980s, the MLN prided itself on its status as Guatemala’s anticommunist watchdog (or pit bull), the arbiter of right-wing politics that its leader, Mario Sandoval Alarco´n—once the young firebrand of the CEUA and by now the MLN’s most public face—famously, and proudly, called “the party of organized violence.” Yet the new generation of university student leaders, some of them literally the sons and nephews of the leaders of the MLN, the planter class, and of Guatemala’s leading intellectuals, forcefully repudiated the political universe that their fathers had helped create.62 That so many sons of the elite would abandon their patrimony to study in Cuba, provide intellectual and strategic support for the guerrillas, and even take up arms to overthrow the government offered the strongest evidence possible by the late 1970s that the traditional strategies of the military and the Right could not hold much longer.63 The revitalization of the guerrilla movement in the 1970s, moreover, signified a departure from the earlier phase of popular resistance, where opposition, grounded in the disenfranchisement and disillusionment of the 1954 Arbenz overthrow, had cut its teeth on conventional Marxist class analysis and built up around the Arbenz-vintage communist workers’ party, the PGT. By the mid-1970s, the PGT was still a player, but its influence was eclipsed by the new leftist groups that were forming at the time. These newly emergent movements signaled a philosophical shift in the Left, represented by a more forwardlooking agenda that included the incorporation of much broader sectors of society, including Catholic activists and the indigenous population.64 Largely rejecting the organizational strategy that had failed them on the eastern front, the new guerrilla organizations moved the theater of armed popular struggle from the oriente and the capital (where the guerrilla presence heretofore had been manifest in symbolic political actions such as assassinations of right-wing political figures, kidnapping, bombings, and other high-profile criminality, including bank robbery) to the altiplano—the western highlands—where most of the majority indigenous population lived.65 The geographic shift reflected a departure from the PGT’s long-held ideological stance that the “Indian peasants of the altiplano . . . were a backward force incapable of revolutionary initiative.”66 Instead, the new EGP hoped to capitalize on the indigenous people’s long history of oppression to establish a new vanguard.

The Incorporation of the Indigenous into the Left The decision to incorporate indigenous people into the revolutionary struggle as such—as opposed to classifying them simply as “semiproletarians” in

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the larger class struggle—dramatically changed the nature of the popular movement, even in ways that the guerrilla leadership did not fully appreciate at the time. This policy was unprecedented in the earlier phases of the struggle—when the conflict had been confined largely to the eastern, ladino part of the country—and was a point that caused debate and dissent among guerrilla strategists.67 After the army’s rout of the guerrillas in 1967, FAR leader and future commander of the EGP, Rolando Mora´n (Ricardo Arnoldo Ramı´rez de Leon) issued a critique of their defeat, the Documento de Marzo 1967, in which he argued that one of the main reasons for FAR’s defeat had been its inability to mobilize the Mayan population.68 It was this assessment, in part, that provoked the movement of the newer guerrilla organizations, the EGP and ORPA, to make their base of operations the predominantly indigenous highlands. Even then, however, the revolutionary movements, committed as they were to an ideology that reified class struggle, justified mestizaje and acculturation as a means of advancing the dictatorship of the proletariat, and, led by an all-ladino leadership, were slow to allow the Maya as such into meaningful positions within the guerrilla movement. In a 1981 interview, Mora´n, who was by this time the senior commander in chief of the EGP, underscored this point. “The revolutionary forces [in the past] were not conscious of the importance of the indigenous in Guatemala,” he explained. “From the time of the Democratic Movement [19]44–54 until now the attitude toward the indigenous was, in a certain manner, paternalistic. The earlier revolution, a ladino [mestizo] revolution, sought to vindicate indigenous rights but through a ladino vision. The EGP seeks the complete vindication of the indigenous through their participation in the revolution.”69 The timing was right for such a move, given that indigenous political mobilization had already begun at the grassroots, largely independent of guerrilla encouragement. Without finding a way to incorporate or even coopt these movements, the guerrillas feared that it might be they who would find themselves in history’s proverbial dustbin. The political activism that had emerged during the Arbenz reforma had long simmered beneath the surface but was now ready to boil over, taking shape through Catholic radicalism and new political organizations. Of these, the most important was the Comite´ de Unidad Campesina (CUC), a powerful grassroots and almost exclusively indigenous popular organization that officially came into being on May Day, 1978, after several years of clandestine organizing.70 Although the CUC’s roots were, to a large extent, based in Catholic liberationist formation, it was expressly not a religious organization. As one member from La Estancia, an aldea near Santa Cruz del Quiche´, described it, “When CUC formed, we no longer talked about religion, but about exploitation, about

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the struggle for equality, freedom for workers, better wages.” In the case of La Estancia, the entire Catholic Action group simply “shifted . . . membership to the CUC.”71 In joining the CUC, Mayan cadres thus threaded the needle of rising consciousness to become active agents rather than passive objects of political mobilization. A large and combative clandestine movement, the CUC came out publicly partly as a reaction to the army’s massacre of campesino protesters at Panzo´s finca, in Alta Verapaz, in 1978, an event explored in more detail below. Two years later, in 1980, the CUC called for two major strikes in favor of raising the minimum wage for agricultural workers (from $1.12 to $3.20 per day). Combined, the two strikes involved 120,000 agricultural workers and clearly demonstrated the CUC’s potential to derail the nation’s economy.72 By year’s end, the specter of the CUC loomed large in the imaginations of Guatemala’s rich and powerful, for, in addition to its economic influence, the CUC was the first nationally known indigenous campesino organization that was founded, led, and manned by Mayan leadership.73 As such, the CUC represented a sharp departure from established trope of the politically acquiescent Indian; as one of its formative documents adroitly phrased it, the CUC promised “new ways of being Indian.”74 While residual racism and mutual distrust slowed the building of alliances between the guerrillas and the other popular movements, the horrifying prospect of such a coalition—Indians and communists united!—posed such a lethal threat to the civil-military regime that it demanded immediate action. General Hector Gramajo, who later served as director of the army general staff under Rı´os Montt, explained his own epiphany on this point early one morning in 1979.75 “I was awakened to receive nine soldiers’ bodies that came from the western highlands,” he recalled. “I saw an ethnic strategy of the EGP and I said, this is very dangerous because it is becoming an ethnic conflict.”76 Even the army’s in-house journal, the Revista Militar, quickly picked up on the overwhelming implications of an indigenous guerrilla front, noting with unexpected empathy that the EGP’s new strategy of incorporating the Maya into its ranks was “successful in offering the Guatemalan indı´gena hope of dignity that had not been offered him during more than 400 years of humiliation and misery.”77 Because the use of coercion and their own racism sometimes undermined their efforts, the guerrillas gained support and trust in Mayan communities very slowly.78 It was not easy to build bridges across the great chasm of racial stereotypes; mistrust ran both ways even among politically conscious activists, and even at best the linkages were often fragile. Ladinos tended to think of the indigenous as backward and ignorant, while one indigenous activist articulated the native perspective this way: “The poor ladinos share the bour-

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geoisie ideology of their bosses [amos] and reinforce their superiority to the indigenous; poor ladinos [are people] who have lost their culture in the oriente and the city. . .. They identify with their masters and want to be equal with them, they aspire to have money and to be exploiters without realizing that this is the same system they oppose.”79 By the second half of the 1970s, the EGP had nonetheless begun to make serious inroads in either earning Mayan support outright or encouraging the formation of noncombatant Mayan-run popular organizations such as the CUC. Between 1975 and 1978, Guatemala experienced a boom in mass organization. As the army used increasingly repressive methods to cut down the opposition, new popular organizations sprang up, demanding widespread reform in favor of workers’ rights, land ownership, and human rights. Many of these groups built their base upon politically radicalized Catholic activists, along with secular cadres of teachers, health promoters, and other reformers.80 While not all the highland popular organizations claimed direct links to the armed opposition, most did embrace the popular armed struggle to one extent or another in ways that ranged across the spectrum from strategic support (such as supplying the guerrillas with food, tending to wounded combatants, or guiding them across difficult terrain) to committing covert acts of sabotage, to actually taking up arms against the government.81 In 1979, an internal army document estimated that up to 60 percent of the Ixil people—who lived in an area of El Quiche´ that the army believed to be unusually susceptible to leftist promises—were “with” (con) the guerrillas.82 By 1981, by some reports, at least a quarter of a million people in rural areas supported the guerrillas to some degree or another, from providing them with food, shelter, and communications to actually taking up arms. The EGP launched a major new advance as it moved out of the mountains and into the jungle of the Ixca´n, with the ambitious goal to spread within the year (1980) across the entire altiplano and to expel the army entirely from Ixca´n proper.83 Although it ultimately failed to gain control of the entire Ixca´n, the guerrilla offensive advanced rapidly from 1980 to 1981, gaining momentum through the incorporation of other popular forces on the ground and by expanding its campaign of eliminating army collaborators and sympathizers. Of this advance, the EGP’s Informador Guerrillero boldly boasted, “In the interior of the country, the self-obsessed [camarilla] repressive military continued its politics of extermination and massacres to control the Guatemalan people in the vain attempt to impede the growth of its incorporation into the process of popular revolutionary war that presently grows . . . in our country.”84

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One activist who worked in the Ixca´n remembered this time as one of hopeful expectation for an “insurrecio´n anticipada y local.”85 By early 1981, the EGP set a brazen new objective: to overthrow the Lucas government and to install a popular revolutionary government in its place before March 1982.86 Throughout this period, the guerrilla movement greatly expanded its authority and power. But even at the moment of its apex, the EGP also found itself overextended and logistically challenged, particularly in its vulnerable and still-undervalued indigenous periphery.87

The Advance of the Popular Movements On January 19, 1980, the four disparate guerrilla organizations organized under a single umbrella, the Unidad Nacional Revolucionario Guatemalteco (URNG). This move, which Cuba encouraged, mirrored the successful unification of the guerrilla forces a few years earlier in El Salvador into the FMLN, and spurred the Cuban government to provide the Guatemalans with additional training and support, including, for the first time, automatic weapons.88 Although each component guerrilla organization retained a certain amount of autonomy, the URNG as a whole adopted a common two-phase tactical approach. The first involved the occupation or “taking” (toma militar) of villages and fincas to indoctrinate the local populations, a step that often involved a direct or indirect confrontation with the military and that also sometimes gained them arms and publicity, but which also left villages vulnerable to recriminations from the army if the guerrillas withdrew. The second phase, never fully realized, thanks in large part to Rı´os Montt’s scorched-earth campaign, was a large-scale united military offensive in which the revolutionary forces, augmented with both ladino and indigenous strategic support, were to take over major towns and cities outside the capital, thus resulting in the eventual capitulation of the government.89 The strategic support of sympathetic noncombatants in the highlands was essential to a URNG victory. U.S. intelligence estimated the number of actual combatants, armed with Vietnam-era weaponry, at no more than 5,000 at their peak in early 1982. The URNG combatants even at their apex were a small force and poorly armed compared to the FMLN in neighboring El Salvador, but sufficient to offer a relatively serious challenge to the Guatemalan army, which, though much larger and better trained, had received no direct military aid from the United States since 1977. The U.S. intelligence estimates, moreover, appear to have underestimated the guerrillas’ strength at the time—or the Guatemalan army high command exaggerated it.

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Rı´os Montt’s defense minister, General Hector Gramajo, later admitted that the army believed that the guerrillas also enjoyed the support of at least 10,000–12,000 irregular forces that were, in Gramajo’s words, “better armed than the army.”90 It would be the existence of these irregular forces (fuerzas irregulares locales, FILs)—corn farmers, part-time militia members, middle-aged women, older men and underage boys, local people familiar with jungle or mountainous terrain, women who occasionally cooked for the guerrillas, or villagers who might help carry off and nurse injured fighters—that greatly augmented estimates of guerrilla strength, although many were only temporary or circumstantial allies. A slippery and porous category, it was the FILs that inadvertently helped provided a rationale for the massacres that were to come, since in the eyes of the army, virtually anyone, regardless of age or gender, might be part of the FILs. From the army’s perspective, they were all, simply, terrorists. There were, however, mitigating factors regarding the guerrilla efflorescence between 1980 and 1982. Although technically united, the four groups that made up the URNG differed somewhat in ideology and focus, and these differences sometimes gave way to infighting, which sapped the cause.91 One 1983 training manual explained with uncharacteristic candor, “we have not advanced to the level of Unity [sic] necessary to accomplish in a superior and unified manner the revolutionary challenge” and cautioned against “hegemonismo and sectarianism.”92 Inextricably wedded to the idea of class struggle, the guerrilla leadership found it challenging to frame their ideology in such a way as to address the many social and economic problems that were unique to the Mayan experience. They were also deeply reluctant to promote a dialectical analysis that would underscore indigenous-ladino antagonisms, an approach that some of the hard-core leadership cautioned would simultaneously undermine deeply held classical Marxist tenets and alienate their ladino base of support.93 By the early 1980s, however, the guerrilla leadership, guided in large measure by Mario Payeras,94 a key EGP comandante and strategist, had begun to devote considerable internal discussion to how they might incorporate indigenous (indio) interests without diluting the discourse of class struggle or ˜ eros, a fundamental reorientation of revolutionalienating their ladino compan ary thinking that also alienated some of the guerrilla leadership.95 Despite some internal dissent, in 1982 the EGP issued an unprecedented manifesto titled “Los indı´genas y la revolucı´on guatemalteca,” a public statement authored by the EGP leadership, specifically Payeras, of the movement’s shift toward cultural politics and a harsh criticism of the regime’s treatment of indigenous people as an ethnic group.96 This and other subsequent statements eventually provided

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the rhetorical foundation for the Mayan movement, a political current that emerged in 1984 in the wake of the massacres of 1982–1983. But the discourse of genocide and Mayan mobilization as such never rested easily within the guerrilla movement, which remained dubious of casting the “popular revolutionary struggle” in fundamentally ethnic terms.97 As a result, few Maya ever moved into the ranks of guerrilla leadership, nor did many women, despite an emerging guerrilla discourse of gender equality.98 Like their counterparts in the military, Mayan combatientes were more likely to live under harsh and dangerous conditions than were their ladino commanders, the higher echelons of whom were living abroad in Mexico, Nicaragua, and Europe.99 Moreover, while all the guerrilla organizations were Marxist, with ideological ties to Cuba and, eventually, Nicaragua, and all shared the common goal of overthrowing the existing government, there was beyond that no concrete plan or general agreement even among the guerrilla leadership as to exactly what type of new socialist government should replace it.100 Yet even given serious internal divisions and logistical problems, in the early 1980s the guerrillas seemed poised for victory. As late as August 1982, the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala privately predicted to the State Department that “the government might not be able to survive the insurgence beyond five [more] years.”101

Twin Crises: The 1974 Presidential Elections and the 1976 Earthquake In the midst of these developments, two disasters transpired—one political and the other natural—that would dramatically accelerate the pace of confrontation in the countryside. The first of these was the fraudulent presidential election in 1974, a political event so cynically manipulated that it pushed people with even moderate political views to the outer edge of the system. Military historian Hector Rosada-Granados marks the fraudulent 1974 election as the beginning of a “degenerative process” within the military that would soon spiral into indiscriminate repression.102 The defrauded popular candidate in this election was none other than General Efraı´n Rı´os Montt, then a reformist leader of the Catholic party, the Christian Democrats (DC), who lost the election, ironically, when his fellow military officers began to fear that he might implement democratic reforms that could limit the army’s war against a reemergent insurgency. Although he was clearly a major player in the military, Rı´os Montt was not, to use one of his own favorite words, a politiquero—a political hack—and,

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significantly, he did not have direct political ties to the MLN, the far-right-wing political party that had formed from the group that had, with CIA assistance, overthrown the Arbenz regime in 1954 and had been a powerful political power broker since that time. In the 1974 presidential race, Rı´os Montt, well known within the military but not to the general populace, was a new face in the official political arena. He campaigned on a reformist ticket that included the respected politician Alberto Fuentes Mohr—a leader of the Social Democratic Party with views so progressive that he would fall to assassins’ bullets less than four years hence—when he was vice president.103 The two made an attractive ticket, and they indisputably won the 1974 presidential popular vote. Rı´os Montt was not, however, the candidate of the Far Right. At the final moment, complete with darkened television screens, patriotic music on the radio, and reprinted newspapers, the military, along with the MLN and PID, another influential conservative party, stole the election from him. General Kjell Laugerud Garcı´a, a Norwegian-Guatemalan who represented the interests of the Far Right and the Alto Mando (the army high command), instead assumed the office of the presidency under the dark cloud of open fraud and corruption.104 The 1974 presidential election proved pivotal in several respects. According to observer Carlos Rafael Soto Rosales, the DC leaders accepted the overt fraud only because they feared that a popular reaction “would result in disorder that would provoke worse government repression and that a challenge would lead to a confrontation between military leaders.”105 The blatant electoral fraud served to further alienate an already thoroughly disillusioned electorate on both the Right and the Left, forcing them to abandon the idea that Guatemala could resolve its many problems through democratic and electoral means. Given the nation’s history, the fact that Guatemalans had continued to embrace the idea of democratic reform at all reflected a triumph of optimism over experience.

The 1976 Earthquake The second disaster to befall Guatemala was a devastating earthquake that struck on February 4, 1976, 7.5 on the Richter scale, followed by a second powerful 5.5 aftershock on February 6. The earthquake, its epicenter portentously located in Chimaltenango (soon to be an epicenter of the armed conflict as well), by official count killed 22,545, wounded 70,000, and displaced more than a million people—all numbers that probably underestimate those killed, injured, and left homeless in the nameless shantytowns that ringed Guatemala City and in remote rural areas.106 Even Guatemala City, located 54 kilometers

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from the epicenter, was in ruins, its water supply, telephone system, and electrical grid so badly damaged that even after repairs they would function erratically for many years to come. As both natural catastrophe and metaphor, the earthquake shattered the fragile social and political infrastructure of the country. It added such unprecedented momentum to the growing popular resistance that social scientist Phillip Berryman has described the 1976 earthquake as a “detonator” of revolution.107 Like so many natural disasters, the earthquake disproportionately affected the poor, whose substandard housing, especially adobe buildings, collapsed and crushed those inside or tumbled down the hillsides to ruination when they were located on marginal lands, such as the sides of ravines and barrancas.108 Within days of the disaster, the Guatemalan government established an organization called the National Reconstruction Committee (CRN) to oversee relief work; it would reconstitute this organization again in the early 1980s to provide relief and oversight to people displaced by the armed conflict. Although many of the international agencies that came to Guatemala to offer relief from the 1976 earthquake were private or faith based (including many Protestant organizations from the United States), the military demanded that the government itself should decide which victims were worthy to receive aid, based on loyalty and patriotism. (Historian Deborah Levenson-Estrada has documented specifically how this worked in the case of lamina, the corrugated metal or fiberglass sheets that aid agencies provided as roofing. The military impounded lamina imported by aid agencies until they agreed to distribute the building materials to zones specifically chosen by the CRN).109 Apart from provoking an overwhelming and immediate humanitarian crisis, in the words of Guatemalan politician-historian Francisco Villagra´n Kramer, “the major effect of the earthquake, without doubt, was to expose to the light of day the crude reality of [a] country . . . that operated on a base of clearly-established hierarchies that [up until that time] were observed and respected.”110 Or, as Levenson cogently observes, “Although the military never claimed that the earthquake was a turning point in its history, it was.”111 Certainly, the earthquake provided new opportunities and challenges for both the guerrillas and the military. Social anthropologist Sheldon Davis has noted that, “for the Guatemalan government, the chaos created by the earthquake presented a military rather than a social problem.”112 Hoping to make a preemptive strike against new guerrilla advances in the midst of the upheaval, the army launched its first significant offensive in the Ixil region a mere two weeks after the earthquake. This initial attack killed several Catholic Action members and a bilingual teacher. Between February 1976 and December 1977,

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government forces would assassinate sixty-four cooperative members in the Ixca´n region, a bloody prelude of things to come.113

An Escalation in Violence: The Lucas Years Compounding this crisis was the issue that during the reign of los Lucas— the presidency of General Romeo Lucas Garcı´a (1978–1982) and his brother, Defense Minister Benedicto Lucas Garcı´a—the traditional methods of smothering political opposition were rapidly proving to be outdated and ineffective. Under Lucas, paramilitary groups revived the use of death squads, a method of institutional violence that had temporarily declined during the political lull of the early 1970s. But in the face of a rapidly escalating popular rebellion, the strategy of nighttime assassination, while still terrifying, seemed to be less efficacious than it had once been in maintaining public order. This unexpected turn of events demanded that the army reconsider and strengthen its overall strategy against the rising opposition.114 As historian Carlos Figueroa Ibarra notes, the second half of the 1970s witnessed an “unprecedented rise in the participation of the masses in the political life of the country”; as such government’s strategy would be focused not so much on direct engagement with the guerrillas, as on the systematic application of state-sponsored violence against civilians thought to be associated with the Left.115 Out in the countryside, the new guerrilla organizations, particularly the EGP, also demonstrated a new aggression designed to signal their emerging influence outside the capital by deploying public acts of violence. In June 1975, the EGP committed a strategic assassination, killing Jose´ Luis Arenas, an important and well-known landowner in the Ixca´n and owner of an estate called Finca La Perla. Arenas was a long-time anticommunist activist who enjoyed such a notorious reputation for brutally mistreating his mozos that he had earned the nickname the Tiger of Ixca´n. As such, his assassination was supposed to serve as an example of revolutionary justice.116 Arenas’s killing was both dramatic and unexpected. EGP combatants, dressed as campesinos, infiltrated the ranks of workers on a payday; they shot the fiquero to death in his own office in full view of the many campesinos who had come to collect their pay. Arenas’s son, Luis, managed to escape, traveling directly to Guatemala City to report his father’s murder by the EGP to the proper authorities. Yet even this young son of the planter class could expect no satisfaction from his government. The minister of defense, either lost in a fog of denial or official disinformation, dismissed him, saying simply, “Usted

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esta´ equivocado, en el a´rea no hay guerrilla” (You’re mistaken. In that area there are no guerrillas).117 It was the defense minister, of course, who was wrong, and Arenas’s killing ultimately to be proved something of a wake-up call for the Guatemalan army. Jesuit Ricardo Falla, then serving as a priest in a nearby parish, called Arenas’s killing a virtual “declaration of war.”118 The army, then under indirect control of general and president Kjell Laugerud Garcı´a, launched an assault on northern El Quiche´, attempting to root out subversion by the killings and disappearances of actual and potential rural leadership. With almost complete disregard for actual guilt or innocence, they cast a very wide net, hunting down members of Catholic Action and other community leaders, along with anyone else perceived to have any association with the guerrillas.119 By the time General Romeo Lucas Garcı´a took power in 1978, the counterinsurgency strategy had sown the seeds of state terror quite broadly, but it had nonetheless failed to slow the growth of the popular movements. Two other notorious episodes that occurred during the Lucas regime graphically illustrated his shift in government repression of popular opposition. The first of these occurred on May 29, 1978, when the much-feared Guatemalan special forces (Kaibiles) gunned down more than 50 Q’eqchi’ Mayan land rights activists organized by the PGT, who were resisting expropriation of their land in Panzo´s, Alta Verapaz, killing at least three dozen of the protesters and seriously wounding many more.120 While the Panzo´s organizers were hardly political naı¨fs—key activists were members of the longestablished communist PGT, thus linking the rebellion to the old Left of the Arbenz era—the excessive aggression of the military response to the land protest was shocking even by Guatemalan standards. This horrific event proved to be a harbinger of things to come, but, unlike most of the other massacres that would take place over the course of the years to follow, Panzo´s received heavy coverage in the Guatemalan press. Within the context of its time and place, the Panzo´s massacre seemed (correctly) to many Guatemalans to signal a dangerous shift in military strategy, as Jennifer Schirmer has suggested in her extensive study of the army, from a course of selective killings in 1978–1979 to massive killings.121 This shift did not go unnoticed even in the higher circles of power. As the repression quickly escalated in the wake of the Panzo´s massacre, U.S. ambassador John Bennett wrote to his superiors in a secret cable that “those seeking real change will have no alternative but the violent left.”122 Historian Greg Grandin has called Panzo´s “the last colonial massacre,” as the events that occurred there, both the uprising and the massacre, mark a

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critical watershed in Guatemala’s history. Subsequent to Panzo´s, Guatemala’s grassroots popular resistance were invested in what James Scott calls “everyday resistance”—movements that are “covert and largely concerned with immediate, de facto gains.” After Panzo´s, the popular opposition shifted to “institutional resistance”—resistance that is “formal, overt [and] concerned with systematic change.”123 It was at this point that the armed struggle symbolically shifted from resistance to revolution.

The Spanish Embassy Fire The second salvo in the government’s strategy of invigorated repression took place two years later on January 31, 1980, when the Lucas government ordered the burning of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City as members of the CUC were occupying it.124 Two weeks earlier, indigenous CUC members from the department of El Quiche´ and a few students from San Carlos University had, with the tacit approval of the Spanish ambassador, stormed and taken over the Spanish Embassy to use it as a platform to publicize a series of political demands. Taking its inhabitants hostage, the occupiers hoped to draw attention to the deteriorating human rights situation in the countryside and to demand their rights to their agricultural lands, which military officers had recently appropriated for their own use. The occupation of the embassy was, for the most part (though not completely), peaceful and mainly symbolic— Spanish Ambassador Ma´ximo Cajal y Lo´pez later described his discussions with the occupiers prior to the fire as having transpired “with relative tranquility,” although the CUC declined to release their hostages—but the Guatemalan government refused to negotiate with the protesters or to consider their demands.125 Instead, Lucas ordered his interior minister, “Take them out as you can.”126 The police then locked the doors to building—already blocked by the occupiers from the inside with sofas and other furniture—and attacked with incendiary bombs and grenades.127 With television cameras rolling to capture the occupiers’ cries for help and military police standing guard, soldiers lobbed the bombs into the embassy, quickly—but not quickly enough—killing nearly everyone inside, including the thirty-nine protesters, Spanish diplomats, local embassy staff, a former vice president, and the Guatemalan foreign minister, who were all in the building as negotiators.128 The police finally allowed a single fire truck with leaky hoses on the scene, but only after the screaming in the building had finally died out. One of the CUC organizers, Gregorio Yuja´ Xona´, survived the fire, badly burned, and was taken to the hospital. Shortly thereafter, desconcidos

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(unknown men) kidnapped him from his hospital bed; later, bystanders found his disfigured and lifeless body dumped on the San Carlos University campus. The government’s intended message was lost on no one: Guatemalans could from that point on expect their government to meet public dissent with merciless and overwhelming violence. The Spanish Embassy burning, in many people’s minds, marked a new nadir. Of it, political scientist George Black writes, “If Panzo´s had been a turning point for the Indians, the Spanish Embassy massacre killed off any flickering hope of peaceful protest.”129 Guatemalan writer Arturo Arias has described the tragedy as “a definitive watershed for most Indians.” Arias continues, “For them, there were now no options left other than to join the popular war being waged against the reactionary regime. And, from that date on, a latent state of massive insurrection against the state began in both the central highlands and the northwest.”130 Certainly, the Spanish Embassy fire seared political consciousness into an indigenous teenager named Rigoberta Menchu´, whose father was among the CUC leaders incinerated that day in 1980.131 With the burning of the Spanish Embassy, the government had met (relatively) peaceful protest with overwhelming and unnecessary force, and had, for the second time in two years, shown its willingness to kill indigenous political organizers who had tried to publicize land tenure and human rights issues. In burning the embassy, the government also demonstrated its utter disregard for international censure by killing foreign diplomats and even Guatemala’s own civilian government officials. The embassy fire seemed to signal a new level of repression, and perhaps desperation, as government policy slipped readily from assassination to mass murder.132 The brutality of the Spanish Embassy burning, coming as it did relatively on the heels of the Panzo´s massacre, seemed to signal a rising panic on the part of the government. The Lucas administration’s egregious disregard for human rights earned Guatemala international condemnation and further underscored the United States’ decision to suspend aid to Guatemala, a sanction that the Carter administration had made earlier on the basis of Guatemala’s abysmal human rights record. But the government’s extreme and excessive reaction at both Panzo´s and the Spanish Embassy failed to sufficiently intimidate the Guatemalan populace. Within days of the fire, in early February 1980, indigenous leaders convened at the ruins of Iximche´, the center of the ancient Kakchikel kingdom. Though clandestine, leaders from nearly every ethnic group attended the meeting, where they jointly crafted a manifesto known as the Declaration of Iximche´.133 In this declaration, they denounced the embassy holocaust as the

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last straw of “more than four centuries of discrimination, negation, repression, exploitation and massacres made by foreign invaders and continued unto the present day by their most savage and criminal descendents.”134 The Declaration of Iximche´, as a call to arms, was one of the first “public” documents that linked the largely ladino, Marxist guerrilla movement with the indigenous, Catholic-based CUC in common struggle.135 It also laid out many of the founding principles, including that of pan-Mayanism, the indigenous nationalist movement that would emerge a decade later. From a military perspective, however, the government’s extreme response at the Spanish Embassy was justified by the fact that the guerrillas themselves—the actual armed combatants whose goal was to overthrow the government, as opposed to some sort of Jacobin democratic reform—were, for the first time, beginning to make genuine inroads, including the physical occupation of a swatch of national territory in the northern Ixca´n area. That they enjoyed a considerable amount of support in the Ixca´n signaled an even more dire turn of events for the military, indicating that the guerrillas were, for the first time in their history, successfully making the transition from a relatively small insurgency to a demonstrably popular movement, in the literal definition of the phrase. The Lucas government’s reaction, led by the president’s brother, Defense Minister Benedicto Lucas, was to respond with mass terror, convinced that only drastic and precipitous action could halt the guerrilla advance. In late 1981 and early 1982, in an effort to cut off rising support for the guerrillas, the army began to commit massacres on a large and indiscriminate scale. According to anthropologist Beatriz Manz, who conducted some of the earliest interviews with massacre survivors, some of the “worst excesses of previous periods such as the occasional massacre became more common. Families were burned alive in their own dwellings, women were frequently raped, and children were hacked to death.”136 Indeed, some of the most egregious massacres of 1982—the low point of state-sponsored political violence in Guatemala’s recent history—took place between January and midMarch, immediately before Rı´os Montt took power. This included at least three notorious massacres in Alta and Baja Verapaz and Ixca´n Grande, El Quiche´, where several hundred people died in each event.137 It was under the Lucas administration that the Guatemalan army first adopted the scorched-earth strategy that people would later associate so strongly with Rı´os Montt, launching the first such attack in Chimaltenango in November 1981.138 Between March 14 and 17, 1982, the army committed one of the most atrocious massacres of the era, killing 400 people, nearly the entire population of the cooperative Cuarto Pueblo in Huehuetenango, just

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days before the March 23 coup.139 Under Lucas, in the cities, assassinations, death squad killings, and disappearances (as well as reappearances of the dead, often brutally disfigured) also became more common, marking a rapid downward spiral of capricious violence and death.

The Crisis in Military Government: The Lucas Years In addition to the advance of the popular movements and the increase in institutional violence, other key factors impacted the military’s ability to maintain rule in the late 1970s. The first of these had to do with the military’s deteriorating relations with the civilian planter-industrial class. By the 1970s, the army had become increasingly avaricious, both in its institutional desire to retain power and in the increasing tendency for the military to reward its own with privileges and commercial concessions, a trend highlighted by the dramatic expansion of military economic interests in the Franja Transversal del Norte in the mid to late 1970s. This competition for resources and power— what one Guatemalan journalist referred to as the “struggle for control over the forms of plunder”—seriously weakened internal cohesion within the ruling class, posing an altogether separate threat to the status quo than that of the popular opposition.140 Without a strong alliance with the civilian ruling class, the military lost the “legitimacy” that had been the basis of its authority to rule since the early 1960s.141 Political scientist James Dunkerley has noted that the Guatemalan oligarchy in the 1970s was the “most coherent, least modernizing and least reformist ruling class in Central America”; when the military no longer advanced their interests, many of this class chose to divest their capital abroad.142 By the early 1980s, local capitalists had divested at least $1.5 billion outside of Guatemala, a severe blow to an economy already wounded by the 1970s oil crisis and by serious declines in key national industries, most notably tourism.143 With the economy in free fall, corruption ran amok within the army and government. With the Lucas brothers unable to halt the advance of the insurgency even with the stepped-up use of institutional violence, the moment had come for a decisive coup.

Conclusion If the Guatemalan military had ever been engaged in a moral cause—and many Guatemalans in the 1950s and 1960s understood the effort to “save the

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nation from communism” to be precisely that—it lost those claims to moral legitimacy through its excessive and overweening use of violence in the late 1970s. Literary theorist Jean Franco has described the Spanish Embassy burning, along with other notorious events such as Mexico’s 1968 Tlatelolco massacre and the destruction of the La Moneda Palace during the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende in Chile, as events that “struck at the heart of the republican ideal—the system of justice, the unity of the nation, the presidential system, and the right of asylum. These were acts of profound disrespect on the part of the military, one of the pillars of the republican state.”144 Taking Franco’s argument further, we can see that the Spanish Embassy fire and the events surrounding it, not excluding the 1976 earthquake, signaled not merely the decline of the republican ideal, but, indeed its complete absence in Guatemala—the lack of a perception of common purpose, a lack of access to power and resources, an absence of equality, belief in the rule of law, or a shared sense of national dignity (some might call this nationalism, others imaginaire). These are the foundations on which a people vest their social contract with the state, and without it there is a vacuum of power and imagination that Latin Americans today describe as ingobernabilidad. In Guatemala in the late 1970s and early 1980s, state violence replaced both ideology and idealism. One could argue that the republican ideal had always fluttered only at the outer edges of the political discourse in Guatemala, and that much of the population—the indigenous population most notably—had never subscribed to it all. Yet despite its deeply undemocratic past, Guatemala’s history is replete with intellectuals, statesmen, and writers who deeply embraced the republic and continued for many years to promote its ideals as the nation’s best hope.145 It was the long dure´e of 1954, finally, that extinguished all hope for republicanism, even among those who had clung dearly to such aspirations, including powerful and lettered classes on both the Right and the Left. For the Left, what greater repudiation of the republic could there be than the desire to overthrow it by force of arms? This desire, which by definition utilized violence to accomplish its ends, had its roots in two polarities—in an optimism for a radical new future, but also in utter despair that hope for a civil—“civil” meaning not merely legal, but also decent—society could be salvaged from the enlightened, capitalist model upon which all the republics of the Americas were once based. Indeed, many who joined the guerrillas were motivated to do so not by optimism, but by anger and outrage. If the government of Guatemala had lost its moral core, the guerrillas of the late 1970s— expanding not just numerically and geographically, but also ideologically, by expressly incorporating Mayans, Christians, and other popular grassroots movements—in that brief moment, found theirs. By dint of a narrowing set

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of options, revolution, for some (if always a minority of Guatemalans) became not only a political aspiration but a moral one as well. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the defenders of the status quo also employed violence to protect their own power and interests, and the ideology of late Cold War anticommunism provided an ideal platform for the protection of those interests. But the use of violence by elites was not merely a by-product of the Cold War, although the Cold War was entirely real to them. Violence was also the direct offspring of fear; as German writer and dramatist Bertolt Brecht once observed, “Fear rules not only those who are ruled, but the rulers too.”146 The Right used violence to placate its fears that the economic, political, and social system that had sustained it was rapidly slipping away. In the absence of idealism, violence itself became Guatemala’s dominant ideology.

3 Rı´os Montt and the New Guatemala

“Himno Nacional de Guatemala” (“Guatemala Feliz”) (Fragment) . . . Es tu ensen˜a pedazo de cielo en que prende una nube su albura, y ¡ay de aquel que con ciega locura, sus colores pretenda manchar! Pues tus hijos valientes y altivos, que veneran la paz cual presea, nunca esquivan la ruda pelea si defienden su tierra y su hogar.

CHORUS:

Libre al viento tu hermosa bandera a vencer o a morir llamara´; que tu pueblo con a´nima fiera antes muerto que esclavo sera. . . . Nunca esquivan la ruda pelea si defienden su tierra y su hogar, que es tan solo el honor su alma idea y el altar de la Patria su altar . . . ´ lvarez Ovalle —Jose´ Joaquı´n Palma wrote and Rafael A composed Guatemala’s national anthem for a government-sponsored contest in 1896. In 1934, General Jorge Ubico ordered Jose´ Marı´a Bonilla to rewrite some of the words, which are as they appear here.

On March 23, 1982, a coup led by young military officers deposed Romeo Lucas Garcı´a during the last days of his presidency, announced the nullification of the rigged presidential elections that had named General Angel Anibal Guevara to office, and put a military junta at the head of government.1 Golpes and palace coups were nothing new in Guatemala—no fewer than nine heads of state had been forced to leave office without serving out a full term since 1954, the beginning

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of the modern political era—and this particular coup at first appeared to be little more than another chess move in the ongoing internal power struggle among generals and civilian elites that was then playing out against a backdrop of rapidly disintegrating social, political, and civic order. Yet it did not take long to see that this was a coup unlike any other. On the evening of March 23, still dressed in battle fatigues and sporting a lush mustache that drew attention from his preternaturally bright eyes, the nation’s new leader, General Jose´ Efraı´n Rı´os Montt, flanked by his two fellow golpistas, stood before the cameras to address a nervous nation. “I am trusting my Lord and King, that He shall guide me,” Rı´os Montt, a born-again Pentecostal, proclaimed. “Because only He gives and takes away authority.”2 This statement would set the tone for the programs, the criticism, and the retrospective analysis of the presidency of Efraı´n Rı´os Montt. Born in an aldea of Huehuetenango on June 16, 1926, Rı´os Montt was an elder son of a middleclass family that fell into straitened circumstances during the Depression.3 His father was a shopkeeper who owned a store called La Comodidad until the economic crisis of the 1930s bankrupted the business. His mother, a homemaker, was the descendent of a French immigrant to Guatemala, thus contributing the unconventional surname Montt to the family. The Rı´os Montt family produced twelve children, of whom Efraı´n, after the death of an older brother, was the eldest son.4 Though not wealthy, the family was highly respected in Huehuetenango (they moved to the city proper after the loss of La Comodidad), and the parents tried to instill in their many children a strong sense of duty and personal discipline.5 Two of the Rı´os sons would go on to distinguish themselves in the two professions that were open at that time to ambitious young men who were not part of the aristocratic planter class—the military and the Church.6 As a determined young man from the provinces, Efraı´n Rı´os Montt joined the army at age sixteen. He distinguished himself sufficiently to earn admission to the Escuela Polite´cnica in Guatemala City in 1943, thus gaining him access to a potential life of privilege and power as a military officer. After he graduated from the Escuela Polite´cnica at age twenty-three, his military career advanced steadily and he moved into the top ranks while still in his early forties. He taught at the Escuela Polite´cnica and served for a time as its director. Like so many of his military colleagues who went on to oversee the luchas sin cuartel (fights without quarter) in Central America during the final years of the Cold War, Rı´os Montt spent time at a U.S.-sponsored war college. Like other members of the army high command—including six of the nine cabinet members who later served under him when he was head of state—Rı´os

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Montt graduated from the U.S.-run officer training institute that would eventually be known as the School of the Americas.7 He studied briefly at the American post Fort Gulick, in the Canal Zone (1950), where he took a course on counterinsurgency based on Mao’s movement, rather than on the tactics of Che´ Guevara (the Cuban revolution not yet having taken place), a factor that may well have influenced his prosecution of the scorched-earth campaign in 1982. He later studied at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he received special training in counterinsurgency tactics and irregular warfare in 1961, and then at the Italian War College (1961–1962).8 Upon his return to Guatemala, Rı´os Montt became President Carlos Arana Osorio’s army chief of staff in 1970 and was promoted to general two years later. Although Rı´os Montt’s fellow officers recall his high moral standards and professionalism even in this early period, he nonetheless demonstrated an early preference for the mano dura when, on March 27, 1973, as chief of staff, the young general ordered the massacre of a group of campesinos who were involved in a land takeover in Sansirisay, El Progreso.9 In 1974, the same year that his younger brother Mario Enrique was consecrated a Catholic bishop,10 Rı´os Montt made his first foray into politics as the presidential candidate for the Christian Democratic Party at the head of a coalition known as UNO.11 As we have seen in chapter 2, although Rı´os Montt won the popular vote, the army and conservative leaders nullified the election, putting General Kjell Laugerud, thought to be more of a hard-liner, into the office of the presidency instead. As extreme cynicism toward the fraudulent elections infuriated and alienated the Guatemalan public, the same sense of betrayal and extremity extended to the defrauded candidate himself, whose own colleagues and fellow army officers had engineered his defeat. Although Rı´os Montt might have challenged the outcome, he did not, out of the belief that this might set off a popular reaction that would provoke a step up in military repression and, worse still from a general’s perspective, stir up problems within the military high command.12 In the wake of the election, Rı´os Montt, realizing that his military career was seriously compromised, agreed to take a post in “diplomatic exile” in Spain, and in 1977 he voluntarily went on inactive status with the army.13

The General Is Born Again It was in the wake of this defeat that Rı´os Montt, by his own account despondent and at loose ends, became a born-again Christian and in 1977, the same year he went into semiretirement, joined a Pentecostal church called the Church of the Word. In so doing, Rı´os Montt became part of a larger trend

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that had started in the 1960s but had accelerated dramatically after the 1976 earthquake, in which Guatemalans had begun converting to Protestantism, specifically Pentecostalism, in large numbers.14 The conversion of so many Guatemalans to Protestantism—by the early 1980s, more than a quarter of the population had joined Protestant churches—was in itself the result of a complex convergence of political, social, and spiritual factors.15 Although critics sniped that the post-earthquake conversion boom owed as much to the faith-based agencies’ offers of plastic sheeting and cans of Spam as it did to religious conviction, the wave of conversion in fact ran much deeper, reflecting many people’s desire for some sort of spiritual refuge in a disintegrating political and social milieu. As a convert to Pentecostalism, Rı´os Montt, who had been brought up in a deeply observant Catholic family, mirrored the experience of many thousands of other Guatemalans who were changing religious affiliations in reaction to a deep personal and social crisis. Rı´os Montt converted through contact with lay pastors of the Church of the Word (Iglesia Cristiana Verbo) or simply Verbo as it was commonly known. Verbo was a mission of a California-based organization called Gospel Outreach, itself the product of the “Jesus freak” movement of the early 1970s. Gospel Outreach originated as an experiment in communal living, but it had evolved over the years into a conservative neo-Pentecostal church.16 The denomination was a small one in the United States, but after its arrival in Guatemala following the earthquake, the church attracted a large following, one of several new denominations that catered to wealthy people in Guatemala City, to whom its particular variety of Pentecostalism, which stressed morality and the tangible rewards of right living, particularly appealed. Although Verbo continued to maintain some U.S. ties, by the early 1980s the denomination had largely “gone native” in the sense that the bulk of its leadership, funding, and doctrinal focus was Guatemalan, creating an inverse missionary relationship with the mother church back in California. According to Verbo biographers, Rı´os Montt took to the church teachings and discipline with alacrity, even accepting the church’s admonition, “humble thyself,” by doing custodial work and teaching in the church’s primary school. By Verbo’s account of events, the General was acting in this very capacity on the day of the March 23 coup, when, without his prior knowledge, the alto mando summoned him directly from the school to lead the golpe de estado. Be that as it may, Rı´os Montt’s membership in the church would overshadow his entire tenure in office, in terms of both his policies and the outside world’s perception of the administration. “We feel a great door has been opened,” said one elder of the Church of the Word on the afternoon that Rı´os Montt assumed office. “We don’t understand what is going to happen, but he will be operating

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with a power that is not like men’s corrupting power. He is going to have an anointing from God.”17 One of Rı´os Montt’s first acts as president was to evoke his church’s teachings that “in a multitude of counselors there is safety” by appointing two fellow parishioners from Verbo to specially created ad hoc positions as “secretary to the private affairs of the president” and “secretary of the president of the republic.”18 He referred to these advisors as “my conscience,” thereby setting off alarms within the army that members of Verbo might co-opt military influence. Indeed, it was (supposedly) exactly these concerns that church advisors enjoyed undue sway over Rı´os Montt that led the army high command to eventually oust Rı´os Montt in the coup of August 8, 1983.19

Background to the Coup of March 23, 1982 These close ties to evangelical interests notwithstanding, Rı´os Montt’s political ascent was, as we have seen, the product of his 1974 presidential bid. In March 1982, the military officers who supported Rı´os Montt in the coup against the Lucas-Guevara regime, thinking he would be a malleable figurehead for the army, were for the most part oblivious to their General’s new religious identity.20 In assessing the coup, U.S. intelligence also misread the General, thinking him to be a proxy for a dissident faction of the MLN, at best a weak figurehead for a coalition of army and MLN interests.21 Both assessments almost immediately proved wrong, for the General was anything but a puppet of the Far Right. He quickly drew power to himself, first by dominating the governing junta and then, on June 9, 1982, by forcing the other two members of the junta to step down so that he could declare himself sole chief of state. (Rı´os Montt never officially served as president of Guatemala per se, although the press commonly used the term to describe his position.) More important, from his first hours in office, Rı´os Montt framed his agenda in terms that were utterly alien to Guatemala’s customary political discourse. As a born-again Christian, Rı´os Montt wanted nothing less than for the nation of Guatemala to be born again as well: from this emerged the project that Rı´os Montt called La Nueva Guatemala (the New Guatemala). For Rı´os Montt, La Nueva Guatemala was both a political-military project and a program for national redemption. In it, military aggressiveness rested uncomfortably alongside evangelical notions of moral and spiritual reformation. As fellow Pentecostal Jorge Serrano Elı´as, the head of the Council of State under Rı´os Montt and himself president from 1992 to 1993, explained: “Rı´os Montt has two [parallel] theories in his mind. First, he is a military man.

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Second, he is a moral fighter. . . . It is only in these two separate perspectives that you can understand his government.”22 In the General’s way of thinking, however, these two motives conflated neatly: La Nueva Guatemala required a return to security and the defeat of the guerrillas, but at the same time, the government, so long associated with repression and corruption, had to reestablish its own legitimacy.23 Certainly, Rı´os Montt hoped that his own very public religious identity would spill over to help create a more credible perception of the government. But the central goal was vastly more far reaching: to fundamentally redefine the nature of the Guatemalan state. His New Guatemala would be grounded in a trinity of essential principles: morality, order and discipline, and national unity; as such, Rı´os Montt’s Guatemala was to be a reaffirmation of the republican (read: capitalist, if not necessarily democratic) ideal, framed in the language of evangelical Protestantism.24

La Mano Dura and the War of Counterinsurgency Far from being the figurehead his fellow generals had expected him to be, Rı´os Montt quickly seized the mando (power) for himself by forcing his fellow golpistas to step down and by moving out from under the authority of the army high command. Within two weeks of the coup that brought him into power, Rı´os Montt set into motion the legal and political apparatus to prosecute the war against the guerrillas and their supporters, real and suspected, in the capital and in rural areas of the country. Central to this was the enactment of several executive decrees designed to establish both a pragmatic and legal basis for the scorched-earth campaign in the highlands that was soon to follow. The first of these was Executive Decree 9-82, emitted on April 15, 1982. This law prohibited divulging news of political violence in the Guatemalan media— a measure that provided an effective news blackout for the Guatemalan populace, particularly in the capital, and which provided a veneer of plausible deniability against claims of government atrocities. Shortly thereafter, on June 1, 1982, the military government issued a general political amnesty for enemies of the regime, a point to which I shall return later.

Claiming Moral High Ground: The Campaign for Hearts and Minds La Nueva Guatemala With his own political power firmly in hand for the time being, Rı´os Montt set out to undertake a twofold task. The first of these was the full-scale military

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defeat of the guerrillas, an objective that had eluded the Guatemalan military since the inception of the first guerrilla movement in the early 1960s. This initial objective was the sine qua non of his larger goal to reimagine a new Guatemala in which the government and the governed would coexist peacefully under the benign sovereignty of God. This utopian vision could not flower until the army had fully vanquished all “subversives” (a designation that, as we shall see, included not only the guerrillas but all those who did not subscribe to the “national project” in general). Within days of taking office on March 23, Rı´os Montt set out the parameters of La Nueva Guatemala in a series of television speeches broadcast weekly on Sunday nights. These discursos del domingo were popularly known as “sermons,” and for good reason: the General, usually clad in civilian clothes with a Bible near at hand, and often standing beside an elaborate candelabrum, addressed his audience on a variety of political, economic, and social topics meant to establish the framework for a New Guatemala and, indeed, a new Guatemalan. The discursos, while far from Fidelesque in duration, could last for an hour or more, depending on the General’s frame of mind and range of vision on a given evening. While many discursos were predominantly political in nature, most also touched on family life, health, and other edifying topics. The common link in all the discursos, however, was a religious or moral subtext, solidly embedded in an evangelical narrative framework.25 Rı´os Montt addressed the nation at least once a week between March 23, 1982, and December 26, 1982. The government printing office published verbatim transcripts of these sermons, and they form the basis for much of the remainder of this chapter. The discursos were widely watched and discussed, and they appeared in abridged synopses in Guatemala’s newspapers during Rı´os Montt’s first nine months in office. But by January 1983, newspapers no longer printed the transcripts, perhaps a reflection of the army high command’s growing dissatisfaction with the General, which would culminate in his ouster in the August 1983 coup. The time frame of the discursos also corresponds to the bloodiest periods of the Rı´os Montt regime. The CIIDH database on human rights violations documents over 800 killings and disappearances per month during Rı´os Montt’s term of office; this is only an average, with killings weighted much more heavily at the beginning of his term of office than at the end. In fact, it was actually during Rı´os Montt’s first 100 days in office that much of the state-sponsored killing took place (figure 3.1). During the first 100 days, human rights organizations detailed evidence of at least sixty-nine massacres.26 The killing tapered off in June, corresponding to a limited government-sponsored amnesty, and then accelerated again in July, after the amnesty ended and the

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Number of killings and disappearances

3,500 Months of Ríos Montt regime: March 1982 to August 1983

3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500

84–04

84–01

83–10

83–07

83–04

83–01

82–10

82–07

82–04

82–01

81–10

81–07

81–04

81–01

80–10

80–07

80–04

80–01

79–10

70–07

0

Year–Month

figure 3.1. Killings and Disappearances in Guatemala, July 1979–April 1984. CEH, Memory of Silence, p. 84.

government declared a “state of war” through the Victoria 82 scorched-earth campaign. By October 1982, killings by the security forces decreased dramatically (although massacres continued to occur on a more sporadic basis for some time to come), indicating the army’s increased satisfaction with its control over the devastated highlands.27 Despite the unprecedented scope of this assault, its swiftness and precision were a hopeful signal to some Guatemalans, particularly to those living outside the massacre zones, that the indiscriminate terror that characterized the preceding Lucas regime had finally come to an end. Even though killing and terror increased quite dramatically under Rı´os Montt, public perception and short-term hagiography paradoxically credited the General with providing a cold logic and predictability to state repression. As one rural villager explained it, “Under Lucas, people were getting killed for no apparent reason. When Rı´os Montt took over, you knew what you needed to do to stay alive.”28

“La Nueva Guatemala Es Paz y Desarrollo” Certainly, Rı´os Montt’s early actions indicate that he understood that the restoration of a sense of order and security were important to his own

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legitimacy and authority in the eyes of Guatemala’s urban elites, an objective that the army high command also shared. To this end, on the night of March 24, 1982, Rı´os Montt appeared on television to call for an end to the random and ubiquitous violence in the capital, demanding that there be “no more cadavers on the roadsides.”29 The next day, political murder in and around the capital dropped sharply, as rightist death squads felt the withdrawal of official sanction for their activities. Three days later, the city’s bomberos, Guatemala’s volunteer firemen and ad hoc morgue crews, reported that for the first time in months they had not picked up any dead bodies in the streets—a grisly morning task that had become a daily ritual during the Lucas years. So remarkable was this change that the March 27 newspaper front-page headline announced: “No one shot to death today.”30

A War of Images Rı´os Montt understood much more clearly than had the preceding Lucas regime that his administration was engaged in a struggle for control of the country that was as much psychological and ideological as it was military. To this end, the regime constructed a series of images designed to reorient the struggle in people’s minds by portraying the government as champion and guardian of law and order. First among these images was one that is still very strongly associated with Rı´os Montt to this day: a blue hand with the thumb, index, and middle fingers extended against a field of white (figure 3.2). These three fingers symbolized a Trinitarian pledge: “No robo, no miento, no abuso” (I don’t steal, lie, or abuse)—a repentant government’s promise to recover its legitimacy and authority in the eyes of its people. The colors of the image, white and “celestial” blue (celeste), of course, are the colors of the Guatemalan flag. The three-fingered hand became ubiquitous almost immediately: in urban areas, it appeared in all public offices and in full-page ads in the national newspapers. In rural areas, where the three-fingered salute seemed to offer as much threat as promise, the emblem was also inescapable. It appeared painted on rock, whitewashed on mountainsides, on posters in rural post offices and Guatel telephone outstations, and, in time, on signs posted by the army in newly “pacified” villages. A second effort to make the government’s case appeared in a series of advertisements in Guatemalan newspapers that sought to reorient the readers’ understanding of who constituted the villains and heroes of the armed conflict. To this end came a series of ads that freely blended gentle cajoling with untempered demands: “We promise to change. You too.” “This government

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figure 3.2. “Ese Gobierno tiene el compromiso de cambiar.” “This government is committed to change. You too fulfill your commitment. Change.” The three-finger salute and the pledge of “No robo, no miento, no abuso” (I don’t steal, I don’t lie, I don’t abuse) that appear here were closely identified with the Rı´os Montt regime in the early 1980s. Political advertisement, Prensa Libre, 1982.

is committed to change. You too fulfill your commitment. Change.” Other ads underscored many of the themes of Rı´os Montt’s discursos, including the call for national identity and state formation: “To make the Patria is not a question of heroes; to make the Patria is a question of discipline.” Most unambiguous of all was a series of “wanted” posters in which appeared the enlarged cedula photos of mostly middle-class young people, usually students, who had joined the armed movement. Below their picture were lists of their crimes: “Lidia Amparo Santos Chaco´n has chosen the extremist path of terror and violence without concern for the consequences,” charged one such ad (figure 3.3). “[She has become] an instrument of interests that are far from the authentic destiny of our country. . . . Denounce her. . . . To maintain the peace is also your concern.” In other ads ran photographs of

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figure 3.3. Government-sponsored newspaper ad accusing a university student of membership in the Organizacio´n del Pueblo en Armas (ORPA). The text reads: “Lidia Amparo Santos Chaco´n has chosen the extremist path of terror and violence without concern for the consequences, becoming an instrument of interests that are far from the authentic destiny of our country.” The final line reads: “Denounce her. . . . To maintain peace is also your concern.” El Gra´fico, December 12, 1982.

plump, smiling Ixil children, happy wards of the state: such shots offered a visual refutation to the news photos that ran in the same newspapers of gaunt and haunted-looking women and children who had recently surrendered to be repatriated to the model villages. Through such visual and rhetorical devices, the Rı´os Montt government sought to build the kind of consensus it needed to reassert the government’s ideological control. Such visual messages, combined with the dramatic decrease in urban crime and political killings, did much to reassure the power brokers of Guatemala City and, indeed, the urban population in general, that this was a government at last capable of restoring law and order to the country and representing their interests. Within the city, the three-fingered salute became a signifier of order and stability, the visual and somatic representation of the New Guatemala. For much of rural Guatemala, however—especially the areas outside the reach of newspaper ads—the implications of Rı´os

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Montt’s ability to invert the language of struggle would carry a very different significance.

A War of Language A strong current of public morality and evangelical rhetoric ran deeply through Rı´os Montt’s imaginaire of a New Guatemala.31 In the early 1980s, both internal and external perceptions enhanced Rı´os Montt’s image as an evangelical caudillo (strongman)—from the conservative evangelical view that Rı´os Montt’s presidency signaled a prophetic moment in Guatemala’s history (“la hora de Dios para Guatemala”) to the army’s eventual renunciation of him as a “religious fanatic” in the coup that evicted Rı´os Montt from power on August 8, 1983. One could argue, however, that the evangelical aspects of his agenda and performance had less durability than did his distinctive ideas for a reformed and redeemed Guatemala, based on personal and public morality (defined in narrow and Levitical terms), discipline, and national unity. Rı´os Montt’s template for reform was original, uncompromising, and unsullied by politics as usual. An assessment of Rı´os Montt’s own public discourse in early 1982 reveals that his objective was nothing less than to bring salvation to a country plagued by war, corruption, and poverty and raise it to its destiny as the City on the Hill, divinely blessed by God. Rı´os Montt believed himself to be a prophetic leader, brought by Providence to power at a particular moment in history in which he could lead the people of Guatemala against the forces of evil that besieged them on every side. But, uniquely, the solution lay not in the government, but in the hearts and minds of every Guatemalan. As a rising tide raises all boats, so the redemption of many individuals would save the nation. It was in his Sunday sermons that Rı´os Montt explicated the moral roots of Guatemala’s many problems and limned the outlines of his political and moral imaginaire. Although ridiculed both at home and abroad for their preachy and even naive tone (earning the General the derisive nickname “Dios Montt”), the discursos nonetheless bore an internally cohesive message that clearly laid out Rı´os Montt’s diagnosis of the crisis and his idiosyncratic vision for national redemption. In the General’s view, Guatemala suffered from three fundamental problems: a national lack of responsibility and respect for authority, an absolute lack of morality, and an inchoate sense of national identity. All other issues, from the economic crisis to what Rı´os Montt called the “subversion,” were merely symptoms of these three fundamental ills.

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La Familia Guatemalteca In the Sunday discursos, the most pervasive theme by far was that of intrapersonal responsibility (responsibilidad), a term that appears in every single address given between March and December 1982. Rı´os Montt demanded that each Guatemalan search his or her own soul and make a commitment to moral responsibility at every level of social engagement: wives and husbands should be accountable one to another, and to their children; citizens should take responsibility for the well-being of their own towns and communities and ultimately demand a relationship of mutual responsibility between the government and the governed. “Your tranquility and your peace, the peace of Guatemala does not depend on arms,” exhorted Rı´os Montt. “The peace of Guatemala depends on you, sen˜or, on you, sen˜ora, on you, nin˜o, on you, nin˜a, yes, the peace of Guatemala is in your heart. As soon as you have peace in your heart, there will be peace in your house, and when there is peace in your house, there will be peace in society. Your tranquility and your peace, the peace of Guatemala does not depend on arms.”32 The recurrent altarcall for personal transformation and both vertical and horizontal bonds of responsibility clearly reflect an embedded Protestant discourse of personal salvation and the centrality of the individual. By Rı´os Montt’s reckoning, “you need order in the house . . . if there is order in the house, then there will be order in society; there will be order in the State.”33 But the house was not only disorderly; it also needed a thorough cleaning—the very image Rı´os Montt used in his first Sunday sermon, titled, “We Have to Clean House” (“Tenemos que limpiar la casa”) in which he inveighed against corruption and immorality as the source of the national crisis.34 In this discurso, Rı´os Montt first made his case that Guatemala’s many ills were due to the moral failings of both its people and its past governments. The nation’s economic poverty, he argued, had its roots in the national poverty of values, especially rampant materialism and selfishness. While admitting that past governments had been corrupt and wicked, he also urged Guatemalans to change their own attitudes and take some responsibility for the country’s failings. Within the internal logic of Rı´os Montt’s diagnostic, Guatemala’s most urgent problems and their solutions came from the same sources: personal morality and the family. “Poverty and ignorance are the fruits of moral disorder, economics and injustice, of anarchy and oppression. Misery and ignorance are the fruits of this family disequilibrium. Because of this it is important that the struggle against subversion, against ignorance and misery is a must, but

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it is not a monopoly of the state; it is also your own responsibility and right.”35 In Rı´os Montt’s vision, the twin velvet fists of amnesty and ethical reckoning were the means through which La Nueva Guatemala could regain the moral high ground from the rebels. He was less sanguine, however, as to the potential for the moral transformation of the leftist combatants themselves—those who had “sold out their country” (vendido a su patria); for these, he had little expectation that they would accept amnesty, since, as he explained, “neither communism nor fascism have any understanding of the word ‘peace’ nor the concept of love.”36 Rı´os Montt’s demand for a national moral reckoning extended all the way to the conduct of everyday life at the most elementary level: husbands should be faithful to their wives; children should obey their parents; parents should keep their families at a size they could take care of; men should control their alcohol use or “drink nothing stronger than te de rosa Jamaica [hibiscus tea].”37 He charged that La Nueva Guatemala meant not only “changing or improving institutions, but changing and redeeming the hearts of men.”38 The mandate was for both vertical and horizontal moral accountability, ranging from mother to child to the governed and the government. Moral liability flowed bilaterally from the individual to the state and back again. In his view, a reformed society would result in a transformed government that would truly serve the common good, an analogue to the repentant and reformed father of a redeemed family. In the discursos, Rı´os Montt used the archetype of the Old Testament patriarch to construct a narrative and parabolic framework around which to interpret the nation’s three decades of civil war. The armed resistance, in his view, was the direct result of the failure of parents to teach their children responsibility and moral accountability and to revile communism. “The subversion has its roots in one’s own home,” he explained. “The subversion starts in one’s own family.” Rı´os Montt was willing to concede that the guerrillas, “violent and corrupt” as he believed them to be, nevertheless were idealists in their own right, if godless. In this respect, Rı´os Montt was willing to recognize that the Left offered a concept of belonging and brotherhood to poor, disenfranchised campesinos that had provided a viable—if, in his view, fundamentally deluded—alternative to the way of life under previous violent and corrupt governments; Rı´os Montt’s vision, by contrast, offered a counterdiscourse to undercut the promises of the radical Left. Given the all-out assault in the countryside against the Marxist URNG and the general crisis in Central America in the early 1980s, Rı´os Montt remained surprisingly aloof from the Cold War discourse, at least in the context of his public discursos del domingo. Although he met with U.S. president Ronald Reagan in 1982 and courted the United States for the restoration of military

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aid, in his domestic pronouncements Rı´os Montt tended to be more circumspect in his evocation of superpower alliances.39 Instead, he employed a vocabulary of nationalism in which he repeatedly castigated “Washington and Moscow” as domineering powers, corrupted by immorality and godlessness.40 Throughout his addresses, he rhetorically lumped communism and fascism together as homologous adversaries of the state, differentiating the two only to catalogue those sins that he believed to be singular to the communists alone. And “sins” they indeed were, at least by Rı´os Montt’s diagnosis. He accused the “subversives” of attempting to break up national values (quebrar los valores) and negate Guatemala’s Christian culture. The armed resistance he equated with libertinism, criminality, anarchy, selfishness, deceitfulness, ingratitude, and, most serious of all, disrespect for authority.41 In thus defining the popular movement in terms of sin and culpability, Rı´os Montt simultaneously sought, first, to recast the moral discourse of struggle in the countryside and, second, to isolate and denature Guatemala’s popular movement by framing it all within a generic evangelical paradigm of sinfulness and its theological counterpart, personal redemption. On the other side of the equation, Rı´os Montt also charged the state with irresponsibility and venality, and he called on Guatemalans to demand responsibility from their own government, which in recent years had, in his words, “planted the seeds of death, corruption, kidnapping, hatred, extortion, all acts of ingratitude that have destroyed our own Guatemalan family.”42 In general terms, he directed his listeners to remember that as taxpayers and citizens, the government was in their service, not the reverse; as one government poster framed it, “Ese tambie´n es asunto tuyo” (This too is your concern). In particular, he laid culpability for moral failing at the feet of corrupt police and government employees who had taken advantage of their power to steal, lie, and abuse—sinful acts that had abrogated the government’s proper authority in the eyes of the people and undermined the moral girding of the state. By extension, the problem of corruption and immorality permeated Guatemalan society from the top down; the illegitimacy of the government was itself a Platonian mirror reflection of individual sin, venality, and godlessness. Thus, the solution to the grave problem of government illegitimacy and official corruption lay in individual redemption. Rı´os Montt demanded an immediate end to this corruption, requiring that all public officials pledge and adhere to a promise: “I don’t steal, I don’t lie, I don’t abuse [my authority].” This pledge, taken like a wedding vow “before God, the Patria, and before one another,” was designed to bring about nothing less than the “moral and social renovation of the nation.”43 But in his sermon of May 2, 1982, Rı´os Montt cast

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this equation in distinctly covenantal terms: “God makes things as God commands, and what God commands is a direct relationship, and work is a direct relationship. Patron, do not exploit; worker, do not extort. . . . Change, change, all of you. Guatemala needs a change, to do the things that God has commanded.”44 Here, the evangelical discourse is explicit, as he promised a direct covenant between God and man: those who live by God’s laws help to prepare the way for the coming of the Kingdom. The providential nature of the Rı´os Montt agenda is a theme that runs openly through the early discursos, broadcast between the March 23 coup and the end of the amnesty at the end of May 1982.45 Rı´os Montt described himself repeatedly as a divinely anointed leader: in his own words, “Dios me puso aquı´” (God put me here) (Figure 3.4).46 As the prophet visionary of this covenant, Rı´os Montt regularly expressed the belief that God had entrusted him with a unique responsibility to “convert power to justice.” In this respect, the notion of justice laid the basis for Rı´os Montt’s exercise of both political and military power. “The Bible teaches us a concept of justice and the government has the responsibility to give justice to the people,” he explained to an evangelical interviewer in 1983.47 But to the Guatemalan people, he marked out a clear distinction between the exercise of power in the name of justice and brute force deployed out of vengeance. The former was divinely sanctioned, evidence of blessing and salvation, the latter further proof of human sin and wickedness. “I am not here to exercise vengeance,” he declared on March 29, 1982. “I am here to teach justice, and we have to teach justice, and really the duty [quehacer] of justice implies a change of attitude, of morality, a change of values.”48 But even with this mandate, Rı´os Montt preached that the ultimate responsibility for change lay within the individual: “If there is not peace in the family, there is no peace in the world. If we want peace, we must first make peace within our hearts.”49 This model of personal reformation, however, in Rı´os Montt’s vision was much more than a moralistic paradigm for behavior; rather, it was the transformative basis of a specific and unique covenant with God. Within the framework of this covenant, the government would reform itself in the meta-image of the reformed, responsible individual, and God’s blessing would pour over a nation whose people lived righteous and exemplary lives according to his will. In applying this template of moral rectitude and responsibility to overwhelming national problems, Rı´os Montt attributed even Guatemala’s economic crisis—stemming from capital flight and a weak currency—to a “crisis of values” that had its roots in the family, where middle- and upper-class families embraced unbridled, amoral consumerism and poor families aspired,

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figure 3.4. “God put me here,” says Rı´os Montt.” Prensa Libre, January 10, 1983.

albeit unsuccessfully, to do the same.50 As he defined the problem, the fundamental moral failing was greed and its handmaidens, wanton materialism and a “decadence of values” (decade´ncia de valores).51 Compounding these sins were irresponsible parents who failed to teach their children and grandchildren responsibility and self-sacrifice.52 The warning about sacrifice was well taken, since the occasion of this particular address would mark the beginning of the government amnesty that served as the prelude to the Guatemalan army’s massive assault against the highlands.

The Amnesty Law and the Prodigal’s Father On May 28, 1982, Rı´os Montt called a temporary halt to the army’s siege of the highlands and offered a thirty-day general amnesty to the guerrillas and their supporters.53 The motive for the amnesty was as much ideological as it was pragmatic, for its purpose was to recast the government as reconciliator and benevolent authority. At the news conference in which he announced the decree, Rı´os Montt urged insurgents to accept amnesty and to be part of a “conquest of love,” in which they might “fight not with violence, but with understanding.”54 For Rı´os Montt, the thirty-day amnesty carried enormous moral significance. As a symbolic gesture, the moral efficacy of the amnesty law was twofold: first, it provided an opportunity for the “prodigal sons” of the armed resistance to return themselves to their father’s house. At the same time, it offered a moral rationale for a “just war” against those who did not. But

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in explaining the rationale for the amnesty to the public in his discurso of June 20, 1982, Rı´os Montt embedded his rhetoric in the language of familial forgiveness: “What I want to say is . . . the amnesty wants to offer pardon . . . , it wants to pardon; the fatherland wants to pardon; it is extending its arm; your embrace, your lap that your children return to; homes await the presence of its members. We take advantage of the amnesty that wants to offer pardon. He that pardons is noble and the person who accepts it is a noble person; we make our patria something noble. We reconcile, we make our family the root of the country.”55 As an act of social reconciliation, the amnesty law was an utter failure. Official sources claimed that during the month-long amnesty 2,000 people, not surprisingly dubious of the government’s good faith, nevertheless turned themselves in, although other estimates place the figure at fewer than 250, even allowing for those who surrendered under coercion.56 But if Rı´os Montt conceptualized the general amnesty as a military and moral strategy, by those singular standards it was a success. For when the armed resistance failed to take advantage of the amnesty offer, their reticence provided the army with the justification—from a military view, even the obligation—to respond with una lucha sin cuartel, a fight without quarter. Having offered amnesty with “honesty and justice,” Rı´os Montt turned his righteous wrath upon those who spurned his overtures: “Listen well, Guatemalans. We are going to combat the subversion by whatever means we want . . . totally just, but at the same time with energy and vigor. . . . We are prepared to change Guatemala, we are prepared to do so with honesty and justice, peace and respect for those who are peaceful and respect the law, [but] prison and death to those who plant [the seeds] of criminality, violence and treachery.”57 This speech, which Rı´os Montt offered on June 30, 1982, marked the beginning of the most ruthless phase of the war, a military campaign of counterinsurgency known officially as Victoria 82 or, more commonly, Fusiles y Frijoles—rifles and beans. The era of massacres had begun.

National Identity versus Ethnic Identity in the New Guatemala It was during the Fusiles y Frijoles counterinsurgency campaign of the summer of 1982, the period of most extreme violence committed in the name of counterinsurgency, that Rı´os Montt announced the third fundamental ill of Guatemalan society. This was that the country, broken up into “twenty-two nations”—a reference to the nation’s nearly two dozen indigenous languages— was lacking in any overarching sense of national identity or unity, consisting

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only of loosely articulated self-serving individuals and parochial ethnic clans. Reflecting both his own liberal heritage and the sentiments of the army high command, Rı´os Montt announced his desire to create una nacionalidad guatemalteca, the long-standing pursuit of state formation that had eluded the nation for the past 150 years.58 That the General would reach this conclusion during a time when the army was aggressively trying to consolidate its control over a disparate Mayan population that did not share a common language, worldview, or patriotic sentiment with those in power in Guatemala City seems hardly coincidental. The first reference to the absence of an overarching sense of national unity (unidad nacional) appears in the discurso of June 13, 1982, when Rı´os Montt again attempted to broach the topic of government legitimacy, which he rather sophistically suggested was embodied in the “armed institution as a moral symbol of the unity of diversity.”59 But it was with much greater vehemence that he told his listeners, “We are simply a Nation without identity; we don’t know our roots. . . . It is a very serious problem.”60 This rhetoric had clear implications for the Maya, the subjects of what Miguel Angel Asturias had long before described as Guatemala’s problema indio and who had, both historically and in the present, largely declined to identify with the national project of a homogeneous, ladino, “Western” Guatemala.61 By the 1980s, this failure to subscribe to the national project carried, for the Guatemalan government, a strong suspicion of subversion. It should come as no surprise, then, that Rı´os Montt’s public rhetoric of national unity clearly corresponds to the period in which the UN Truth Commission, the CEH, noted a change in military strategy in which Mayans were marked as “internal enemies” and “collective enemies of the state.”62 Chronologically, Rı´os Montt’s rhetorical call for national unity coincides with the introduction of aggressive counterinsurgency policies—first the onslaught of major military action against Mayan communities, followed by the establishment of “model villages” and “development poles”—resettlement camps—and of civilian self-defense civil patrols throughout the highlands—that also carried a highly assimilationist subtext.

Fusiles In this respect, the call for national unity provided a rhetorical rationale for what the CEH later described as “massive and indiscriminate aggression directed against communities independent of their actual involvement in the guerrilla movement and with a clear indifference to their status as a non-combatant civilian population.” The excess and pervasiveness of the counterinsurgency

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campaign under Rı´os Montt and their disproportionate impact on the Mayan population led the CEH to conclude that “the massacres, scorched earth operations, forced disappearances and executions of Mayan authorities, leaders and spiritual guides, were not only an attempt to destroy the social base of the guerrillas, but above all, to destroy the cultural values that ensured cohesion and collective action in Mayan communities.”63 Within this larger project of “domesticating” the indigenous population, Rı´os Montt, with an eye to constructing a New Maya for the New Guatemala, paid considerable lip service to the integrity of indigenous culture and identity. This rhetorical focus on native cultures was intentional and served as a means of constructing what Jennifer Schirmer has called the “sanctioned Maya”—a “tame,” denatured indigenous population that posed no political, cultural, or ideological threat to the creation of the New Guatemala.64 While the army killed and displaced literally tens of thousands of indigenous people in the countryside, Rı´os Montt went out of his way to attend festivities surrounding the Dı´a de la Raza and other superficial celebrations of a mythic Indian past. In his Sunday sermons, he offered a stunning reversal of traditional indigenista thinking by pointing to Indians as role models for hard work, service, and nonacquisitiveness.65 To great public fanfare, he also appointed ten Mayan representatives to the Council of State. Despite these gestures, the General made it abundantly clear that a national identity based on unity was one in which state authority superseded all other provincial, ethnic, political, or even religious loyalties. The bywords of national unity, debemos integrarnos (we must integrate ourselves), demanded the absolute price of indigenous identity and autonomy.66

Frijoles The program of national unity intersected with the restoration of order and authority. One of the cornerstones of the reclamation of the highlands was the establishment of model villages (resettlement villages) and polos de desarrollo y servicios (development poles) in which citizens from the postmassacre zones could live under government control (proteccio´n) and also be pumped for information about the guerrillas or other intelligence. The polos de desarrollo, by explicit design, were an attempt to break the infrastructural support for the guerrillas, as well as to reorient villagers toward supporting the government.67 The government used the model villages—part strategic hamlet, part kibbutz—to resettle villagers fleeing the war zone or captured in internal exile into new communities.

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In these villages, refugees received housing and food and worked in a rigidly controlled, highly monitored environment where rewards and punishment, language, entertainment, and spiritual lives were all manipulated to disorient and reorient to make the inhabitants into loyal and grateful citizens of the New Guatemala. The development poles were only slightly different in that each “pole” consisted of one or (usually) more villages built on or near the site of a destroyed settlement; these too the army maintained under vigilant eyes. In late 1982 the army began construction of the first model villages, located in the department of Huehuetenango and El Quiche´, in the area known as the Ixil Triangle—the villages of Nebaj, Chajul, and San Juan Cotzal—and slightly later, during the subsequent regime of General Oscar Mejı´a Victores (1983–1985) went on to establish what would ultimately be twenty-nine development poles elsewhere in the Ixca´n, in Alta Verapaz, and in the Pete´n.68 While the official purpose of the model villages and development poles was to house campesinos who had lost their homes and crops and to provide an additional measure of security and control in conflicted regions, the model villages also served as a mechanism for forced indigenous integration. Army authorities intentionally mixed together refugees from different villages and linguistic groups and settled them in configurations that strongly discouraged the reestablishment of old community patterns. The army also co-opted some markers of indigenous identity (such as dress) for its own uses. (One army publicity photo shows civil patrollers from an aldea somewhere in El Quiche´ ready for military review dressed in the religious costumes of the cofradia of Santo Toma´s from Chichicastenango, roughly equivalent to sending the National Guard to battle in priests’ vestments. The photo’s caption reads: autoctonismo y seguridad—roughly, “self-identity and security.”69 From the moment of their arrival, residents of the model villages received lessons in becoming ladinos. They took courses in castillanizacio´n, and Spanish became the lingua franca. Refugees were treated to anticommunist films and lessons in patriotism, and engaged in pla´ticas ideolo´gicas (ideological chats) with tutors that the military provided.70 Army overseers prohibited the revival of traditional community ritual or organization and instead introduced new events such as beauty pageants where young women were crowned reina (queen) on traditional celebration days; children learned to sing new songs (in Spanish) such as “Hymn of the Civil Patrol.”71 One exception to army control of social and cultural life was Protestant churches, which formed freely in the model villages, a factor that in itself may account in part for the enormous increase in Protestant church growth,

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not only in the zones of conflict but all over rural Guatemala during this period.72

A Family United? The notion of a nation cast adrift from its own history and its own heritage became a heavy rhetorical drumbeat that pounded through the second six months of discursos, although on this critical issue Rı´os Montt seemed more confident in identifying the problem than in explicating a solution. Clearly, the call for a rehabilitated national identity and sense of purpose is in part motivated by criticism of his government from within Guatemala and abroad, especially from the United States, which needed Guatemala to hold democratic elections in order to justify the resumption of military aid. Yet Rı´os Montt dismissed repeated demands for elections from home and abroad with an off-handed, “Elections? What for?” (Elecciones—¿para que?).73 In mid-1982, when international monitors such as Americas Watch and Amnesty International began to charge the Rı´os Montt administration with massive human rights violations, the General shrugged off their accusations with the statement that “our goal is not the United States, it is not Moscow . . . our goal is Guatemala. . . . To produce peace and love, we have to look for peace and love within and not from outside, that is where we look to solutions for the patria.”74 Even within this nationalistic formula, however, the solution lay within the familiar template of family values—but with a difference. As the army accelerated its assault on the highlands, Rı´os Montt began to habitually address his listening audience as mi familia (my family), a metaphoric analogue for Guatemala as a dysfunctional, but salvageable, family. Within La Nueva Guatemala, Rı´os Montt would serve in the role of pater potested, the all-powerful father needed to discipline his unruly brood into obedience to his will, the earthly parallel to an all-powerful God who tests and disciplines those whom he loves.

La Hora de Dios para Guatemala The reconciliation of the Guatemalan “family” had an urgency brought about not merely by the exigencies of the struggle in the countryside, but also by Rı´os Montt’s belief that he was leading his people into a prophetic moment in the nation’s history, what he called “an historic moment, a moment of national

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awareness” and “a marvelous time!”75 Rı´os Montt was not alone in this sense of destiny. His perception reflected a prevailing zeitgeist among many members of Guatemala’s rapidly growing Protestant population that the evangelical chief of state’s administration represented a crucial dispensational moment—a kairos (Greek: critical, prophetic time)—in Christ’s unfolding plan. A vocal minority of Guatemalan evangelicals, including the leadership of Verbo, the General’s own church, actively promoted the belief that Rı´os Montt’s presidency, coming as it did amid an unprecedented increase in Pentecostal conversion, signaled the beginning of the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy that would precipitate the Second Coming of Christ.76 The hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the first permanent Protestant missionary to Guatemala, which evangelical church organizations celebrated with great fanfare in October 1982, seemed to many to highlight the prophetic portent of this historic moment.77 After months of planning, Protestants came into the capital from all accessible parts of the country; approximately 300,000 convened in the Campo Martı´ (a military parade ground in central Guatemala City) to pray, sing, and hear evangelical leaders, including televangelist Luis Palau and Rı´os Montt himself, pray and offer thanks for Guatemala’s redemption.78 As one participant in the centennial celebration recalled, “As we sang, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’ we could almost visualize our heavenly home, we felt we were almost flying through the air toward a glorious encounter with Christ Jesus.”79 For certain sectors of the Guatemalan evangelical community, some of them foreign but many of them local, Rı´os Montt was emblematic of, though not directly responsible for, what they called “God’s hour for Guatemala” (la hora de Dios para Guatemala), a movement based primarily in the Pentecostal sector, which claimed a specific blessing and prophetic destiny for the longtroubled country. This was the “church growth” movement (cleverly known as iglecrecimiento), a worldwide program designed to rapidly evangelize (or “disciple”) nations where Protestantism had recently taken root, such as the Philippines and Korea. Guatemala offered a near-perfect case study for what iglecrecimientistas called “dominion theology,” for the unprecedented rate at which the Protestant population had expanded in the preceding decades. By the early 1980s, Guatemala’s population was nearly 30 percent Protestant and still growing, making it the most Protestant country in all of Spanish-speaking Latin America. Evangelical church planners took this unprecedented growth as a sign of God’s special benediction on a country long cursed by ignorance, sin, and religious confusion. Tapping into a deep vein of dispensational theology and millenarianism long present in Guatemalan Protestant theology,80 evangelicals considered this

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“blessing”—the dramatic evangelical expansion—so unique to the historical moment that it demanded immediate action by church planners. To this end, they set the challenge to increase the number of evangelical churches, pastors, and converts so that Guatemala would be at least 50 percent Protestant by the year 2000.81 Their hope was that “Guatemala as a nation might be evangelized before the present generation passes into history.”82 That Guatemala was embroiled in a grievous fratricidal war only offered further evidence of Guatemala’s prophetic moment. As one iglecrecimientista wrote, “The crisis of ethical and social order that we confront in this country is that of a nation crying out in search of God.”83 Ultimately, their project was not simply the conversion of souls, but to reach a point of critical mass at which God’s blessing would pour over the nation and redeem it from its history, making Guatemala a prophetic nation above all others. To iglecrecimientistas, the convergence of critical factors—the Rı´os Montt presidency, the apparently imminent defeat of the guerrillas, and the continued increase in the number of converts across the country, combined with the timing of the Protestant centenary—was anything but coincidence. Instead, these disparate events offered clear evidence of what one leading ˜ ez, called the coyuntura histo´rica (historic junciglecrecimientista, Emilio Nun ture) of God’s unfolding plan for Guatemala.84 Early evangelical supporters of Rı´os Montt outside of Guatemala included televangelist Pat Robertson, who introduced Rı´os Montt to the viewers of the 700 Club television show shortly after the coup. Robertson, an avowed anticommunist, promised (but ultimately failed to deliver) “more than $1 billion” for the Rı´os Montt government just days after he came to power.85 Joseph Anfuso, Rı´os Montt’s biographer, summarized this view cogently in an article appearing in the evangelical journal Christian Life in September 1982. “Without question,” he wrote, “an extraordinary opportunity now exists for the country of Guatemala to become a shining light in the midst of the turbulent darkness of Latin America, a vibrant alternative to the rising tide of MarxistLeninism in that region, and a glorious testimony to the reality and truth of Jesus Christ.”

“We Have an Agreement between Guatemala and God” While Rı´os Montt never laid claim to actual messianic status for himself (indeed, he never offered any higher description of himself than “a servant of God”), his sense of his own prophetic role seemed to have been burnished by the iglecrecimientistas. To be sure, he had, from the beginning, conceptualized

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his role as jefe de estado as an active agent of God’s will. As early as April 1982, he had pronounced the covenantal relationship between God and the nation: “We rely on God, we rely on God . . . because He has given authority: you and I and the Junta of Guatemala, the entire family [la familia completa]. . . . Guatemala has a different image. . . . We have an agreement [compromiso], between Guatemala and God” (emphasis mine).86 By mid-1982, however, the texts of the discursos reveal a slight but important shift in his perception of this prophetic moment in history as Rı´os Montt began to identify a unique covenantal relationship between a loving but angry God and every Guatemalan. He explained, “God loves us, God loves Guatemala, God loves you, and those whom he loves he disciplines, he loves and he smites [golpea], so that you wake up and react and start to look for what truly matters, that you reconsider your importance, your humility, you reconcile yourself with him, your creator, with your king, with your Lord.”87 By building this theological framework around Guatemala’s suffering, even at the hands of the security forces that he himself commanded, Rı´os Montt was thus able to construct a comprehensible salvation narrative: God tests those whom he loves. This narrative carried with it the powerful image of a loving yet simultaneously angry God; as Eugenio Orellana, a Protestant dissident, noted, “[Rı´os Montt] has found it easier to apply the Old Testament law, summarized in ‘an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth.’ . . . He has not wanted to, nor has he been able to apply the spirit of the New Testament to his government.”88 Yet for many—and not just evange´licos—this narrative of divine judgment and salvation served to sacralize the nation’s struggle, providing a metaphysical logic sufficient to explain even the deepest suffering of the Guatemalan people. The corollary of Rı´os Montt’s salvation narrative was that under his “servanthood,” God would reward his faithful people by inaugurating a new era of peace in which Guatemala would be transformed into the City on the Hill, founded upon right living, faithfulness, and blessing. “We have to make a nation . . . we have to make a nation but one that has its capital in your heart. We aren’t afraid, we don’t have to compromise with anyone; we believe that God gives us the strength to rebuild Guatemala. I don’t rob, I don’t lie, I don’t cheat, I am interested in serving Guatemala, and Guatemala is you and I am me.”89

“Tenemos la Obligacio´n de Hacer una Guatemala” As Rı´os Montt built the discourse of La Nueva Guatemala, it became clear that he was speaking of state formation, the creation of the “imagined community”

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of an allegiant populace that had preoccupied his predecessors dating back to the Liberal Reforma of the 1870s.90 He persistently used the phrase hacer una Guatemala (to make a Guatemala) as if no such entity existed at all, and perhaps given the political reality of the day it, in fact, did not. His imagined Guatemala was one solidly based upon “responsibility” and “peace and love,” replicating the qualities found in the ideal, prototypical nuclear family.91 He repeatedly stressed the uniqueness of the Guatemalan experience, which, he explained, demanded extraordinary solutions that could not be dictated by outsiders who could not possibly understand the realidad guatemalteca. Outsiders did not, in Rı´os Montt’s view, grasp the extent to which ethnic issues interfered with national unity—as he explained to U.S. president Ronald Reagan during their visit in November 1982, “Guatemala is a different kind of country, and we have to remember that we are 70 percent Indian, we have to live it and we have to manifest it; if not, then the communists are going to destroy us.”92 At the heart of this Guatemalan uniqueness was the inchoate nation, based on problematic Indian roots, that still lacked definition and direction. “Politics must face up to the land [encarnar la tierra] and our land is Indian land, it’s our land and our nation, and our nation is Iberian, it is not European, it is not North American, it is not Russian; we are Guatemalans,” he explained rather obliquely on July 18. “The world knows that Guatemala exists, but Guatemala will only exist if you want it to.”93 The task of state formation, though divinely mandated, lay in the individual will of those who heeded the General’s words: “We are going to make [hacer] Guatemala, we make Guatemala, we make it. . . . It will be grand, sovereign, and independent and when we have the strength, the consistency, and our own dignity, we will be Guatemalans.”94 By early August 1982, as the countryside became more “pacified” and fell more solidly under government control, the prophetic discourse became more abstract and the covenantal relationship more metaphysical, as the General urged Guatemalans to “imagine” themselves a part of something that was too large to be constrained by the limits of simple geography. “The dimensions of Guatemala are not its thousands of square kilometers, but the fortitude of its heart, as exemplified by that which you give in your own family,” he explained. Elsewhere, he described the citizen’s relationship with the nation in something approaching sacramental terms. In his words, this was: “A mystical attitude, a creative attitude, a national legitimacy whose foundation is found in obeying the law, respect for justice, the veneration of the sacred, the admiration of our past, faith in the truth, [and] pride in our

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culture.”95 Lest this demand for truth and cultural pride strike an errant chord, Rı´os Montt hastened to stress that the formation of a national identity had a set of symbiotic needs and reciprocal responsibilities, because “when there is no unity, there is no government; when there is no government, there is not a people [pueblo]; when there is no pueblo, there is no nation.”96 This social contract Rı´os Montt envisaged as a simple pact, the implementation of which was entirely contingent upon the responsibility, morality, and good behavior of the governed.97 By the same token, those who, by reason of their “irresponsibility” and “egoism,” failed to endorse the pact threatened to abrogate the social contract, and to destroy the promise of the City on the Hill and to make a mockery of God’s promise to Guatemala.98 One of Rı´os Montt’s most definitive addresses took place on August 21, 1982, in a discurso that coincided with the fiesta patria, the Dı´a de la Bandera (Flag Day). Rı´os Montt chose the Dı´a de Bandera, a highly nationalistic holiday long associated with the army, to stress Guatemala’s unique place in history. “Guatemala is a Nation that fears God,” he proclaimed, “that brings honor to America and that is serving as an example to the world, because Guatemala is you.”99 On September 5, 1982, Rı´os Montt delivered one of his harshest sermons, in which he laid the blame for Guatemala’s miseries at the feet of ordinary citizens who had failed to heed his calls for rectitude and moral reckoning, thus standing between Guatemala and its destiny. “What is the origin of our poverty?” he asked rhetorically. “We do not have principles, our arcas are empty of principles, they are empty of human values. . . . Between us there is poverty, our poorness of values, of respect and honor for others, a lack of service, a lack of honesty, a lack of love, there is an ignorance. The poverty of our country is a poorness of men; Guatemala lacks men who have integrity, decency, honesty, truthfulness, honor, manliness, a manliness that builds its base from something very simple, which is obeying the law.”100

La Conquista de Amor By the end of the rainy season in 1982, however, as the army’s heavy hand brought an enforced peace to much of the countryside and the guerrillas, their forces dramatically diminished, shrank in retreat, Rı´os Montt reverted to a more conciliatory and disarming tone in his discursos. On October 3, 1982, he triumphantly announced that “the time of rifles has passed, the time of

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conquest and of bayonets has passed. Now is the conquest of love [conquista de amor]. Our rules of the game are clear: truth, justice, humility. . . . Guatemala deserves the sacrifice of all.”101 The timing of this address coincided with the end of Fusiles y Frijoles and marked the beginning of yet another alliterative dimension of Victoria 82 known as Techo, Trabajo y Tortillas (roof, work, and tortillas). With the military reconquest of the highlands now a foregone conclusion, this program was designed to complete the pacification of the highlands and to provide for their construction under the paternal hand of the government. The call for sacrifice reinforced Rı´os Montt’s concept of the covenantal and triangular relationship between God, the government, and the governed. As before, his template for allegiance was based on the familial model of the Holy Family, reinforced by mutual trust, love, respect, and fear of God. “We are defining out nationality in order to define ourselves,” he proclaimed. “Guatemala is a grand Nation, and I will explain to you why: it is a great nation because of the excellence of its soul and because you, as man or as a woman, know you must do right by your spouse and your children; that is something grand and powerful, it is powerful because you serve as the example: fear God and give to the Patria all your soul, all your love.”102 As the army regained control of the countryside and instituted draconian programs for bringing the rural population under government control, Rı´os Montt began to place even greater emphasis in his discursos on the “reinvention” of the nation. During the months of October and November 1982, he returned repeatedly to the leitmotif that Guatemala as imaginaire, as a subject of allegiance and identity, did not, in his view, yet exist. Much like Moses in the wilderness, he believed that his mission was not merely to lead his people to the Promised Land, but to actually create that sacred political landscape, based on the biblical precepts he extolled so regularly in his discursos. But the people, disobedient and slow to learn, continued to be seduced by the twin gold calves of subversion on the one hand and excessive materialism on the other. “No hemos aprendida a ser Guatemala” (We have not learned to be Guatemala), he concluded.103

The Ouster of Rı´os Montt General Efraı´n Rı´os Montt fell from power in a coup on August 8, 1983, which put into office General Oscar Humberto Mejia Vı´ctores, Rı´os Montt’s own minister of defense, and Guatemala’s last military president before the return

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of civilian government in 1986.104 The public rhetoric of the August 8 coup addressed the religious issue head on, leaving the clear implication that Rı´os Montt was, at best, a religious zealot. The Mejia government issued a statement to the press on the day of the coup that called Rı´os Montt and his advisors from the Church of the Word part of “a fanatical and aggressive religious group which took advantage of their position of power as the highest members of government for their benefit, ignoring the fundamental principle of the separation of Church and State.”105 The real reasons behind the coup, of course, had little, if anything, to do with religion; the army high command had not been seized with a sudden paroxysm of Catholicism. The evangelical discourse of the Rı´os Montt administration notwithstanding, no one from the Church of the Word outside of the president and his two advisors had held any pivotal position in government, nor had any other high-ranking military officer been an evangelical Christian.106 At the heart of the matter was the fact that with the insurgency in the countryside beaten into submission, few others in positions of power shared Rı´os Montt’s idiosyncratic vision of La Nueva Guatemala, and even his closest supporters within the military had come to believe that Rı´os Montt had turned into something of a liability. Rı´os Montt still enjoyed considerable support among the urban middle class, who valued the sense of personal security they felt under the pax riosmonttista, and we have already observed the paradoxical respect he enjoyed in rural areas that had been deeply affected by the violence, where people reflexively credited him with restoring order and authority. But in the higher circles, once the urgency of national crisis had passed, Rı´os Montt wore thin very quickly. His cavalier dismissal of demands for new presidential elections and his insistence that he governed as a servant of the people anointed by God to restore order and authority did little to endear him to senior officers and influential right-wing political parties, which came to regard him as capricious and unpredictable.107 But most unforgivable of all was Rı´os Montt’s inability to rebuild the economy, where two key commodities, coffee production and tourism, were so damaged by the war that by the end of 1982 the gross domestic product dropped to an unprecedented low growth rate of 3.3 percent. As one analyst noted, “Businessmen might be willing to sit still while moralizing Rı´os Montt admonished them to give up their mistresses, but when the GDP fell . . . there was cause for grave concern.”108 In terms of the religious rationalization for the coup, the only substantive complaint that the golpistas had regarding Rı´os Montt’s religion seems to have been their profound opposition to his moralistic, church-inspired anticorruption

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campaign, which had severely stanched the flow of graft to military officers and government officials. By one account, one of the soldiers muttered to Rı´os Montt as he escorted him out of the National Palace during the coup, “A government that doesn’t abuse doesn’t govern.” (El gobierno que no abusa no gobierna.)109

Conclusion Is it possible to reconcile the lofty morality of Rı´os Montt’s discursos del domingo with the unspeakable human rights atrocities committed against the Guatemalan people under his leadership? How could the “conquest of love” result in the slaughter of so many? It is not enough to explain away Rı´os Montt as a religious fanatic, as his fellow officers did when they removed him from office on August 8, 1983. As we have seen, his religious discourse was, in many respects, clearly contradictory to the prosecution of the military campaign, but the military’s successes under his administration were unprecedented in Guatemala’s modern history. Had the Cold War remained the primary lens of historical analysis, Rı´os Montt might well be remembered as a visionary statesman instead of an author of crimes against humanity. In theoretical terms, on the other hand, we can easily write off Rı´os Montt’s political-religious vision for Guatemala as little more than an imaginative but calculated rhetoric that was deftly calibrated to increase public support for the increased repression and stigmatization of problematic social subjects (rebels and Indians). There is good reason to take such a view. In her work on the ˜ a-Portillo suggests that we revolutionary imagination, Marı´a Josefina Saldan should not be surprised when power deftly utilizes religious language and imagery, devoid of ethics or genuine religious content, to advance its own interests—such, she suggests, is the colonial condition. She writes that the “double displacement of Christian ethic from the religious to the philosophical, from the philosophical to the State, reveals the double logic of colonial violence—benevolence and instrumentality.”110 These ideas—benevolence and instrumentality—though perhaps not necessarily in that order, are perhaps as good as any to describe Rı´os Montt’s vision of La Nueva Guatemala. ˜ a-Portillo’s theory helps us to unpack the paradox inherent in Yet while Saldan the “conquest of love,” it is also important to double back and reexamine the appeal that Rı´os Montt once held for many Guatemalans. During his seventeen months in office and for years afterward he enjoyed popularity with a national constituency that far exceeded the normal political life span of an ordinary ousted demagogue. This is true even in the context of a country inexperienced in

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democracy, where a population may vote as much from fear and manipulation as from conviction; as James Scott reminds us, one should not mistake what he calls the “‘peace of repression’ (remembered and/or anticipated) [with] the peace of consent or complicity.”111 While Gramsci might speak of Rı´os Montt’s Guatemala as a place where people were “enslaved at the level of ideas,” one can also make the case that Rı´os Montt’s appeal was less a matter of people enslaved by ideas than of people engaged by them.112 Part of this, of course, stems from precisely what Scott describes above—the long war had left Guatemalans with so few expectations or choices that even their political imaginations were weary. But at the same time, it is important to remember that for many Guatemalans, Rı´os Montt’s Nueva Guatemala was not empty rhetoric. Both in his discursos and in the conduct of the counterinsurgency war (in very different ways), Rı´os Montt confected a richly symbolic universe, couched in evangelical language, that was genuinely new in the sense that it represented something beyond the world the politiqueros—the generals and planters and corrupt politicians—had imposed upon Guatemala in the past. This symbolic universe, a new ideal, replete with rewards, punishments, clear-cut codes of conduct, and rich with promises, was, of course, the New Guatemala. Within this symbolic universe, Rı´os Montt’s New Guatemala was built upon three fundamental principles. These, freely blending a kind of Pentecostalized liberalism with Cold War strategic interests, included (1) salvation, (2) judgment, and (3) righteousness, each of which represented a specific strategy of political behavior and motivation. Salvation came through the amnesty, the “frijoles” side of Victoria 82, and the construction of polos de desarrollo. Here, the government rewarded the “faithful” with highly coveted social goods, including safety, security, and basic material needs. The second, judgment, was the darkest and perhaps the most elemental principle of the Rı´os Montt regime, in that it provided the necessary “moral justification” for the Plan Victoria 82, including the massacres and the systematic effort to destroy Mayan culture, the “fit punishment” for a wayward people seduced by the godless allures of communism and rebellion. Finally, the most illusive principle, that of righteousness, lay at the very center of Rı´os Montt’s vision for a new Guatemala: a modern, prosperous and peaceful nation, blessed by God, in full covenant with its grateful, peaceful, and obedient citizens. Although such a formula lies entirely outside the political discourse of liberal, democratic society—where criteria such as civil liberty, equal representation, and human rights continue to make up the units of measure—it nonetheless held great appeal for many Guatemalans, where the simplicity, clarity, and chilling certainty of Rı´os Montt’s words provided a coherent narrative to support the military counterinsurgency project. Even as the army’s pacification program used terror as its basic strategy, the General

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himself seemed to embody law, order, security, and discipline in what seemed at that historical moment to be either an anarchic society or one poised on the brink of perdition. That the General failed to accomplish this final objective before he left office may explain, at least in part, why Rı´os Montt refused to depart from the political arena for more than two decades after his ouster from office, after constitutional amendments and a return to democracy had rendered both his vision and his methods obsolete. The heart of the Rı´os Montt paradox lies in the singularity of the General’s vision for a New Guatemala, his new ideal, as revealed here in his discursos del domingo. His use of language and images was, arguably, nearly as effective a weapon of counterinsurgency as the military campaign, especially among the urban middle class and ladinos. Pierre Bourdieu would speak of this as an additional form of symbolic violence, as deployed in a setting such as this, where, in Bourdieu’s words, “language . . . is exercised from a position of power such that it is able to produce a mode of perception that is in accordance with the interests of power.”113 Within this mode of perception, Rı´os Montt’s civil-religious ideal was as precise and comprehensible as the teachings of his evangelical church: repent, live right, and be saved—but for those who refuse the path of righteousness, the consequences were as inexorable as the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Against a backdrop of genocide and ruthless brutality, Rı´os Montt, paradoxically, seemed to those who admired him to offer an idiosyncratic promise of hope, security and self-respect, and a final solution to an armed conflict that had roiled the country for more than two decades. This is not to say that Rı´os Montt’s vision repudiated the “bipolar nationalism” that had come before, but simply that he refined, advanced, and resignified the older liberal, republican ideology. By his astute appropriation and inversion of symbols, language, and meaning, Rı´os Montt managed to engineer not only consent but even enthusiasm for the state’s ideological reconquest of its people.

4 Terror

Los Colores Si tuvieran que pintar la guerra, ¿de que color la pintarı´an? Una dijo, de verde Otra, de rojo, Y otra, de negro. —Humberto Ak’abal, Raqonchi’aj: Grito

In exploring the events that took place in Guatemala under General Rı´os Montt’s tenure in office, we find that the overwhelming theme that binds all of it together is violence, which runs like the warp and weft of a Mayan weaving throughout this period of history. It bears notice that, while the focus of much of this work is on state-sponsored violence, violence in Guatemala in the early 1980s was not in any sense unidirectional, nor did it operate solely in the political arena. Instead, it played out between the political Right and the political Left, the ruling class and the campesinos, and between neighbors and communities. While the focus of this chapter is on the direct effects of the military’s scorched-earth campaign of 1982–1983, Fusiles y Frijoles, it also seeks to shed light on the metaeffects of violence and the evolution of a culture, even a pathology, of violence that extended far beyond the immediate reach of political goals and ideologies.1 Here, we use the phrase not as a metaphor, but in a literal sense to understand how violence—whether meted

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out over the long term or in explosive bursts—can radically alter the fundamental DNA of a culture, in terms of human interactions, motivations, and desires.

Fusiles y Frijoles It was midway through the rainy season of 1982 that Rı´os Montt initiated a systematic and aggressive plan for the pacification of the highlands.2 On July 1, 1982, Executive Decree 44–82 declared Guatemala to be under a state of siege, and authorized the division of the country into military zones (zonas militares).3 This decree laid the legal groundwork for the military strategy designed to deliver the guerrillas a decisive and final defeat, the Plan Nacional de ˜a Seguridad y Desarrollo. The heart of this security plan was Plan de Campan Victoria 82, commonly known as Victoria 82. The first component of this was the Plan for Assistance to the Areas of Conflict (PAAC), known as Fusiles y Frijoles (literally, rifles and beans, or, more alliteratively, “beans and bullets” in English)—an operation designed to eliminate the guerrillas by destroying their access to the general population as a base of support and, at least theoretically, to provide a safe haven for pro-government campesinos from the armed conflict.4 In principle, Fusiles y Frijoles, as we have seen in chapter 3, was designed to punish the guilty and reward the innocent, thus providing a moral basis for counterinsurgency. Rı´os Montt himself described this military action as one enacted “with severity, with compassion, with extremity, with true justice, with interest in people who wish to improve their lives.”5 The Guatemalan government conceived of Fusiles y Frijoles to demonstrate the Janus faces of Guatemalan military power, issuing rewards and punishment to the rural population according to its necessity. The moral mandate of Fusiles y Frijoles, theoretically, extended from the Alto Mando of the army all the way down to common foot soldiers: as agents of a beneficent government, all soldiers took a pledge of good conduct in which they vowed, among other things, to respect women, children, and the elderly, and to refrain from stealing or destroying crops or property.6 Despite these lofty goals, however, out in the field Fusiles y Frijoles operated under simpler rules. As one army officer succinctly explained the formula: “If you are with us, we’ll feed you; if you’re against us, we’ll kill you.”7 In strategic terms, the Fusiles y Frijoles policy represented a shift away from the earlier Lucas Garcı´a approach to counterinsurgency, which called for 100 percent random slaughter (“blindness and madness,” in the words of General Hector Gramajo, one of the authors of the Rı´os Montt–era

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pacification plan and later minister of defense, “brute force and nothing more”), to a more systematic policy that called for a 30 percent “total kill” in the zones of conflict, combined with 70 percent “soft” pacification, including psychological operations and development projects.8 The Victoria 82 campaign was measurably more methodical and less chaotic than Lucas Garcia’s counterinsurgency, but it was also more deadly. From a basic military perspective, it was also significantly more effective. With this policy of “intelligent killing,” the stage was set for the military campaign that would commit, over the course of seventeen months, according to the CEH and REMHI reports, nearly half of all the massacres and scorchedearth operations that took place over the course of Guatemala’s entire armed struggle.9 The sweep of the Fusiles y Frijoles campaign was massive, extending across the breadth of the altiplano, but concentrating much of its fury on the northern part of the department of El Quiche´. It struck hard in the Ixca´n area where the cooperative movement had once been strong and where Catholic Action had established deep roots, especially in the Ixil Triangle (the Ixil Mayan villages of Cotzal, Nebaj, and San Juan Chajul), areas where the URNG, specifically the EGP, enjoyed substantial support. Although in its public rhetoric the Guatemalan military adamantly insisted that the guerrillas did not control any geographic territory, the EGP (briefly) claimed a significant amount of popular support in northern El Quiche´ and remote Huehuetenango, which it declared to be territorio liberado.10 Privately, the Guatemalan military conceded that the EGP enjoyed substantial support in the north, particularly among the Ixiles, a lethal perception that caused the U.S. ambassador to Guatemala to make a chillingly accurate prediction to his colleagues in the State Department. “The well-documented belief by the Army that the entire Ixil Indian population is pro-EGP,” he wrote in a secret memo, “has created a situation in which the Army can be expected to give no quarter to combatants and non-combatants alike.”11

Fusiles The REMHI report discusses the evolution of the government’s massacre policy in some detail, noting that killings on a mass scale (a “massacre” being defined as the killing of five or more people in the same incident) went into effect as de facto government policy in September 1981, during the Lucas administration. At that point, the army launched its first major assault on the Guatemalan highlands in Chimaltenango, known as Operacio´n Ceniza (Operation Ash),12 setting off a wave of state-sponsored violence that would

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continue to build through the remainder of the Lucas period. Massacre-level violence escalated during Rı´os Montt’s Fusiles y Frijoles campaign and then began to de-escalate during the last quarter of 1982.13 Rural violence increased dramatically in mid-February 1982 (approximately four weeks before the March coup brought Rı´os Montt into power) when the army launched its first large-scale sweep of the Ixil Triangle. Reporting on this brutal and indiscriminate assault, the CIA noted in an intelligence memo, “the commanding officers of the units involved have been instructed to destroy all towns and villages which are cooperating with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) and eliminate all sources of resistance.”14 During the first 100 days of Rı´os Montt’s tenure in office, in which he remained at the head of the three-man junta, the Lucas model of mass and indiscriminate killing continued in the highlands, especially in El Quiche´ and Huehuetenango. After Rı´os Montt assumed sole executive power, however, the counterinsurgency program shifted dramatically. After a brief lull (the May–June 1982 amnesty), Rı´os Montt set out to reorganize, expand, and advance the military sweep of the highlands through the Fusiles y Frijoles program, the heart of his Victoria 82 military campaign. Fusiles y Frijoles reached a violent climax in July and August 1982; by the last months of the year, the military had whipped the highlands into virtual submission. It is the pattern of this arc—the dramatic acceleration in chaotic and frenetic violence under Lucas, followed by more violence, but in a more predictable pattern, that eventually gave way to an enforced peace—that probably accounts for why many Guatemalans associated Lucas with violence and Rı´os Montt with peace in the years immediately following this period.15 While the shift from selective to mass killings took place under Lucas, it was under Rı´os Montt that this policy took its most effective and efficient form; while Rı´os Montt did not originate the policy of mass killing, he rationalized it to the extent that it produced a decisive victory for an army that had been unable up until that time to decisively put down the two-decades-old insurgency. In particular, under Rı´os Montt, one of the hallmarks of the Lucas period, selective forced disappearances (such as kidnapping by death squads), largely disappeared, giving way to large-scale massacres—a deadly policy shift that nevertheless left less ambiguity than disappearances, which left family members in limbo, wondering over the final disposition of their loved ones.16 After a massacre, by contrast, any family members who survived were left with no doubts about what had happened. It is important to note that many of the most notorious massacres of the period of la violencia occurred on Lucas’s watch, between September 1981 and March 23, 1982, the date of the Rı´os Montt coup, and that it was Lucas, not

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Rı´os Montt, who actually initiated the scorched-earth campaign.17 However, the most violent month of the entire thirty-six-year civil war was April 1982, during Rı´os Montt’s first six weeks in power, when in a single thirty-day period 3,330 people died at the hands of their own government. Shortly before this onslaught, in mid-May 1982, the conservative editor of the daily El Gra´fico, Jorge Carpio Nicolle, who was later assassinated himself, signed his name to two incendiary editorials in which he denounced the escalating violence.18 “How is it possible to behead an eight- or nine-year-old child? How is it possible to murder in cold blood a baby of less than a year and a half?” Carpio demanded. “This new resurgence of mass murders sends the message that Guatemala is very far from peace.” Despite this uncharacteristic outspokenness, Carpio’s explosive editorials were not enough to jolt urban, middleclass Guatemala, comfortable in the city’s newfound security, in journalist Jean-Marie Simon’s words, “from its desire to believe that the situation had improved,” even as violence in the countryside increased to unprecedented levels.19 After the month-long lull for amnesty, violence again escalated dramatically in June, July, and August 1982, signaling the beginning of the most virulent military phase of Fusiles y Frijoles. By September, the incidence of massacres began to taper off, although several large-scale massacres did occur later, toward the end of 1982 and early 1983.20 The decline of government-sponsored violence in late 1982 and early 1983 reflects the success of Rı´os Montt’s military exit strategy for the decades-long armed conflict: the virtual annihilation of the guerrillas and their base of civilian support. By the end of 1983, drained of all rural and most of their urban strategic support, the fishes no longer had a sea in which to swim. Were massacres as such an explicit element of the military’s counterinsurgency policy in 1982 or simply an unfortunate by-product, when blooded and undisciplined soldiers, fueled by ancient hatreds, racism, and testosterone, ran amok in the fog of war? Certainly, this interpretation underscores much of the early explanation of the period in the official literature, although the army also took considerable pride in the disciplined training of its soldiers. When the Guatemalan army declined to admit to any massacres at all, the U.S. Embassy offered the following explanation in late 1982: “Although the Embassy believes it likely that the Guatemalan Army has indeed committed some atrocities, the assertion that they committed all the massacres attributed to them is not credible, especially since analysis indicates the guerrillas are responsible in many cases. If the GOG were indeed responsible for a ‘mad, genocidal’ campaign in the highlands, one must wonder why Indians are joining civil defense patrols in great numbers . . . . In sum, Embassy believes that what is

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being planned, and successfully carried out, is [a] communist-backed disinformation campaign.”21 In a press conference held to refute genocide charges on July 12, 2006, Rı´os Montt offered his only public explanations for the obloquy wrought by the violence of his counterinsurgency campaign. In this statement, which is notable not only for its brevity but also for its careful use of the subjectambiguous passive voice, Rı´os Montt denied command authority for the massacres, although he was both a (retired) general and chief of state at the time, although no longer a member of the actual army high command. “During my government, the Army followed orders,” he said. “But when they were not given orders, abuses were committed [se cometio´ desmanes], but I was never informed.”22 If the General’s high office allowed him to distance himself from the violence, the same was not true of his close associates. In 1982, his press secretary, responding to charges of human rights abuses, offered this circumlocution: “The guerrillas won over many Indian collaborators. Therefore, the Indians were subversives. And how do you fight subversion? Clearly you had to kill Indians because they were collaborating with subversion. And then it would be said that you were killing innocent people. But they weren’t innocent; they had sold out to the subversion.”23 The tautological language of this response, when placed against the inalterable background of events, indicates that terror was central to the government’s successful prosecution of its counterinsurgency war, and that massacres, therefore, were an essential element of a strategy that originated under Lucas and was perfected under Rı´os Montt. The General himself elaborated on the geometric challenges of the struggle, explaining, “The problem of war is not just of who is shooting. For each one who is shooting, there are ten working behind him.”24 In a very real sense, the scorched-earth campaign marked the logical culmination of a long-term strategy of state-sponsored violence against an armed movement that at that historical moment seemed (perhaps) otherwise poised on the brink of success. Rı´os Montt seems to have been fully aware that the killing of citizens on a large scale did further damage to Guatemala’s already abysmal international human rights record and that it also (potentially) damaged his reputation as an enlightened evangelical leader. In light of these concerns, he did his best to create an administrative distance between himself and the military’s excesses in the countryside while still laying claim to its successes. In July 1982, he met with his senior unit commanders to inform them that Plan Victoria 82 was ready to be implemented and that they—the field commanders—were responsible for making it succeed. According to an American military attache´

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who attended this high-level meeting, Rı´os Montt “emphasized the fact that the plan was made very general to permit each commander as much freedom of action as possible in his assigned area.” The American military official elaborated: “B[rigadier] G[eneral] Rı´os Montt said he was leaving the details up to them and that he expected results. Civilians and their properties were to be respected. He wanted each commander to take special care that innocent civilians would not be killed; however, if such unfortunate acts did take place he did not want to read about them in the newspapers.”25 Against such a statement, Rı´os Montt’s declarations of ignorance of the many abuses that occurred on his watch, at the very least, defy credulity. REMHI classifies the massacres that occurred after September 1981 as including each of the following characteristics: (1) an element of surprise; (2) increased persecution in mountain areas; (3) indiscriminate killings, including large numbers of women and children (presumed to be political nonpartisans); (4) destruction of the natural environment; and (5) a more frequent use of clandestine cemeteries than in early periods of violence in the country.26 REMHI also notes a critical change in the nature of massacres under Rı´os Montt: the military assault assumed a less random quality, with Victoria 82 primarily targeting the guerrilla forces and the population thought to support them.27 This single factor may account for the perception, which many Guatemalans held at the time, that the Rı´os Montt government offered a kind of “protection” and “law and order” that contrasted sharply with the violent chaos of the Lucas era. By and large, this study declines to contribute to the pornography of violence by sharp-focusing the details of the many massacres that took place during the Fusiles y Frijoles campaign. Nevertheless, it seems worthwhile to chronicle at least one massacre, in order to give some sense of both the logistics behind it and the scale of human suffering brought about by the implementation of a single political policy. As priest-activist-anthropologist Ricardo Falla notes, “If we are not victims of [a] massacre and if our senses are not impacted by the facts, the event is not felt with any depth.”28 The massacre I examine in close detail here is the one that occurred at Finca San Francisco Nento´n, which took place on July 17, 1982.29 This massacre is one of twelve cases that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States brought as evidence in charges of genocide against the Rı´os Montt government in June 2001. Nevertheless, the brutality and scope of this massacre is no worse than many others and the number of people killed is only slightly greater than the number of people murdered at other locations around the same time. There are, for example, two other large-scale massacres that took place only one day after the Finca San

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Francisco Nento´n event. These are the massacre at Plan de Sa´nchez, Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, where between 170 and 268 died, and the one at Los Encuentros, Rabinal, where counterinsurgency forces killed over 250 people, both on July 18, 1982.30 The tendency for large-scale massacres to take place in geographic and chronological clusters offers a clear indication that they were an integral element of policy, rather than simply an unfortunate by-product of overzealous field commanders. In mid-July 1982, four massacres took place in which the army reportedly killed 200 people or more; these include the massacres listed above as well as one at Rio Blanco, Sacapulas, where 200 people died.31 The fact that each of these events took place within a proscribed geographic area, the Transversal del Norte, and within a span of only two days (July 17–18, 1982) forces the unavoidable conclusion that these events represented the implementation of a specific and concrete tactic of counterinsurgency that included the intentional massacre of rural (Mayan) people within a single geographic area. To take a closer look at this policy, the events that took place on that July day in 1982 at Finca San Francisco Nento´n can serve as a helpful benchmark. As Ricardo Falla suggests, “Perhaps, an in depth study of one massacre will enable readers to imagine what the others might have been like.”32 Finca San Francisco Nento´n, moreover, is an incident for which there is substantial documentation from both sides. The following account is taken from eyewitness survivors as recorded by two separate anthropologists, Ricardo Falla and Paul Kobrak, as well as the CEH and REMHI reports.33 Of these four sources, Falla’s work is by far the most detailed and immediate. Working as a Jesuit priest and activist among refugees in Comita´n, Chiapas, in 1982, Falla began to collect stories of San Francisco Nento´n when an ordinary request to collect the names of the dead for a requiem Mass produced a startling list of 302 names. Falla pursued this lead during his pastoral work among the survivors, who helped him write up a detailed anthropological account of the massacre. This he presented as an academic paper at the American Anthropological Association in December 1982, thus making the massacre at Finca San Francisco Nento´n one of the first specific Rı´os Montt–era massacres to receive international attention, if only from an academic audience.34 The fact that his listeners understood Falla, a Jesuit who was much inspired by liberation theology, to be openly sympathetic to the Left did not at all undermine the immediacy of what he had to say. Falla’s record of the testimonies of the massacres from three male survivors, taken relatively freshly after the event had taken place (in September 1982, about six weeks later), also probably avoids some “rhetorical mediations” and “mimetic devices” that cloud

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well-rehearsed testimonies that survivors sometimes offer many months, years, or even decades after a traumatic event has taken place.35 The quoted sections of the description below are direct translations of the survivors’ testimonies, taken verbatim.

Julio Negro: The Massacre at San Francisco Nento´n, July 17, 1982 On June 22, a patrol of soldiers came into the Finca San Francisco Nento´n, a locality near San Mateo Ixtata´n, Huehuetenango, which the military correctly or incorrectly identified as being sympathetic to the EGP. Gathering the villagers together, the soldiers issued the following warning: “Be careful. Do not involve yourselves with the guerrillas or you are going to die for their crimes [delitos].”36 According to survivors, the soldiers at this time presented a friendly face (cara amable), offering candy and canned sardines to the townspeople, thus lending credence to the idea that it was best to stay put if and when the army returned.37 The army did return to the village during the early morning hours of July 17, but this time there were perhaps as many as 600 soldiers, and they did not have friendly faces. “Their faces were like those of crazy men.”38 According to survivors, the villagers wanted to cooperate with the soldiers and not the guerrillas, who they said they did not trust; the villagers had earlier sent a group to the regional capital at Nento´n to acquire a Guatemalan flag and to request formation of a civil patrol, but the group had not returned. Therefore, when the army came into town, no one felt they had reason to flee. When three helicopter gunships appeared in the air around 10 A.M., the people began to feel afraid and wanted to show the military commander that they were supportive of the government. One of the commanding officers shouted, “ ‘We’re going to have a fiesta!’ and ordered the people to come together in the center of town. They told the people, ‘We’re going to give you some good food and nothing is going to happen.’”39 But there were intimations of things to come. The people began to suspect the worst when, without another word, the soldiers pulled out the women and children and locked them in the chapel. They rounded up the men and the local judge and gathered up their bags to take their money and watches. “The women came with all the children—two years old, three years old, four years old. They came with their children all together. And he [the commander] came: ‘Get inside the church!’ It was already filled up. All the women. . . .”40 About one in the afternoon, the women were taken away from the church in groups, without their children. The soldiers took the women to houses and

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raped them there.41 The men could hear their women’s cries but could do nothing. But the cries stopped when the sounds of bullets and hand grenades commenced. “Crack, crack. There was a lot of noise. All the little children were crying, crying.”42 When all the women were dead, the soldiers burned their bodies inside the houses. After they finished with the women, the soldiers went back to the church where they had locked the children, who were crying for their mothers and screaming for their fathers. The fathers could hear them but could do nothing, because they were locked in the nearby courthouse. The older children had some grasp of what was happening, but the younger ones did not, and “some of them hugged each other when the soldiers brought them out of the church. Others simply walked out towards their sacrifice.”43 The soldiers took the children out of the church in groups. “They brought out the little kids—two, one and a half, three years old—they took them out holding on to each other. The ten, twelve, eight, five and six year old they also brought out in groups. They took the groups and killed them with knife stabs.”44 “They picked the smaller ones up by their feet, ‘ like you would a hen.’ They smashed their heads against pitchforks and against a cypress tree planted in front of the chapel.”45 The soldiers ripped open the children’s bellies with knives and tore out their intestines, tossing the small bodies into one of the houses located close to the church. “When they brought out the last child, and he was a little one, maybe two or three years old, little—I saw this myself. They brought him out and stabbed him and cut out his innards. The little kid was screaming and because he wasn’t dead, right there the soldier grabbed a thick hard stick and bashed his head. They cut out his guts and threw him away like shit. That’s how the cabrones did it.”46 “It’s possible they killed the children like that so as not to waste their munitions, or perhaps as a game for the soldiers.”47 By about three in the afternoon, it was time for the men, starting with the ancianos, the elders, who were still locked up in the courthouse. First the soldiers killed a bull that the villagers had given them when they first arrived, cutting its throat so that they could eat it later. The slaying of the bull presaged what would soon happen to the elders themselves. “Three old men. One, they stuck the unsharpened machete here [the throat], like you kill a sheep. ‘Aaaay,’ they say. ‘Aaaay,’ they say. Just as we were watching they killed him. . . . Inside the courthouse where we were—me, all of us.”48 The old men’s death cries amused some of the soldiers. “Like killing an animal; it made them laugh when they were killing. Poor people, the poor old men, they were crying and suffering.”49 Finally, they divided up the hombres de trabajo—working-age men—into groups of ten, taking them out one group at a time from the courthouse. “They blindfolded their eyes and forced them to lie down, face down. Then the

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soldiers shot them in the head.”50 Those who remained in the courthouse waited and prayed. “When they finished taking out the brothers, we began praying there inside the courthouse asking God that he would bless us. Why did brothers come, the brothers themselves, to kill us? It was not a sickness. God was not sending us a punishment.”51 Apparently tiring of taking the men out in groups, the soldiers then began to fire on the men waiting in the courthouse. They threw grenades into the courthouse and fired bazookas. “They killed one man . . . the poor man was already dead. Then [a soldier] went down on him again like this [gesture of ripping open the stomach]. That is how he opened him up and took out his heart. To eat or to carry off? Who knows?”52 The soldiers then dragged the bodies of the men one by one into the church and gave the orders to set the church on fire to incinerate the bodies inside. “Everything was sheer death. People were dying, dying.”53 In the chaos of the slaughter, one or two men escaped death by lying among the corpses. One man, his clothes stained by the blood of his neighbors, lay so numb and still among the bodies that the soldiers thought he was already dead. He wondered himself if he were dead. “They grabbed me alive and threw me on top of the bodies.”54 He waited in the carnage for nearly an hour, debating whether he should risk being burned alive when they set the church on fire or be shot trying to flee. But when he heard the sounds of the soldiers, singing and listening to music on cassette recorders and boasting about their victory, he decided to take the opportunity to escape. Before leaving, he asked permission of his dead companions to abandon them.55 “‘Friends, companions, let me go free to the fields. Give me luck. You are already free. Let me go. I am going to the field.’ I talked that way with the dead.”56 About that time, the soldiers decided it was time to torch the church. The survivor escaped through a window when the fire started, along with one other man, but the soldiers saw the other man and shot him dead. The man who escaped through the window lost thirty family members that day: his wife, his eight children (including a one-month-old baby), his brothers, grandchildren, and the wives of his elder children. “That is how I came, Father. I am hearing again, but through the pain in my heart for the dead ones. I was watching how my brothers were killed, all of them—companions, relatives—everyone. We were all brothers. That is why my heart is crying all the time.”57 Of the more than 300 original residents of Finca San Francisco Nento´n, three men survived to give testimony of these events from the relative safety of the refugee camp in Mexico. Two other survivors, who had been out in the fields at the time of the massacre, died along the way; one fell off a

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steep mountain path on the trail to Mexico and another died in the hospital in Comita´n, Mexico. It takes a long time to kill more than 300 people one by one. There were so many people to kill that the entire massacre process took many hours, from early afternoon into the early evening. Between 302 and 350 people died at Finca San Francisco Nento´n on July 17, 1982. In the days and weeks to follow, approximately 9,000 people from nearby villages, fearful that they would suffer the same fate as their neighbors in Finca San Francisco Nento´n, fled to the mountains, some making it across the border to the refugee camp in Mexico.58 The savagery and inhumanity of that day is difficult to comprehend, in part due to what Falla calls “the element of inexplicability which makes a massacre something hard to believe.”59 But one aspect of the tragedy is difficult to overlook, which is that this massacre was explicitly not the playing out of ancient tribal or ethnic hatreds that underlie so many savage conflicts in other parts of the world. Many, if not most, of the soldiers who took part in the massacre were from the neighboring villages, such as nearby San Miguel, Jacaltenango; the survivors could tell by their manner of speaking. “They were all from San Miguel [puro sanmigelen˜os]—they speak their dialect! All Indian [puro natural].” “Why did brothers come, the brothers themselves, to kill us? They did not say, ‘This is the crime; here is the proof.’ They didn’t do anything. Who knows why this happened. No one indicated, ‘this was one offense; this was another.’ Nobody said. They just killed. We don’t know. We are ignorant [nosotros somos ignorantes].”60 All the victims and most of the victimarios (perpetrators) were indigenous; if this case was like many others, they may have known one another or even been relatives. At the time of the Finca San Francisco Nento´n massacre, the Guatemalan military denied that any such event had ever taken place. Three months later, under pressure from international human rights groups, the U.S. Embassy sent out a team to view the site by air to observe the “sites of alleged large-scale massacres purportedly carried out by the Guatemalan Army,” but bad weather prevented their landing or seeing the site. Instead, they visited the army base in Huehuetenango, which was home to the soldiers who had committed the atrocities. Given free run of the base, the U.S. Ambassador concluded, “If these officers have something to hide, they do not seem overly concerned about us finding out,” a statement pregnant with ambiguity.61 In trying to explain an inexplicable event, many questions arise. Was the Finca San Francisco Nento´n massacre and so many others like it the result of a top-down order that ran down a clear chain of command from the president to his field commanders, or was it, as those close to Rı´os Montt claimed, the

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result of rogue field commanders and undisciplined troops run amok? How far up did the chain of command authority ultimately extend?62 Harris Whitbeck, who served as a key civilian advisor to Rı´os Montt, not surprisingly takes the view that command authority extended only as far as local field officers. When asked about the Rı´os Montt administration’s knowledge of and culpability for the Finca San Francisco Nento´n massacre, he responded: “There was a renegade army unit there that went out of control—killed lots of innocent people. I got there right after it happened—there was one other civilian and four army officers with me and they saw it too. As soon as I got back, I repeated to the General what had happened. He asked me who was involved, and I told him and he was very upset. But nothing ever came of it. I think the officer in charge got killed or something like that.”63

Refugees and Internal Exiles Early on, many villagers from the zones of conflict sought the protection of the EGP, but the guerrillas were entirely unprepared to protect, feed, or otherwise take care of large numbers of people.64 In the aftermath of massacres, or in anticipation of them, survivors were left with the choice of relocating to a military-run refugee camp or seeking exile. Some willingly sought out the army camps, both to avoid being swept up further in the counterinsurgency campaign and to insulate themselves from further contact with the guerrillas.65 According to REMHI, however, nearly half (40 percent) made the choice to go into exile, leaving their communities to flee to the mountains, where many perished, their bodies left behind to the mercy of wild animals and the elements; others escaped to international refugee camps in Belize and Mexico.66 When the army found a village abandoned, the soldiers burned all the buildings and their contents to the ground, thus leaving people who had left even temporarily without homes, crops, livestock, or possessions to return to. This is what is meant by “scorched earth”: the obliteration not only of homes and possessions, but the very landscape of place and belonging. The bewilderment that Finca San Francisco’s survivors expressed as to why they had fallen victim to the army’s wrath is not at all uncommon in survivor testimonials. While the guerrillas had enjoyed explicit support in some villages, in many locations villagers knew little about them or expressly did not want any association with them. “Ni conocemos la guerrilla ni conocemos el eje´rcito,” explained one survivor. “We know neither the guerrillas nor the army.”67

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While many may well have made this claim falsely in order to save themselves, others—recalling Trouillot’s admonition to listen to all voices— must surely have meant exactly what they said. This is not an insignificant point, as it casts a broader net of culpability for the death of many innocents. Obviously, it involves culpability of the army in killing people who were entirely uninvolved with the armed popular movement. But blame also falls on the guerrillas for continuing to put the rural Maya in harm’s way, even when they were fully aware that such a position was virtually guaranteed to bring the fiercest recrimination against a subaltern population in a society that was as racially divided as Guatemala. The CEH report confirms this observation. “The guerrillas applied a tactic of ‘armed propaganda’ and temporary occupation of towns to gain supporters or demonstrate their strength; once they withdrew however, they left the communities defenseless and vulnerable,” the report charges. “In many cases, communities were then attacked by the Army, with a very high civilian death toll, especially among the Mayan population. Faced with scorched earth operations and massacres . . . the guerrillas were unable to protect the people who had sympathized with their objectives or had supported them. This inability created a broad sense of abandonment, deception and rejection in these sectors.”68

The Communities of Population in Resistance This last betrayal was not lost on indigenous people themselves, including those who were directly engaged with the armed guerrilla movement. Seeing the carnage that the counterinsurgency had brought to their own people and observing what appeared to them to be the popular resistance’s apparent willingness to sacrifice them even in the face of overwhelming force, many indigenous combatants and sympathizers began to abandon the guerrillas in mid-1982, further diminishing the rebel forces. As anthropologist Charles R. Hale phrases it, “Some persisted in a contradictory struggle from within, others bit their tongues, but especially after the military tables turned, the vast majority of indigenous foot soldiers simply abandoned the Left.”69 Some indigenous former guerrillas and massacre survivors went on to establish comunidades de poblacio´n in resistencia (CPR) in remote and inaccessible areas of the country. The CPR were small, ambulant communities of internal refugees, often technically under the protection of a guerrilla force that was nevertheless unable to provide for it. Left alone and sometimes entirely self-sufficient, refugees lived in such constant fear of detection that sometimes

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they could not make cooking fires or allow their children to cry: they even devised a way to tie off the voice boxes of their roosters so that crowing would not give away their locations to the military and civil patrols.70 Perhaps as many as 20,000 refugees ended up living in CPR for a decade or more in clandestine isolation from the Guatemalan army, their home communities, and society at large.71 The hardships in the CPRs were manifold: food was scarce, and people subsisted on inadequate diets of wild plants and roots, sometimes for long periods of time—even years—without relief; they lived in temporary shelters of leaves and poles that were inadequate to keep out rain or the unexpected cold of the highlands.72 Many CPR members, especially children, took sick and died of malnutrition and privation. Yet even the difficult decision to stay in a CPR offered no guarantee of safe haven, as survivors had come to distrust both the army and the guerrillas. “Sometimes there is just no difference between the ˜ a Cristina, a CPR member, explained to a human rights worker. “If two,” Don we go over to one side, we are afraid, but we are afraid of the other side, too.”73

Civil Defense Patrols (Patrullas de Autodefensa) A central aspect of the Fusiles y Frijoles campaign was the establishment of civilian militias known as civil patrols (patrullas de autodefensa, PAC), manned by male villagers who served in the patrols on a mandatory rotational basis. The civil patrols, which became feared paramilitary militias in their own right, played a significant role in the army’s reassertion of control over remote rural areas. It was through the civil patrols that counterinsurgency came to be woven intricately into the fabric of village life. The idea of self-policing in indigenous villages did not actually originate with Fusiles y Frijoles. Volunteer civilian patrols had a fairly long history in the highlands; in fact, a few communities had established self-defense patrols on their own even before Rı´os Montt took power.74 In November 1981, the town of Nahuala´, for example, had formed its own patrol three weeks after the EGP had taken over its radio station and kidnapped several residents.75 The system, however, did not become widespread until April 1982, when Rı´os Montt made the formation of civil patrols a centerpiece of his pacification program. The system, not altogether unlike the labor rotations of the Spanish colonial period, the repartimiento and the mita, demanded that male villagers in rural areas between the ages of eighteen and sixty serve in patrols on a forced rotational basis to ensure the security of their villages and the surrounding areas.76 PACs were responsible for reporting guerrillas or guerrilla collaborators

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to the local military comisionado; they also accompanied the army on rastreos, military sweeps of surrounding mountains and villages to look for suspected guerrillas or refugees. The frequency with which men were obliged to serve in the patrols depended on manpower available in a given canto´n. In larger towns, a patroller might be scheduled to serve every two months for twelve hours, and a man could buy out his service with a mozo, a paid replacement.77 In smaller towns, however, men took a turn in the patrol once every three days for twentyfour or even forty-eight hours at a time; the use of mozos was rare because there were none available and people could not afford it.78 Civil patrol duty might take up to forty-five to fifty workdays per year, representing a significant loss in productive labor for those involved.79 The PACs were a rural system, designed to assert control over the indigenous population through internal rather than external forces such as the military, which up until that time functioned in the villages very much as a foreign occupation force. An army press release published in 1984 (printed bilingually in Spanish and dubious English clearly meant for international consumption) described the PACs as a “new form of social organization . . . without supervision or any kind of control, specially taking into consideration that the indian [sic] population were not in capacity of managing by themselves those new forms of social, political, and economic organization.”80 Official doublespeak notwithstanding, the PACs did indeed fall under the supervision of the military. The army provided the PACs with a set series of objectives: (1) to provide a first line of defense for soldiers; (2) to police and provide counterinsurgency defense to their communities; and (3) to generate intelligence and counterintelligence for the detention of suspects who might be sympathizers, collaborators, or insurgents.81 Although the government described the civil patrols as “voluntary, spontaneous expressions of patriotism,” in fact, participation was entirely compulsory, as the army openly considered those who refused to participate to be subversives, with the lethal consequences that such a designation implied. Each patrol reported directly to the local army destacamento (base) either every eight days or every two weeks to give information on activities in their communities and to receive instructions and “orientation” from local military commanders about current military objectives. Patrols or individual members who failed to comply could expect the harshest possible penalties.82 Despite the involuntary nature of the service, the PACs quickly became adept at doing the army’s bidding, and many took the initiative to root out potential subversion on their own, often zealously. As General Guillermo Echeveria Vielman stated in an open letter to Rı´os Montt on January 11, 1983, “the civilian defense patrols are led, controlled, protected, and work under the military’s vigilance; thus they are part of the Army.”83

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The central objective of the civil patrols was to cut off the guerrillas from whatever base of support they might have among the local population. Although the patrols’ official mandate was to provide military defense of their towns, the army’s underlying motivation was to control the men who were collaborating with the guerrillas or who had done so in the past. Equally important, the civil patrols, according to an internal army document from July 1982, were designed to provide “back-up support for the army in its military and counterinsurgency operations, using locals’ knowledge of terrain, language and the inhabitants to boost the effectiveness in the field.”84 This the civil patrols certainly did, at least in terms of numbers: by September 1982, there were approximately 25,000 civil patrollers in the highlands, a number that had swelled to 700,000—about 10 percent of Guatemala’s entire population—by the time of the 1983 coup.85 Although the U.S. Embassy privately cautioned that “arming the highland Indians . . . could boomerang should they turn against the government in the future,” the Guatemalan government supplied the civil patrollers with new straw hats, Guatemalan flags, and weapons.86 Many of the weapons were antiquated or useless (such as wooden planks carved into the shape of rifles) because the state, reflecting the primordial colonial fear of a motı´n de indios (Indian rebellion), was eager to capitalize on their manpower but reluctant to arm them properly. As a strategy of counterinsurgency, the PAC system was extremely effective; indeed, by most accounts on both the political Left and the Right it was the single most successful element of the counterinsurgency campaign.87 It accomplished the goal of “draining the sea in which the fish swim” by isolating the guerrillas from their base of indigenous support and thereby weakening them nearly to the point of capitulation. By coercion or by choice, the civilian population, monitored by the PACs, gave themselves over to army control. In this fashion, the government was able to successfully invert the guerrillas’ strategy of engaging the indigenous population in the popular struggle, by integrating the indigenous, by persuasion or by force, into the heart of the counterinsurgency.88 Menegazzo and Us Alvarez have referred to this inversion of hearts and minds as a process by which revolutionaries were “converted into subversives and transgressors.”89 Guatemala’s dictator of the 1930s, Jorge Ubico, had foreseen the day when the Maya might be persuaded by clientage to advance the interests of the state as “citizen soldiers,” but he could not have anticipated how the wholesale call-up of the civil patrols would transform Mayan society. By the military’s assessment, the success of the PACs lay in the popular perception that the PACs offered protection to communities in the zones of conflict, from the guerrillas but also from anticipated military recriminations.

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If villagers viewed the Guatemalan military as an army of occupation, they could hardly do so when it was the sons of the village itself who provided the oversight. The bilingual army publication on civil patrols presented the equation thusly, in an Orwellian English that curiously anticipates the scholarly debates of the late 1990s on the same topic: Since the marxist [sic] victory was never achieved and the civil population was well aware of the respect the army showed toward all those individuals or groups that were not enrolled in guerrilla activity (the civilian population) they concluded in the following manner: the guerrilla groups failed; once again we were deceived, we became poorer and suffered unnecessary mourning, we were forced to practice military exercises (self defense) but against an enemy that was no enemy; therefore and as a logical consequence of following the initiative of a few, the great majority of the rural population directly or indirectly involved with the guerrilla groups turned against them and became their principal critics and accusers.90 Whitbeck, Rı´os Montt’s personal del presidente, described the government’s position more succinctly: “With the PACs to protect them, people no longer feared the guerrillas or the army, and that closed off the guerrillas’ support, especially in the highlands. The PACs weren’t well-armed at all, but with them there, people lost that fear. By the end of 1982 [the guerrillas] had been virtually dismantled, really done in by the participation of the population, the PACs, which later distorted into something else.”91 Without doubt, one of the most lasting effects of the civil patrol system was its effect on community cohesion, a consequence—perhaps unintended but perhaps not—that in either case helped to advance the government’s expressed goal of achieving unidad nacional at the expense of indigenous and community identity. In the words of historian Marvin Estuardo Ramı´rez Cordo´n, “the distrust and hate were new elements that appeared with the formation of the civil patrols. Resentment is permanent against the patrollers, some of whom took undue advantage, tortured, persecuted, threatened, or in the majority of cases assassinated some [people] they knew or who were in their family [algun familiar].”92 As violence played out locally, community coherence disintegrated, as long-standing feuds, rivalries, land disputes, religious differences, and personal differences assumed a political veneer. Anthropologist Linda Green recorded disturbing stories of women knowing which life-long neighbor had denounced their husbands, and of women and children who continued

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to live and work as neighbors with people who they knew had been responsible for the deaths of their loved ones, sometimes crossing paths with them on a daily basis.93 In Ramı´rez’s words, “The sadness and anxiety brought about by [intercommunity] violence would become permanent problems.”94 The civil patrol system contributed directly in other ways to the decay of community integrity. There was no question that service in the civil patrols was burdensome, a “cargo” in the truest sense of the word that sapped vital energy from individuals and from communities that were struggling to get back on their collective feet. Service time in the PACs often left insufficient time for farming, even for the growing of corn, the food staple and symbolic sustenance of Mayan life, much less for the communal performance of whatever religious rituals, cofradia activities, or civic duties had survived the scorched-earth campaign.95 By accident or design—and, indeed, there is no outstanding evidence to suggest that the army anticipated the PACs’ long-term cultural consequences as such—the civil patrols became an insidious force in the destruction of indigenous community culture. The physical risks of participation were also onerous. Along with being forced to patrol in all types of weather, including torrential tropical rains, PAC members regularly found themselves both literally and figuratively in the line of fire, either from the guerrillas or from the military. Indeed, of the seventeen massacres attributed to the EGP during this period, at least seven—Chez, Aguacata´n, Xacataltej Chajul, and in Comalapa, Chicama´n El Quiche´, Saquil, and Nebaj—were all attacks against patrulleros. These attacks, like those on the other side, were as punitive as they were strategic, as the guerrillas targeted not only the only the patrollers themselves, but also their families, including infants and children.96 While the civil patrols originated as an involuntary system of subordination, however, it took remarkably little time for the civil patrollers to rise to what Nietzsche described as the “will to power”: the desire for cruelty with the pleasure that comes with the exercise of power, and the fundamental human instinct to wish to expand that power at the expense of others.97 As civil patrols gained increasing power by earning the army’s confidence, they quickly acquired power as the local arm of military authority and all too often became a law unto themselves.98 An early Americas Watch report on civil patrols commented that “the army’s order to inform on fellow villagers has created a great temptation to seek revenge by denunciations,” a charge later borne out by many accusations of family feuds, land disputes, and personal vendettas that found their “final solution” with the patrols.99 Even in the PACs’ first year, 1982, people spoke of being afraid to talk with long-time

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neighbors, to attend church services, or even to go work in their fields due to their fear of orejas (literally, ears, or spies) who might turn them in to the civil patrols.100 Such fears were fully warranted: according to some sources, civil patrols were involved in more than 125 massacres committed between 1982 and 1983, as they either helped carry out military orders or acted on their own initiative.101 In the case of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, for example, a region once friendly to the FAR, anthropologist Rolando Alecio estimated that political violence destroyed half of the thirty-eight rural communities of the municipality, and that some 5,000 people—close to 25 percent of Rabinal’s total population— died in political violence in 1981–1982. While the military and guerrillas had killed some of the people in this total, Alecio found that it was the local civil patrols that had committed the vast majority of the killings.102 In their mid-1980s study of San Pedro la Laguna, Benjamin Paul and William Demarest observed how the context of a “culture of fear” exacerbated intercommunity factionalism and rivalries, leading to a breakdown in the social system that the civil patrol system eroded further.103 By giving the corrosive forces of distrust, revenge, and terror a local face, the PACs arguably did more to undermine indigenous community coherence and identity than did any other single factor in Guatemala’s thirty-six-year civil war. The ultimate effect of the civil patrol system, then, might be seen less in the achievement of the government’s stated goal of isolating the guerrillas from their civilian base of support than in the PAC members’ willingness, whether under coercion or not, to advance the official discourse to the extent that civilians would be willing to engage in the kind of “autogenocide” that Alexander Hinton describes in Cambodia for the Khmer Rouge.104 As Hinton notes, autogenocide is somewhat unusual in the human experience because killing does not result from ancient hatreds, as is usually the case in “simple” genocide. Rather, it stems from the ability of the state or an entity such as the military to, in Hinton’s phrase (borrowing from Chomsky), “manufacture difference.” That is, to construct and stigmatize a subaltern group to the extent that they are perceived, politically and culturally, to be completely different beings,105 in this case, not different ethnic groups, but within what was otherwise a relatively homogenous community with few ethnic differences. It is, simply put, the willingness to kill your own. The Rı´os Montt government’s ability to successfully manufacture difference between guerrilla and “patriot,” rural and urban, “subversive” and “sanctioned Maya,” civil patrol and community, may ultimately have had a greater impact on the outcome of the struggle than did the straightforward military campaign against the armed resistance.

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The Gendered Effects of the Scorched-Earth Campaign One of the most striking effects of the scorched-earth campaign is that it left much of the countryside largely devoid of men. Because the state, not incorrectly, presumed that men were most likely to engage in political activity, including outright support for the guerrillas, it directed a preponderance of repression against the male population. The CEH report estimates that approximately 75 percent of the people killed over the course of Guatemala’s long conflict were men, a cold statistic that, in isolation, fails to convey the loss of wage earners, family providers, and beloved husbands, sons, and fathers—the heads of households and communities. Not all men were permanently lost to violence; when villagers began to grasp the logic of the scorched-earth campaign, adult men, as a vulnerable population, would often flee the village or sleep in their fields or the forest to avoid confrontation with the military or, less commonly, with the guerrillas.106 As a survival strategy, however, this tactic was highly flawed, as the military took to attacking women, children, and the elderly instead, a practice that led to a marked increase in casualties among women and children between 1981 and 1983.107 While the killing of both men and women peaked in 1982, women and children, not surprisingly, were much more likely to die in massacres than in selective killings or assassinations. Men, however, were highly vulnerable in either scenario.108 Such factors have profound implications for the number of women and children who are left behind in a highly patriarchal society that was suddenly bereft of its patriarchs.109 During (and after) the Rı´os Montt period, some villages, having lost their men to violence, flight, migration to the south coast, conscription by the army (or the guerrillas), or obligations with the civil patrols became virtual “cities of women”—villages in which adult males were, for all intents and purposes, almost entirely absent.110 The absence of men, in turn, helped to contribute to an overall collapse of traditional community and family hierarchies. In the areas where families still had homes to return to, the loss of their men had serious economic and cultural implications. Mayan society, like Guatemalan society in general, tends to be extremely male-driven, with religious brotherhoods, councils of (male) elders, and kinship networks forming the loci of local power and identity. In making the transition from wife to widow, women lost their status vis-a`-vis that of their husbands. They often also lost their places within the local hierarchies of kinship, which complicated issues of patrilineal land inheritance and exacerbated legal difficulties tied to women’s ownership of land titles.111

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Compounding the situation was the fact that in traditional Mayan society, widows normally have a sanctioned status within the community, where they enjoy respect and support from their children, especially their sons, now absent from the scene. Moreover, the complex and seemingly arbitrary nature of the violence stigmatized many widows, who often did not receive the economic and emotional help they needed from their villages and extended families even when they remained relatively intact. The implied supposition that a widow might have been an esposa de guerrillero—a guerrilla wife—and thus indirectly responsible for bringing harm to the community further isolated such women, even in the eyes of friends and family.112 The Guatemalan government, as well, took a contradictory view of such women, regarding them simultaneously as war widows entitled to relief, but also as possible enemies of the state.113 This kind of double marginalization forced widows into a new, narrowly bounded social space within their own communities, ostracized in fear and silence from their traditional networks of kinship and other forms of social organization.114 The women left behind faced significant obstacles in reestablishing lives for themselves and their surviving families without their husbands, grown sons, and other male family members. Their economic plight was paramount, since the scorched-earth policy destroyed principal crops, particularly corn, as well as the beans, small livestock, and other agricultural staples that sustained rural families. All these losses had long-term implications that reached far beyond the immediate parameters of the war itself. In September 1983, an ad hoc private aid organization known as PAVVA (Programa de Ayuda para Vı´ctimas de la Violencia en el Altiplano), armed with government-authorized safe conduct passes, conducted a survey of affected areas.115 PAVVA’s findings offer a disturbing snapshot of the kinds of challenges that survivors, mostly women and young children, faced in the immediate aftermath of the scorched-earth campaign. Although PAVVA was generally not unfriendly to the government’s overall objectives, its 1983 report, alarmingly titled “A Proposal to Avert Imminent Calamity in the Highlands of Guatemala,” laid out Fusiles y Frijoles’ collateral effects in the starkest possible language. “Civil violence in the Highlands of Guatemala has disrupted the traditional self-sufficient agricultural cycles, created food shortages, hunger, cut off medical attention and broken up families and communities,” the report began. Agricultural production has broken off in all affected areas, reflecting the cut-off of fertilizers as well as the interruption of field work. Many villages have not harvested crops for as many as three years, denying their only sources of food and leaving them today without the

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funds to purchase supplies needed to get back into production. Moreover, with the disintegration of local market systems, supplies are scarce or unavailable. The ability of a self-sufficient society to meet its basic human needs depends upon its agricultural cycles. . . . Continuing long-term caloric insufficiency will exacerbate excessively high rates of kwashiorkor, maramus and vitamin deficiencies, reducing any possibility of help. The report concluded, “A large segment of the Indian population of Guatemala is facing starvation and social disintegration. Three years of political violence have resulted in disruption of planting cycles, loss or abandonment of farms, homes and tools, and the inability to resume productions of subsistence crops. Food shortages and illness threaten an ever-mounting human tragedy.”116 Even in areas of the highlands where the need was less acute, economic and social disruption was severe. Because the division of labor in Mayan society is such that men are responsible for the cultivation of corn and other subsistence crops and for the perennial migration to the southern coast as seasonal labor, the severity of the circumstances eventually pressed women to hire men outside the family to help them tend their fields, or assume the job themselves. Young boys, who would in the normal course of events have learned to farm at their fathers’ sides, worked without role models.117 In such cases, women and children took on “men’s labor” in addition to their traditional tasks of tending small livestock, infant care, housework, and weaving, the last being both a source of income as well as a highly valued cultural commodity.118 As a secondary effect of counterinsurgency, in short, the gendered costs to Mayan family life and culture were extraordinarily high.119

“Why Did the Brothers Come to Kill Us?”: Mayan Soldiers in the Guatemalan Army A single unifying character in this chapter is the soldier, whom we have effectively, if not altogether fairly, vilified as the murderous Other. Yet a close reading reveals that the majority of low-ranking soldiers in the Guatemalan army were themselves Mayan conscripts, as indigenous as the husbands, farmers, and catequistas described above. The conscription of young Mayan men to the military was a long-standing practice in Guatemala, the result of a desire to both assimilate and “tame” indigenous youth. British novelist Aldous Huxley, who visited the country during the 1930s and wrote about the trip in Beyond the Mexique Bay, commented on this regarding the Ubico-era army:

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“They were all pure Indians from some village in the highlands. . . . They can be relied upon to obey orders.”120 For many years, the Guatemalan army had engaged in a practice informally known as el cupo, or the grab, where military commissioners coordinated the “grab” of youths aged eighteen and over. Of this long-standing custom of forced conscription of indigenous men, Richard N. Adams observes that as far back as the late 1960s, “It ha[d] always been the practice, and continues to today, to recruit, or conscript, enlisted men from the ranks of the Indian and rural Ladino population. To be liable for conscription is a good index to one’s lack of power to avoid it. . . . One officer distinguished Indian from oriente Ladino conscripts by indicating a preference for the former. Once you broke his customs, he explained, the Indian was much easier to discipline than the Ladino.”121 By the early 1980s, the need for soldiers was so acute that younger boys and those attending school were no longer exempt from service. Army “recruiters” regularly scoured villages for eligible men, taking care not to overlook drunks passed out in front of cantinas in the wee hours of the morning, unless they wore a belt buckle forged from welded-together bullets to show they had already served.122 The “recruitment” of indigenous youth was such a widely hated practice that in at least one case, in Santa Eulalia, Huehuetenango, in 1980, an angry mob (many of them parents) killed the local military commissioner for his role in forcing their young men into the army.123 Once recruited, however, it was the “breaking customs” that transformed many Mayan conscripts. For young men who, in addition to acquiring military indoctrination, might also be eating three square meals a day and receiving deference (rather than having to offer it) for the first time in their lives—the military experience created an intoxicating brew of inverted power, coercion, fear, rage, and adrenaline that transformed young Mayan men into the very soldiers who committed massacres against their own people. This, working within the crucible that John Keegan has described as the psychology of battle—the high-voltage energy and shared fear, especially of an unseen enemy (acute in a guerrilla war) that helps forge powerful intragroup loyalties and rationales of self-defense and preservation—helps to explain, at least in part, how it was that young Mayan men so readily abandoned one identity for the other.124 Arguing specifically against the CEH’s charge that the army burned cornfields to make a symbolic holocaust of Mayan culture, military historian Mario Alfredo Me´rida Gonza´lez noted that “one has to remember that 90% of the soldiers were of Mayan origin, and for that reason this grain was part of their natural diet.”125 Although the tone of this quote should give us pause, the role of Mayan soldiers in the massacres is nonetheless troubling, especially given the fact that they were often called upon to translate and take

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action against their own or neighboring villages. So complete was their indoctrination, their fear, their grasp of power, their repudiation of their former identities, their military esprit de corps, that they became capable of taking actions against victims who were often known to them, in some cases even neighbors or family. The matter of civil patrol participation is equally disturbing. Although membership in civil patrols was theoretically voluntary, in reality it was anything but that—men and teenage boys served in the patrols on a forced rotational basis, and those who did not the army considered to be subversives and dealt with as such.126 The military expected civil patrollers to report in on a regular basis; those who did not produce results could expect to suffer very serious consequences. As one patroller testified, “That officer told us that if we didn’t kill them, they would kill all of us.”127 Stories of coercion and fear-induced collaboration among civil patrol members abound, including haunting testimonies of people being forced to kill family members and neighbors.128 Yet, as we have seen, there is also ample testimony that demonstrates that some civil patrollers took to their task with alacrity, using their power not only to apprehend real and suspected guerrillas, but to torture, humiliate, intimidate, and kill—suggesting that forced collaboration encouraged not only complicity but even, sometimes, enthusiasm.129 Within their communities, civil patrollers ceased to be seen as forced collaborators, but as powerful agents of fear and terror at work within the heart of the community itself.

Conclusion All of the foregoing leads to the conclusion that there is a false dichotomy between the soldier and villager, who might both share a common ethnicity, language, and, up to a point, personal history. Yet it does not discount the argument of political genocide: history, and especially the twentieth century, is rife with examples of what historian Greg Grandin has called the “industrial” or large-scale killing of a people by their own kind, who are able to self-identify as having been raised up by power or ideology and who therefore feel justified in killing those who have not. Explanations for perpetrator motivations reach at least as far back as the 1945 Nuremberg trials when Nazi defendants offered the now-infamous defense that they were “just following orders.”130 During the 1960s, Stanley Milgram conducted his well-known obedience experiments, in which volunteers willingly administered what they believed to be potentially fatal dosages of electrical shocks to other volunteers, explaining later that they simply had

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“done as they had been told.” Milgram suggested such behavior was a psychosocial response through which people see themselves as conduits of the demands of authority figures—automatons—lacking the free will to withstand the consequences of not following orders.131 Both explanations, however, tend to negate or even exonerate the actions of individual killers. In making victimarios themselves victims of coercive powers beyond their control, the lack-offree-will model fails to take into account people’s acute desire to accumulate power and authority for themselves, regardless of the high moral cost. An explanation of perpetrator motivation that demands more accountability comes from Kenneth Quinn, who, in discussing the Khmer Rouge, describes perpetrators as simple peasants who, after training in “harsh and brutal methods,” use their newfound power and expertise to willingly commit genocide. In Quinn’s words, such training empowered Cambodians to cease to identify with their own culture to the extent that they were willing to “destroy physically the cultural underpinnings of the Khmer civilization and to impose a new society through purges, executions and violence.”132 In the Guatemalan case, there is no question that coercion played a factor in Mayan soldiers killing Mayan villagers (the penalty for disobeying an officer was harsh, including time in the brig on a tortilla-and-water diet, where the prisoner might well be “executed while trying to flee”). Even with such strict penalties there were a few reports of military patrols “hiding in the monte” until they could return to base, where they submitted fabricated reports of “rebel kills.” Evidence also shows that a few soldiers, after witnessing or even taking part in a massacre, deserted the army to join the guerrillas. Such defiance, however, was rare. If Mayan-on-Mayan violence constitutes that kind of autogenocide of which Hinton writes, then it is, historically speaking, a fairly unusual phenomenon that requires further explanation. Rafael Lemkin, the scholar who first coined the neologism “genocide” in response to the Nazi actions, defined it as a “crime of barbarity”—a primitive and primordial clash resulting from “ancient tribal hatreds,” a definition that does not entirely explicate the case of Guatemala in the early 1980s.133 In the matter of autogenocide, however, killing does not result precisely from ancient hatreds (although, as we have seen, long-standing tensions between ladinos and indigenous very much underscored the political discourse). Instead, it stems from the ability of the state or an entity such as the military to, using Hinton’s expression,134 “manufacture difference.” This refers to a power broker’s ability to construct and stigmatize a subaltern group to the extent that they are perceived, politically and culturally, to be completely different beings.135 This is not to say that the Guatemalan government or even the civil patrols created these differences entirely from scratch—we must remember that just as some villages, or sectors

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in them, supported the guerrillas, others staunchly supported the government, while still others would have preferred to stay out of the fray altogether. Yet the ability of the Guatemalan government during the Rı´os Montt years to manufacture and emphasize these differences—through the creation of civil patrols that divided communities into “sanctioned Maya” who supported the military program against those who did not—and the multiple physical and metaphysical divisions that it encouraged in villages (between military and guerrillas, refugees and those who stayed behind, Catholic and Protestant, soldier and victim, between one family and another) were all underscored by a messianic anticommunist discourse expressed by the president in weekly Sunday “sermons” that may, ultimately, lie at the very heart of what Argentina’s military regime in its day approvingly referred to as the “Guatemalan solution.” While the scorched-earth campaign of 1982 enforced compliance with the regime through terror, it was the government’s adept manipulation of perceived differences at the inter- and intracommunity level that accounted for the success of its long-term counterinsurgency strategy. As we speak of manipulation and manufacturing alterity, it is important to note that the results of these actions are anything but abstract. As members of civil patrols or indigenous conscripts—even ordinary Guatemalans who were not directly involved in the war—came to imbibe the doctrines of counterinsurgency through whatever methods, they also came to understand that they were engaged in a “mission”—a word that has religious as well as military significance. If not everyone accepted Rı´os Montt’s assertions that the counterinsurgency was an outright crusade from God, many nonetheless came to believe they were on some kind of higher mission: to save the nation, to root out the “bad seed,” which morally justified even the most extreme actions. In combination with the army’s powerful sense of esprit d’corps, it was the regime’s ability to give meaning to these actions that helped make them not only plausible but actually possible. Finally, the matter of violence against women and children again commands our attention. While many would argue that such attacks were an unfortunate side effect of the fog of war or simply the fault of rogue and undisciplined soldiers, the scope and scale of such events between 1981 and 1983 can only point to the conclusion that massacres were, per se, a central strategy of the counterinsurgency campaigns. As such, the motive was not so much to eliminate guerrilla supporters or even to regain control through terror, but rather to destroy the culture and society that had sustained the insurgency down to its very roots. Once this was complete, it was time to plant the “good seed” of La Nueva Guatemala and raise it from the ground up.

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5 “Los Que Matan en el Nombre de Dios” Rı´os Montt and the Religious Question

Esperanza En los ma´s oscuro y so´rdido, en lo ma´s hostil y a´spero, en lo ma´s corrupto y asquearte, allı´ obras Tu´. Por eso tu Hijo bajo´ a los infiernos, para transformar lo que NO ES y para depurar LO QUE CREE SER. ¡Esto es esperanza! —Julia Esquivel, Threatened with Resurrection: Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan

In January 1983, the Guatemalan Church in Exile, a group of mostly Roman Catholic dissident church people who had escaped to the relative safety of Mexico and Costa Rica, issued a statement: “The religious sects are an arm of the counterinsurgency. The religious sects have arrived to support the Army and Government of Rı´os Montt in counterinsurgency war, as indispensable as automatic weapons or Huey helicopters.”1 This assertion succinctly lays out the conventional wisdom regarding the Rı´os Montt government, foreign evangelicals, and the U.S. Reagan administration, a view that partisans on both sides of the armed

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conflict, ranging from guerrilla leaders to many evangelicals in the United States, widely accepted. This was that Rı´os Montt, aided and abetted by conservative foreign evangelicals (associated with the Reagan administration), was conducting a one-sided “holy war” against Catholic peasants, with evangelical Protestantism serving as the anti-Marxist counterinsurgency’s secret weapon of mass destruction. As we shall see, the equation was not nearly so tidy, but the trope of an aggressive Protestant general wreaking havoc on radical Catholic activists was nevertheless based on an element of truth. During la violencia, the military directly targeted politicized Catholics active in Christian base communities, resulting in the deaths of literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of catequistas who had been involved in education, health promotion, agricultural extension projects, consciousness raising, political organization, and, in the case of some, active collaboration with the guerrillas.2 As the radical Catholic Church, that is to say, the Church of the Poor, crumbled, Protestant congregations emerged from the ruins, calling to mind historian R. Andrew Chesnut’s observation, “The Church chose the poor, but the poor chose the Pentecostals.”3 So brutal was the assault on Catholic activists that in May 1982, the nation’s bishops issued a condemnation of the violence, bleakly titled “Iglesia condena masacre de campesinos.”4 Observing that “the Church cannot remain indifferent before the suffering of its people,” the Guatemalan bishops wrote that “never in our national history have we arrived at such a grave extreme. These assassinations now belong in the category of genocide.” Though never mentioning Rı´os Montt directly, the bishops cautioned, “It would be truly painful [penoso] if they were to apply to our Patria the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘This people honors me with the lips, but its heart is far from me’ (Is. 29:13).”5

Background of the Roman Catholic Church’s Activism and Repression At the institutional level, the Church in Guatemala was, historically speaking, not at all revolutionary. The two metropolitan archbishops who shepherded the Church through many troubled years—Mariano Rossell y Arellano, who served as archbishop from 1938 until 1962,6 and Mario Casariego, who was archbishop from 1968 until his death from natural causes in 1983—were both political and theological ultraconservatives, proponents of the rigid binary view of a world divided between communists and anticommunists, Catholics and

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heretics. Rossell had been a vigorous and vocal opponent of the Arbenz regime; in one famous incident, in early 1954, the archbishop had taken Guatemala’s patronal image, the Black Christ of Esquipulas, on a nationwide pilgrimage and then refused to return it until the Arbenz regime relinquished power.7 Casariego, though less colorful than Rossell y Arellano, was also an ardent Cold Warrior. He regularly declared that had he not been a priest he would have liked to have been a soldier,8 and used his position as archbishop throughout his career to offer enthusiastic support to the military, a position that helped earned his elevation to cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1969.9 A theological conservative as well as a political one, Bishop Casariego and the other Guatemalan bishops had voted as a conservative bloc at the Second Vatican Council, opposing many of the groundbreaking reforms that would emerge as liberation theology within Latin America.10 His conservative position notwithstanding, on March 27, 1968, in a move that was designed to destabilize the civilian Mendez Montenegro regime, Casariego was kidnapped, supposedly by the guerrilla group FAR, but actually by the Mano Blanca, the paramilitary death squad known for marking the corpses of its victims with its trademark white handprint.11 He was released unharmed, and the kidnapping, though it forced a confrontation between the Mendez regime and the generals who had hatched the plan to discredit the Left, did nothing to deter Bishop Casariego from his firm commitment to a solidly conservative agenda.12 Episcopal and institutional support for the government in the postreform era served the Church well in some respects. The 1955 and 1965 constitutions, while allowing for religious freedom, granted significant latitude to the Catholic Church and put an end to the overtly anticlerical policies that had been a part of Guatemala’s political landscape since the 1830s.13 Most important, the government lifted the legal restrictions on foreign clergy that had been in effect in some form or another at least since the 1920s. This allowed the Guatemalan Church to address its very critical clergy shortage by bringing in priests from Europe and the United States—a concession that, given the number and caliber of politically activist foreign clergy who came to work in Guatemala in the 1960s (in 1966, only 15 percent of the clergy were Guatemalan-born), the government soon came to regard as a Trojan horse.14 Despite the long reach of Archbishop Casariego’s conservative shadow, Catholic clergy in Guatemala became involved early and deeply in liberation theology, the Catholic movement that resulted from changes brought about by the decrees of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). A uniquely Latin American reading of the Vatican’s new mandates, liberation theology sought to make the Church more relevant by directly engaging in the social and political issues of the day through adopting what it called a “prophetic stance”

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in favor of the poor and oppressed. Unlike elsewhere in Central America, the phrase “liberation theology” was rarely used in Guatemala (reflecting, perhaps, the early and unusual lethal bifurcation of the nation’s body politic), but even without the nomenclature the movement took root deeply in the late 1960s and 1970s, especially in the highlands and along the south coast. As it did in neighboring countries, liberation theology came to Guatemala first in terms of personnel—the arrival of clergy from the Sacred Heart and Maryknoll orders, two religious groups with a strong commitment to social justice. The monumental Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) in Medellı´n, in which Latin American bishops issued their milestone document declaring the Church’s “preferential option for the poor” and defining poverty as “structural sin,” did not meet until 1968, but activist clergy were already at work on the ground in Guatemala by the mid-1960s and reform had been in the air even before that. In 1959, just three years after the Arbenz overthrow, a reform-minded group of diocesan bishops established the Episcopal Conference of Guatemala (CEG).15 After the Second Vatican Council, it would be the CEG that would serve to temper Archbishop Casariego’s repudiation of Catholic social justice concerns and liberation theology.16 (A peculiar legacy of Guatemala’s deep anticlericalism is that since 1921, diocesan bishops have not been subject to the direct authority of the archbishop. They are therefore free to adopt political and theological lines that the metropolitan primate does not endorse, a system that permits an unusual amount of autonomy within the hierarchy.)17 Although it initially endorsed a developmentalist as opposed to a radical approach to change, by the late 1960s, the CEG had become an active voice for progressive reform, issuing strongly worded pastoral letters throughout the 1970s that condemned violence, called for the end of state repression, and demanded respect for human and social rights for the oppressed.18 The CEG also offered its encouragement to foreign activist priests—from Spain, Belgium, the Philippines, and the United States—who were beginning to work in fairly large numbers in Guatemala by the mid-1960s. Because many—though emphatically not all—foreign clergy had come to Guatemala specifically because of its obvious relevance to a theological praxis (hands-on application) that demanded liberation for the poor and called for an end to sinful oligarchic and imperialistic structures, a conflict between liberationist clergy and the military government seemed virtually inevitable, and indeed, it was not long in coming. In late 1967, the government discovered that three Maryknoll missionaries from the United States—two biological brothers surnamed Melville and a nun—had made overtures to join the guerrillas in the armed conflict.19 As foreigners, the three had the good fortune

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to be able to leave the country rather than be killed, but the so-called Melville affair served as a clear milestone in the relationship between Church and state, marking the point where the military began to regard the Catholic Church no longer as an ally in the war against communism but as a “breeding ground for subversion.”20 In point of fact, many clergy at the time, while devoted to the poor, were not supporters of the guerrillas, and it was actually the Maryknolls’ superior, John Breen, who expelled the Melville group, not the Guatemalan government.21 Breen, like many others, perhaps even the majority of Maryknoll clergy in Guatemala, feared that for clergy to make such an open association with the Left would significantly stigmatize the order’s work and endanger not only the lives of priests and nuns but also of the laypeople with whom they worked. As it turned out, Breen was not out of line in this assessment. The Guatemalan government at the highest level debated whether or not to expel the entire Maryknoll order in response to the Melville affair. They decided against the measure, but from that point on, they began to conflate Catholic social activism with the armed movement. As historian Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens has noted, “a single incident involving a small group of clergy and guerrillas became a justification to jeopardize the entire Maryknoll mission and to identify all Catholics seeking to promote social change as ‘Communists.’”22 Even so, the description, if not the tone, of the charge of “communist association” was not altogether inaccurate, especially after 1971, when a group of foreign Jesuits established a house in the blighted Zone Five of Guatemala City that became an important center for the rigorous training and support of a core group of activist priests and laypeople for evangelism and political work in the altiplano. At first, these Jesuits, along with other clergy, had come to Guatemala to take part in the nation’s Green Revolution, believing that reform of this kind built around the developmentalist (desarrollista) paradigm would be enough to help Guatemala break its patterns of poverty and injustice. Women religious, who came to Guatemala to work with the poor, were at first frustrated to find themselves stuck in Guatemala City teaching young elite girls. (“God played a joke on us,” remarked Sister Marian Peter, the Maryknoll nun who was later part of the Melville affair, who the order sent to work at the exclusive Colegio Monte Marı´a school in the early 1960s. But the experience, she said, “gave me the opportunity to understand the mentality of the well-to-do, to learn about the United Fruit Company from the landowners, and to see how the Guatemala elite treat Indians.”)23 Jesuits, male Maryknolls, and other foreign religious, on the other hand, had the opportunity to become active in agrarian reform, promoting the use of fertilizers and the production of nontraditional crops, working with extension agents, and helping to open the agricultural

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frontier in the Ixca´n and elsewhere to the new agricultural cooperatives, sponsored by both the Church and the Guatemalan government, that began to move into the area in the late 1960s. At first, at least, these clergy generally viewed themselves as advocates of social justice within a desarrollista context, and not radicalized proponents of liberation theology, although this distinction was largely lost on the Guatemalan government. On November 20, 1976, an American Maryknoll priest named William (Guillermo) Woods died in a suspicious plane crash in the Ixca´n, as the plane approached the town of Cotza´l. While the official word was that the plane had crashed into a tree (although Woods was a highly experienced pilot and the day was clear), eyewitnesses to the event reported that soldiers had, in plain sight, shot down the plane carrying Woods and four others. Although his parishioners and many others widely believed that the government had arranged for Woods’s death because of his outspoken activism in the cooperative movement, even Woods had explicitly not considered himself to be a liberationist. In this respect, Woods became emblematic of the many clergy and Catholic laypeople, later mowed down in the violence, who placed a high priority on social justice issues but did not endorse either radical liberation theology or the revolutionary option outright.24 On the other hand, some of the clergy who originally subscribed to the developmentalist approach to change found that the context of working in urban Guatemala radicalized their views. Living and working directly among the poor, eschewing the wearing of clerical attire so as to be one with the people, the so-called “Zone Five Jesuits”—Zone Five, especially the area known as La Limonada, being one of the poorest and toughest parts of the city— reached the conclusion that “defending the faith meant fighting for social injustice,” a more radical position than the gradual developmentalist approach could sustain.25 The Zone Five Jesuits (a group that actually also included some Maryknoll fathers) soon became a highly influential force of mobilization for lay activists, not only within Guatemala City but also in rural areas. In particular, a young Spanish priest named Fernando Hoyos became convinced that radical change provided Guatemala’s only option for the kind of wholesale change that could break the tragic cycle of inequality and injustice. It was Hoyos in particular who encouraged the Jesuits to take a more aggressive role in supporting the popular movements, including the armed struggle.26 During this same period, urban Catholic colegios such as the Jesuit-run Liceo Xavier, the Marista Liceo, and Colegio Monte Marı´a, the elite girls school run by the Maryknoll nuns where Sister Marian Peter worked, began to send students—at first, just their own, and then secular students from San Carlos

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University—to cursillos, consciousness-raising seminars that exposed students, often for the first time, to the realities of rural poverty. Graduates of the cursillos, encouraged by clergy, went on to form a social Christian student group known as CRATER (not so much an acronym as a goal, which was to be an “erupting volcano to bring justice and love” to Guatemala).27 This group actively promoted Catholic social action, including student volunteer projects in health and education in rural areas. Such projects provided many students with their first real exposure to rural poverty and despair and, girded by the principles of liberation theology, propelled them toward radical political action.28 In the words of Sister Marian Peter, “The cursillos . . . were producing a group of politically committed people who found it hard to find where, and in what way, they could give of themselves, and who, when they made the attempt, were accused of being communists.”29 The 1976 earthquake further hastened this radicalization, as urban ladino students traveled into the countryside to help with reconstruction and saw the conditions there for the first time with eyes wide open. When even the most basic developmentalist solutions—land reform, primary health care, and functional literacy—met continued resistance from the state, the only alternative seemed to be to work outside the system. As a Jesuit publication described the equation, the focus no longer was to “solve economic problems through a new technology or financial organization . . . [but] to free the mind from traditional constraints, the . . . most profound being respect for authorities. It was a message which subverted the law.”30 Within rural areas, however, the vanguard of religious and social change came locally, through the Catholic Action (Accio´n Cato´lica, AC) movement. Catholic Action had a fairly long history in Guatemala dating back to 1934, but in its first few decades it confined its activities primarily to the capital as a lay organization for Catholic youth and workers.31 In the early 1940s, AC clergy moved into the countryside, where they had infuriated their Mayan parishioners by trying to replace localized religious practices with “orthodox” Catholicism.32 (One undocumented but oft-told story recounts how villagers stoned an accionista priest to death with cries of “But we already ARE Catholics!”) Even in this early period, as sociologist Jorge Murga Armas phrased it, the Catholic Church envisaged Catholic Action as a “strategy of recovery of the spaces of rural, indigenous Guatemala.”33 Despite its imperial overtones, the structure of Catholic Action lent itself to community engagement: “converts” to Catholic Action from traditionalist Catholicism proselytized actively in their own communities; as Murga Armas describes it, “the new Catholics re-vindicated the legitimacy of the ‘Christian being’ [ser cristiano], as they were considered to be possessors of ‘modern beliefs,’ instead of the ‘magic-superstition’ of

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Costumbre, traditionalist belief.”34 Accionistas also engaged in communities at a practical level, especially in the area of education, where they—indigenous teachers, mostly young people trained at secondary schools in Santa Cruz del Quiche´—taught basic literacy and Spanish, framed within an ideological construct of indigenous empowerment (capacitacio´n) rather than of assimilation.35 As such, the new generation of Catholic Action (known as catequistas), already associated with modernity and development, readily moved into new political spaces and positions of leadership provided by the reforms of the midcentury Guatemalan Revolution. In 1943, the first American Maryknoll priests came to Guatemala, soon followed by the predominantly Belgian Sacred Heart brothers (who went first, ironically, to El Quiche´ in 1955 to help reinforce conservative values),36 the Salesians, the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and eventually, the Jesuits, all orders whose members eventually came to strongly advocate for social action and support to one degree or another the popular political movements.37 (It bears noting that it was not the religious orders as such, but individual members of the orders, according to their consciences, who either became involved in the popular movements or retained more conservative positions.) Maryknoll clergy in particular tended to embrace a precociously reformist view, but their negative views on religious syncretism prevented their wide acceptance in the communities in which they worked until politics began to outstrip theological concerns during the 1944–1954 period. They began to win indigenous adherents when local catequistas, contrary to the wishes of their archbishop, became active in the agrarian reforms of the Are´valo and Arbenz eras.38 When retribution came to local community leaders in the wake of the Arbenz overthrow in 1954, Catholic Action suffered many loses, but in part due to its status as a Catholic sodality managed to maintain an active presence in the countryside.39 Between 1954 and 1960, AC attempted to advance reform (also following a developmentalist paradigm) through the promotion of cooperatives and grassroots social and economic development programs, and through supporting the dwindling rights of labor.40 When activist clergy began to heed the call of Vatican II in the 1960s, they found common cause with Catholic Action, which thus came of age as a politically mobilizing force, a genuine popular vanguard of reform. As an emerging force of social change, Catholic Action—its priests now trained to speak indigenous languages and, at least in the case of foreign clergy, encouraged to promote social action—became an active presence in the altiplano, as much through the introduction of new technologies (local radio, clinics, schools, even new types of recreational sports) as through

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evangelization.41 On the level of leadership, around 1973, Catholic Action inaugurated a groundbreaking pastoral initiative known as the pastoral indı´gena, which demanded that the Church valorize indigenous culture. It also set precedent in 1972 by beginning to bring Mayan leaders (teachers, students, community activists) from around the country together on a semiregular basis to meet in seminarios indı´genas—a radical notion indeed in an era when most national organizations would have considered “Mayan leaders” to be an oxymoron.42 It was within the seminarios indı´genas that, according to activist Pablo Ceto (a founder of the militant Comite´ de Unidad Campesino), they came to define the true root of their oppression: the ladino ruling class’s exploitation of the Maya for their dual marginality as both poor and Indian. In the seminars, Ceto recalled, Mayan leaders became bastante radicalizados, shaping a vision in which indigenous agency—manifest through Mayan organizations and Mayan leaders—would play a key role in the struggle for Guatemala’s future.43 Within rural Guatemala, Catholic Action assumed the role that Christian base communities did elsewhere in the region. It served as a training ground for local leadership, while its structure, based upon what were called comunidades de nuevos cristianos, the Guatemalan version of Christian base communities, formed what would become the nuclei of grassroots social activism. These comunidades, typically made up of five or six families, would meet on a regular basis, usually weekly, to “reflect Christianly” (reflexionar cristianamente), pray, and, eventually, to act upon individual, family, and community problems.44 On the ground, local catequistas, long and contentiously divided over theological issues of “traditionalism” (syncretism) and “orthodoxy,” began to come together over issues of social action. Nowhere was this more evident than in their promotion of new agricultural technologies and agrarian reform. During the mid-1960s, the Sacred Heart and Maryknoll fathers were among the first to organize migrants who colonized unutilized terrenos baldı´os (public lands), helping them to move into the near-vacant lands of the Ixca´n, in Alta Verapaz, and along the Usumacinta River in the Pete´n, by collecting them into cooperatives and helping them win legal title to the properties.45 One of the most ambitious projects was the Ixca´n Grande project, initiated by the Maryknolls in 1966 in northern Huehuetenango and northern El Quiche´, for which the governmentrun Institute for Agrarian Transformation (INTA) authorized land that could potentially be used to settle as many as 2,000 families.46 Unfortunately, many of these lands lay in the Franja Tranversal del Norte, the belt of territory in the northern part of the country that proved to be so rich in oil and minerals that it earned the nickname “zones of the generals,” due to the large

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number of high-ranking officers that eventually claimed land there for their own. This, of course, would lead to almost inevitable conflict.47

The Mobilization of the Catholic Left Despite its high-profile activities, Catholic Action remained very much a minority movement within Guatemalan Catholicism throughout the 1960s—as late as 1967, only 1.6 percent of Guatemalan Catholics were accionistas—but the movement began to gain momentum as the Left started to re-coalesce in the mid-1970s and Catholic Action began to expand rapidly in rural areas across the altiplano and along the south coast.48 This is not to say it advanced unimpeded; the Catholic Action movement met resistance at every level, including within local communities, where both its religious and political mandates ran up against entrenched power, including the vestigial interests of the traditionalist cofradı´as. (Indeed, even during this period of increased political mobilization, much of Catholic Action’s energy and attention was focused on religious conflict between traditionalists and catequistas rather than on the more general problems of rural poverty and inequality.) In some cases, the religious conflict overlapped with politics to deadly effect; such was the case in Nebaj, a Maya Ixil town that would eventually become a vortex of counterinsurgency. In January 1973, Sebastia´n Guzma´n, the principal de principales of Nebaj and head of the Cofradı´a de Santa Marı´a (Nebaj’s most important Catholic sodality), along with eleven other cofradı´a members, wrote a letter to President Arana Osorio in which they requested direct intervention against the local Catholic Action group. Guzma´n charged, “A bad seed [has] entered among them; they are communists, they are using cooperatives to fight against us and other slander [barbosadas].”49 Although Arana chose not to respond to Guzma´n’s request immediately, it was the letter itself that planted a bad seed: it was the first official accusation— made not by an outsider, but by an indigenous principal—that linked Catholic Action to the radical armed Left, an association that would cost literally thousands of lives in the years to come. Later, in January 1976, Guzma´n reiterated his charges, this time providing the government with a “black list” with names, personal data, and photos. In March of the same year, just weeks after the earthquake, the army took over Nebaj for the first—but by no means the last—time, launching a wave of assassinations and kidnappings against members of Catholic Action, cooperative leaders, and other community organizers to purge the community of the people whom Guzma´n described as “guerrilleros . . . puro cubanos.”50

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Despite serious opposition of this sort, Catholic Action’s moment had come, and the movement spread rapidly through the highlands by the mid1970s. It was around this time that an increasing number of Catholic Action clergy and lay leaders, disillusioned with the continued repression and the glacial pace of developmentalist reform, began to turn to more radical critiques that called for direct political engagement. While many, perhaps even the majority of, Catholic Action members chose to remain outside the arena of politics altogether, a critical mass of others did not. It was within Catholic Action, in the words of one Church observer, that ordinary campesinos “encountered the inspiration for their social and political action [pra´ctica] in the reading of the Bible [to understand] the socioeconomic and political reality under which the country had developed”—liberation theology’s classic “hermeneutic circle” of scripture reading, reflection, and action.51 Sometimes the current ran in the other direction: according to one Maryknoll nun, activists also “came to find a valid rationale in Catholic social doctrine for the revolutionary ideas that [they] had already begun to form.”52 Either way, the implications of such reflection in such a climate seemed to point in only one direction: as a 1977 EGP pamphlet enjoined potential cadres, “a true Christian can only be a revolutionary in our country.”53 Against this context, the 1976 earthquake, notwithstanding the archbishop’s unsympathetic observation that the disaster was God’s righteous punishment for demonstrations, strikes, and radical mobilization, galvanized Catholic grassroots organizations around the country. (“God placed his finger over Guatemala and I hope he will not put his whole hand,” the archbishop had scolded the traumatized nation on the night of the quake.)54 At the time, many Guatemalans echoed the archbishop in reading the earthquake as a direct and effable message from God, though not all agreed with his interpretation. For clergy and laypeople who were engaged with liberation theology, the quake carried a metaphoric significance: it was God’s sign that it was time for Guatemalans to build a tierra nueva, literally a new land, based on a radical, but also very biblical, Christian foundation of economic and social justice. In specific terms, the call for the tierra nueva translated into land invasions (asentamientos) led by priests, nuns, and lay workers who in the days following the quake immediately began to organize seizures of property in the name of homeless and displaced people. As one priest explained, “the intense joining together of people-church in relation to the housing problem resulted from our theological contextualization of the earthquake. We said that the earthquake was God’s signal that we should leave the ravines to search for a communal identity.”55

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The land invasion movement took off in the months immediately following the quake; between February and May 1976, church groups established 126 such communities in and around Guatemala City. Because the asentamientos involved both (1) the seizure of what was technically private property, and (2) large numbers of people who were strongly motivated for social change (a church-founded community known as Tierra Nueva located on a deserted finca on the outskirts of Guatemala City, for example, eventually became home to 800 families), they posed a serious threat to the status quo.56 Moreover, despite repeated condemnation by Archbishop Casariego, the land invasion movement publicly signaled the Guatemalan Church’s embrace of liberation theology and its aggressive advocacy for the rights of the poor, marking a clear separation between the institutional Catholic Church and the “popular Church” at the grassroots. By 1977, despite deep reservations in some sectors as to whether or not Christians could accept a moral imperative to engage in violence, the popular Church’s message began to shift radically from that of a simple “preferential option for the poor” to support for the armed rebellion. This change in voice and emphasis is clearly evident in pamphlets, broadsides, and other forms of street literature that church people produced and distributed freely, if clandestinely, throughout the highlands. De Sol a Sol, for example, was a Catholic periodical that circulated in the southern altiplano and on the south coast in the mid- to late 1970s, but its transition to an open embrace of the radical option occurred sometime in 1977. While issues published at the first of the year are framed around a fundamentally religious narrative, emphasizing the exemplary and inspiring life of Jesus, the year’s final issue is overtly political, introducing its readers to Vietnam, the land “very far away that you may not have heard of”(muy lejos que quiza´ tu no conoces) and their comrades in struggle, the Viet Cong.57 During this same period, AC’s presence in local communities expanded dramatically, in part due to the multiplication of “centers for the formation of Christian leaders” (centros de formacio´n cristianos) in many areas of the country outside of the capital where catequistas, Delegates of the Words, and other lay leaders could receive training in social action and political consciousness raising.58 In 1977, AC organized the Comite´ Pro Justicia y Paz, an ecumenical but mainly Catholic lay organization “devoted to the poor” (compromitidos con los pobres) and to human rights, whose membership also overlapped with newly emergent nonreligious political organizations, especially the Comite´ de Unidad Campesina (CUC).59 Although AC was cautious about keeping an institutional distance from the technically secular and militant CUC (the CUC’s motto was cabeza clara, corazo´n solidario, pun˜o combativo—clear head,

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solidarity of heart, combative fist) catequistas figured prominently as founding members of that campesino organization. In describing its ideology, historian Greg Grandin writes, “the CUC expanded the boundaries of what it meant to be Indian in Guatemala. By incorporating elements of liberation theology, Marxism, and Guatemalan nationalism into its definition of Indianness, the early CUC created a panIndian identity from which it drew strength and legitimation.”60 Above all, these broadened boundaries were almost as much vested in religion—the identity of Catholic activist—as they were in ethnicity. In her book, I, Rigoberta, which was in itself a political testimonio, for example, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu´ emphasizes that her father Vicente, who died in the Spanish Embassy fire, was motivated to take part in the occupation as much by his involvement with Catholic Action as by his membership in the CUC. She recalls his explanation for his willingness to take up arms: “I am a Christian and the duty of a Christian is to fight all the injustices committed against our people.”61 Indeed, of the twenty-seven CUC members who died in the 1980 Spanish Embassy fire, twenty-one were members of Catholic Action.62 As the popular vanguard of radical Catholicism, it would be Catholic Action’s catequistas—the third overlapping set of the counterinsurgency’s Venn diagram for terror: indigenous, radical, and Catholic—who would bear the full brunt of Lucas Garcı´a’s and Rı´os Montt’s mano dura in the early 1980s. For their part, the guerrillas’ leadership was made up of conventional Marxist-Leninists who, like their Sandinista counterparts in Nicaragua, were initially reluctant to incorporate church people in the armed movement. Dubious of radical Catholics’ political commitment, guerrilla commanders were also fearful that radical Catholics, motivated by what they considered to be false consciousness, would not withstand the rigors of a guerra popular prolongada, which rebel leaders understood could take twenty years or more. Yet it was difficult for them to ignore the fact that the grassroots Church controlled what were by far the most extensive and best-organized social networks in the countryside, and its leadership, some of it at least, was already predisposed to change. This factor, combined with the growing militancy of church sectors and the resilience of catequistas under increasing military repression, eventually convinced the guerrillas of the efficacy of trying to incorporate Catholic social activists into the armed struggle.63 In July 1980, a few months after the Spanish Embassy fire, the EGP issued a statement announcing its solidarity with “authentic Christians” and inviting them to join the “popular revolutionary war” against “Lucas and the rich [who] are not fighting any particular tendency or pre-determined ideology, but all those who are against or resist their system of exploitation and death.”64

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Challenging its potential cadres that “religion should not be a tree that neither bears fruit nor gives shade,” the EGP urged Christians to join the struggle with other popular sectors, a call to arms that many came to heed, including clergy.65 One sermon, delivered clandestinely, framed the option to take up arms against the government in ethical terms: “Brothers, when the opportunity for dialogue ends, God knows that the last recourse is to arm ourselves. This we must understand among ourselves, that we do not want war nor the death of so many people, but our enemy and God’s enemy impels [empuja] the war and obliges us to respond with the force of arms.”66 In a richly illustrated and didactic article titled “True Christian Ideas Are a Force in the People’s Struggle,” the radical Catholic campesino periodical De Sol a Sol reinforced this line of thinking, which became a critical juncture in developing a revolutionary consciousness among people who had never before borne arms.67 It was around this same time that Mario Sandoval Alarco´n, one of the founders of the MLN and vice president under General Kjell Laugerud, observed, not entirely without justification, “The Church propagates communism.”68

The Repression of the Catholic Church As the popular Church’s support of the Left grew more open and substantive, so did the government’s active repression of Catholics whom it suspected of being radicals. Around 1977, the government initiated the selective killing of Catholics, ranging from local catequistas to the assassination of Guatemalan and foreign clergy; by the war’s end, religious leaders would constitute one of the single largest sectors of victims killed during the entire conflict, second only to campesino political leaders.69 In a single year—between November 1976 and December 1977—the Diocese of El Quiche´ lost 143 catequistas, all of whom were kidnapped and killed in the Ixca´n region or from the part of northern El Quiche´ where the Ixil Maya live (an area known by nomenclature borrowed from the Vietnam war as the Ixil Triangle).70 The CEH report dryly states that doctrinal and pastoral changes brought about by liberation theology “clashed with counterinsurgency strategy, which considered Catholics to be the allies of the guerrillas and therefore part of the internal enemy, subject to persecution, death or expulsion.”71 REMHI, the Catholic Church’s truth commission, which was designed in part to help the Church come to terms with its suffering and to assess its own accountability, uses stronger language, referring to this dark period as its “Calvary.” By far, the greatest period of repression for the Church took place during the Lucas regime (1978–1981), followed by the Fusiles y Frijoles (1982) campaign under Rı´os Montt.

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Between 1978 and 1983, the Church lost thirty-four of its leaders—clergy, seminarians, Delegates of the Word, and prominent catequista leaders—to state violence; of this number, twelve (about one-third of the total) were priests.72 The former bishop of Solola´, Ange´lico Melotto, reported that in his diocese of 1.5 million people, 500 catequistas died violently between 1979 and 1983.73 In June 1980, after the assassination of a third Catholic priest and the deaths of hundreds of Catholic lay activists, the bishop of the Diocese of El Quiche´, Juan Gerardi—himself later assassinated two days after the publication of the REMHI report, which he had authorized74—suspended nearly all pastoral work in the diocese, leaving one Guatemalan priest alone to serve the “Church of the catacombs” of the northern altiplano.75 Ecclesiastical services did not fully return until 1987, when Julio Cabrera was ordained bishop of El Quiche´.76 As Jesuit activist Ricardo Falla, who was working in the Ixca´n area at the time, wrote frankly of this dark period, “Faith was purified by persecution, but the Church fell apart and was greatly weakened.”77 In May 1982, Bishop Gerardo Flores of the Diocese of La Verapaz took a week-long pastoral visit to the parishes under his care and came away with a harrowing report. Noting that the military seemed to wrongly believe that “all catequistas are with the guerrillas,” eliminating them without distinction, Flores wrote: In some parishes (Rabinal, Chisec, Raxruha, San Cristo´bal), there are aldeas that have been left without inhabitants. Others count a very high number of widows and orphans; there are no men or teenage boys. In some there was also the destruction of temples and chapels (Coba´n, San Cristo´bal). Others live under nearly unbearable tension, because they have been publicly accused of “all being guerrillas.” Pastoral work is paralyzed. Various parishes (Salama´, Rabinal, Calvario Coba´n, San Cristo´bal) have lost many of their catequistas or Delegates because they have been assassinated, they have gone into hiding, or they have abandoned their [church] work. In various towns the Catholics have had to bury their Bibles, song books, and their notebooks.78

A “Holy War”? The popular imagination and that within the Catholic Church itself closely associated the Rı´os Montt government with the persecution of Catholics, a charge that Rı´os Montt actively fueled through the incendiary language that he

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used in his discursos del domingo. At least one key measure, however, provides a different picture: the killing of priests, which had become something of a hallmark of the Lucas regime, came to an end under Rı´os Montt. Under Lucas, twenty-seven Church leaders (excluding lay Catholics) died at government or paramilitary hands, including twenty-four in 1980–1981 alone.79 (Regrettably, the same could not be said for Protestant clergy, of whom fortyseven died by assassination or in the scorched-earth campaigns during the Rı´os Montt era.) The U.S. Embassy used the decline in Catholic priest killings as a point to bolster its repeated assertions that human rights had improved dramatically under Rı´os Montt, a claim that we will examine in some detail later. One of the most notorious charges made of the Rı´os Montt regime (before the extent of the political violence was fully understood) was that Rı´os Montt’s religious chauvinism as a Protestant sparked a “holy war” between Catholics and Protestants. The General’s religious bias, according to this interpretation, gave license to the army for the wholesale slaughter of Catholics. The General’s own brother, Bishop Mario Rı´os Montt, then auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of La Verapaz, a region that, as we have seen, was very seriously affected by the violence, used the very phrase “holy war” to describe his sibling’s policies during an interview in 1983. The charge of holy war (santa contrainsurgencia, in the words of the Iglesia Guatemalteca en el Exilio) throbs like a heavy drumbeat through the press and popular literature of the day.80 Rı´os Montt’s own Sunday sermons undermined these claims not at all, for, as chapter 3 shows, he regularly peppered his ferociously anticommunist message with evangelical imagery and biblical references—although he did not, perhaps out of respect for his Catholic family members, engage in antiCatholic rhetoric per se. Yet the claim of a holy war on Catholics, on closer examination, is somewhat misleading. There is no question that the number of Catholics who died on Rı´os Montt’s watch increased along with the number of people killed overall. Reflecting the demographic of the communities in which they lived, the majority of those killed in some of the most notorious massacres—such as Xalbal (March–April 1982, 46 killed); two aldeas outside of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz: Rio Negro (March 1982, 177 killed) and Plan de Sanchez (July 1982, 268 killed); Mayala´n, Ixca´n, El Quiche´ (July 1982, 100 killed); and Barrillas, Huehuetenango (353 killed)—were Catholics. Not all, however, were necessarily catequistas, that is to say, in this context, radicalized Catholics associated with the guerrillas (though even then, not all catequistas, not even most, were guerrilla supporters, a distinction that the army repeatedly failed to make).81 As we have seen already, the scale of these massacres greatly exceeds the bloodletting even during the preceding Lucas regime. What the evidence does

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not indicate, however, is whether the army intentionally targeted Catholic activists as it had under Lucas, or simply mowed them down along with all the other victims in the violence. Reflecting the army’s conscious shift from selective to mass killings, the pattern of massacres was to destroy whole communities in their entirety, not just individual targets, such as priests, political activists, Catholic Action members, teachers, agricultural extension agents, health promoters, and the like. While there is no question that Catholics and Catholic community leaders died in great numbers during this period, their deaths would appear to have been part of a larger program of general extermination rather than the specific targeting of radical sectors or individuals. On the other hand, it is equally clear that the government directly equated Catholic activism with subversion and sought to eliminate the radical Church’s influence in the zones of conflict by placing severe restrictions on the Church’s ability to maintain a visible presence, albeit one seriously weakened by a decade of death and repression. Given the “Church of the catacombs” scenario in El Quiche´, Catholic religious activity fell almost completely to lay pastoral agents. An investigation conducted by the (Protestant) National Council of Churches in November 1982 reported, “In some areas of conflict the army has forbidden Catholic lay ‘Delegates of the Word’ to preach the Word of God.”82 The army forbade the establishment of Catholic social organizations (including even traditional groups such as cofradı´as) in refugee settlements, and the complete absence of priests meant that neither Mass nor comforting rites were available to offer solace to an anguished population. By the beginning of 1983, the Guatemalan Catholic Church had indeed walked its via crucis: its clergy and laypeople martyred, the faithful scattered afield, the holy sacraments left unadministered, and its numbers depleted by relentless Protestant incursions.

The Papal Visit of 1983 It was thus against this backdrop of despair that John Paul II, the first pope ever to visit a country that had been largely defined by its multifaceted Catholicism since the sixteenth century, made the first of what would eventually be three papal visits to Guatemala, including one in 2002, just three years prior to his death in 2005. Vigorous, telegenic, and wildly popular even outside the Catholic world, John Paul II, who was elected pope in 1978, was fully mindful of the political and social imprimatur a papal visit would lend to the foundering Guatemalan Church. In general terms, his 1983 visit to Central America set out to reassert the Church’s position in the region, but in the case of both

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El Salvador and Guatemala, it was also a way for the Church to bear public witness to its people’s suffering. In Rı´os Montt’s Guatemala, the papal visit also served a third purpose: to give notice that Guatemala, notwithstanding its flamboyantly Protestant president, still remained firmly in the Catholic orbit. What the papal visit of 1983 was not intended to do, however, was to endorse liberation theology. To the contrary, Pope John Paul II, who had resisted the Nazi occupation of Poland as a young seminarian and who had actively challenged the repression of the Catholic Church by Poland’s communist government as an adult priest, was no fan of liberation theology or any other movements that he thought might eventually lure adherents far from the arms of the mother church. As a global institution, the Church had begun a steady retreat from its support of liberation theology at the CELAM conference held in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979, a move that reflected not only the Latin American bishops’ general dismay over the radical direction their flocks were taking but also the ascendancy of a new pope whose life experience and theological inclinations had made him deeply dubious of the Church’s embrace of the Left. Following the gruesome public assassination of El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero while celebrating Mass on March 24, 1980, and encouraged by the Vatican to do so, many of the Latin American bishops began to quietly withdraw their support of liberation theology in favor of a more jejune ˜ imiento. Here, the Church no longer placed itself in position known as acompan the vanguard of reform but rather stepped back to “accompany” the poor and oppressed in their daily struggles. It was in this spirit of accompaniment that Pope John Paul II made his first pastoral visit to Central America in March 1983. Although the pope’s Central American visit received a great deal more press coverage (as in all matters) when he went to El Salvador and Nicaragua (where he publicly chastened liberationist priest Ernesto Cardenal and where Sandinista cadres tried to shout him down while saying Mass), his visit to Guatemala was perhaps the most poignant. Prognosticators, including the leadership of the URNG, which declared a five-day truce around the visit, predicted that the pope’s visit would spark the impending holy war between Catholics and Protestants into live conflagration.83 Hoping to fan the flames, the URNG issued a statement in support of the pope’s visit, taking the opportunity to point out, “the URNG’s revolutionary project is perfectly compatible with respect to the religious faith of the majority of our people and with the tangible liberty and true brotherhood that the Catholic Church exalts.”84 Predictions of a religious showdown gained further momentum when Rı´os Montt denied the pope’s request to commute the sentences of six political prisoners tried by the fueros especiales who were slated to die just prior to the papal visit.85 (In a spirit of ecumenism, however, four of the executed prisoners were Protestants.)86

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The papal visit did not, as it turned out, set off a holy war, but it did help to revive a bleeding and debilitated Catholic Church. In several stops, including a huge outdoor Mass attended by more than a million people in the Campo Marti in Guatemala City where Rı´os Montt and Protestant leaders had vigorously celebrated Guatemala’s Protestant centennial only three months earlier, Pope John Paul II condemned the gross abuses of human rights that were currently unfolding. “The faith teaches us that Man is the image and likeness of God,” the pope exhorted, “. . . and when violence is committed against him, when his rights are violated, when he is submitted to torture, when violence occurs through sequestration or he loses the right to his own life, a crime of the gravest offense has been committed; then Christ returns to again walk the road of his passion and suffer the horrors of crucifixion among the devalued and oppressed.”87 In an emotional visit to Quezaltenango, the pope delivered a sermon to a predominantly indigenous congregation, including many who had braved long walks and multiple army checkpoints to see and hear the Holy Father. At this deeply affecting meeting with his wounded people, the pope offered a blessing in Ki’che and literally embraced his indigenous faithful.88 He also anticipated the emergence of inculturation theology by forcefully praising indigenous culture and offering an unprecedented papal valorization of indigenous culture within Catholic Christianity. “Your indigenous cultures are the riches of the people, effective media for transmitting the faith,” he said. “The work of evangelism is not to destroy but to make incarnate, consolidate, and fortify your values.”89 Yet in the matter of politics he was severe and unequivocal: “May no one ever again try to confuse evangelization with subversion, and may ministers of worship be allowed to exercise their mission safely and without hindrance. . . . Do not let yourselves be used by ideologies that incite you to violence and death.”90 Despite this near-explicit condemnation of both radical Catholic activism and right-wing violence, Guatemala’s besieged Catholics were energized by the pope’s act of accompaniment. In the words of one priest, the papal visit was like “Christmas and Holy Week together. [It proved] we are persecuted but not defeated.”91

The Expansion of Protestantism in Rural Guatemala In the ravaged countryside, however, the Catholic Church had a greater and more ancient foe than the Guatemalan security forces: the advance of Protestantism. In the years immediately following the 1976 earthquake, Protestantism, specifically Pentecostalism, expanded quite dramatically in Guatemala,

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including, even especially, among the Mayan population; as the Catholic Church constricted due to repression, Protestant churches were growing by leaps and bounds. Although the statistics are imperfect, Guatemala’s Protestant population had mushroomed over the immediately preceding decades, from approximately 5 percent of the population in 1960 to nearly a quarter of the overall population in 1980.92 This percentage was much higher in rural areas, including the zones of conflict, where the repression of Catholics and overwhelming circumstances drove people to seek out new religious options. If the CUC had helped to “expand the boundaries of what it meant to be Indian,” so, in its own way, did Mayan Protestantism, as small congregations sprang up, sometimes literally, from the ashes of ruined communities. It is more accurate to describe Rı´os Montt’s Protestantism as more a result of the conversion boom than a cause of it. This is not to suggest, however, that the chief of state’s ballyhooed membership in the Pentecostal Church of the Word was unrelated to the large numbers of people who converted to Protestantism in the early 1980s. Certainly, Rı´os Montt’s much-publicized religious values and the counterinsurgency strategy unquestionably influenced many to convert to Protestantism in the interest of self-preservation; in other words, there was undoubtedly an element of spiritual “me-too-ism” as people used evange´lico identity as a shield with which to protect themselves. However, to attribute the conversion boom, which began in the mid-1970s and began to plateau in the early 1990s, to simple expediency seriously underestimates the impact that Protestant conversion had on society and individual lives. Pentecostalism’s rapid advance in Guatemala dated roughly from the time of the earthquake, although Protestant missionaries from mainline denominations such as the Presbyterian Church and Central American Mission had worked in the country for a century, with relatively modest success.93 Despite the missions’ substantial contributions toward building institutions such as hospitals, schools, and clinics, few Guatemalans converted to Protestantism before the mid-1960s. At that time, bolstered by missionary divestitures (as U.S.-based missions, fearing expropriation, turned their work over to native leadership) and a wave of evangelization campaigns sponsored by foreign organizations seeking to offer a “spiritual alternative to communism,” Guatemalan Protestantism began to assume a local character. In addition to appealing to a much larger constituency than had the mission churches, the new Guatemalan denominations also embraced a different theology, known as Pentecostalism, a variation of Christianity that emphasizes the miraculous experience of God, manifest through the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” expressed in ecstatic behavior such as faith healing and speaking in tongues.94 By the early 1980s, many, perhaps the majority of, Mayan Protestants belonged

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to locally based Pentecostal denominations that had few, if any, direct ties to foreign missionary organizations.95 One exception to this was the national Presbyterian Church of Guatemala, one of the few missionary denominations that had taken deep root among the Mayan population and which boasted both a Mayan-run presbytery and a strong Mayan leadership within the national church.96 The 1976 earthquake brought in its wake an influx of Protestant aid agencies, which offered spiritual succor along with relief supplies, a practice popularly dubbed lamina por anima, or fiberglass roofing in exchange for one’s soul. Yet the equation was not quite this reductive, for the earthquake shook more than buildings and houses; it also rattled Guatemala’s soul. A survey conducted shortly after the event found that no fewer than 79 out of 101 families—nearly 80 percent—believed the quake to be either a sign of God’s displeasure or a divine call for redemption, a perception that decisively factored into the dramatic growth of Protestant churches that would take place in Guatemala over the next decade.97 Given the Catholic Church’s preoccupation with liberation and later with its own struggle to survive, the newly emergent Pentecostal churches were well poised to catch the spiritual fallout from the earthquake and the era of violence that was to follow. One denomination in particular, El Calvario, a Guatemala City–based Pentecostal denomination, benefited from a member’s early prophecies of tectonic cataclysm. Taking the prophecy quite literally, El Calvario’s congregation had warehoused large amounts of food and emergency aid, a bit of foresight that seemed to many in the 1976 earthquake’s aftermath to offer a priori evidence of the church’s spiritual legitimacy and, indeed, of Pentecostalism in general.98 Later, when the military assault on the highlands destroyed families, villages, and, where it had still been strong, the costumbre that had lent indigenous communities their distinctive identities for hundreds of years, small Pentecostal congregations (where services could meet in abandoned storefronts, private houses, or even temporary palapas) formed readily in society’s remnants. In such churches, led by local leaders and shaped around local knowledge, people found ways to begin to reconstruct shattered lives and to wrest meaning from the anomie of violence. Although mainline Protestantism in Guatemala had long historic ties to international missionary agencies, usually from the United States, Pentecostal churches typically did not.99 To the contrary, indigenous congregations were typically tiny, local sects, usually with only the loosest affiliation, if any, to a larger denomination. By the mid-1980s, there were approximately 10,000 Protestant churches in Guatemala divided among nearly 300 distinct denominations, some 200 of which were classified as independent.100 Many of these

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were located in rural areas, including those directly affected by the violence—a form of grassroots organization that found fertile ground in the acrid ruins of destruction. Many tiny congregations, often numbering no more than a dozen people, met in houses or storefronts; many were led by pastors whose only training consisted of nothing more than divine revelation and a sufficient level of literacy to read the Bible. These microcongregations were highly schismatic by nature; many splintered periodically into new congregations, each with its own theological orientation but which grew more or less organically from a group of people who shared a common worldview (cosmovisio´n), outlook, and, often, experience and history. Mobile and fluid in their structure, the small congregations could put down roots in almost any context and were open to all seekers, including people in refugee camps, model villages, or communities ravaged by war, thus providing a “refuge of the masses” of the very type described by early scholars of Protestantism in Latin America.101 Anthropologist Benjamin Feinberg has suggested that such churches provide a space where “Protestants reimagine a community that replaces the municipio as a locus of identity”—a replacement for a world discarded or lost.102

Living in the Latter Days Guatemalan Pentecostalism was very much affected by Rı´os Montt’s program for reordering the political and cultural landscape of the highlands, as the basic beliefs of many Pentecostal converts were congruent with the existential reality of the era. Many Pentecostals, including Mayan converts, subscribed to the doctrine of premillennialism, an apocalyptic theology that places emphasis on the immediacy of the earth’s temporal end, heralding Christ’s return. For a people whose traditional spirituality was closely tied to the cycles of the cosmos and the calendar—where the end of a Long Count calendar cycle in ancient thinking threatened (or promised) the end of the present creation—the Protestant Christian teaching of premillenialism fell on receptive ears.103 As subscribers to the doctrine of premillennialism, converts to Protestantism, especially Pentecostalism, in the early 1980s readily gave themselves over to the teaching that the Second Coming of Christ was imminent, but only after a period known as the Great Tribulation, a period of signs, wonders, suffering, and trials for God’s people. The similarities between the biblical descriptions of this prophetic ordeal and the reality that so many Guatemalans were living out were almost too numerous to mention: as biblical literalists, the descriptions of earthquake, violence, and famine were as descriptive as they were prophetic. Even the government’s scorched-earth campaign fit within this

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vision: “They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill by the sword, by famine, by plague and wild beasts” (Revelation 6:8). Set against the backdrop of widespread violence, suffering for Protestants and Catholics alike became sacralized. No longer simply the result of political repression, simple injustice, or capricious misfortune, “suffering [was] no longer a punishment, a providential way of correcting offenses, but, rather, a way of purification,” as ethicist Max Scheler has explained it.104 This, indeed, was no allegorical reading of the final book of the Bible, but a literal roadmap for the days ahead. By the early 1980s, Guatemalan Pentecostals had begun to actively prepare for the End Times. The sense of impending apocalypse was so acute that an urban Pentecostal group briefly published a newspaper (prudently undated) in order to cover the end of the world. Its final edition, the third of a trinitarian three, probably published in late 1982, carried the headline, written in the ˜ or Viene [The Lord Comes]: His return is imminent, this present tense: “El Sen 105 is an alert.” Within this issue, articles carried such titles such as “Earthquake: plagues, general commotion, and many afflictions, the sun and moon will be darkened, and the mountains will fall”; “The Final Cataclysm”; “Know the signs: the sound of the trumpet, declares Paul of Tarsus”; and, reassuringly, “The Teacher: Do Not Be Afraid: Trust in Me.”106 For new Pentecostals, Guatemala’s contemporary history, marked by earthquake, fire, death, and internal exile, signified the breaking of the Seven Seals of the Apocalypse: “There was a violent earthquake and the sun went black. . . . The whole population . . . took to the mountains to hide in caves among the rocks. . . . For the Great Day of His anger has come and who can survive it?” (Revelation 6:12–17). To many Protestants, this, indeed, was Guatemala’s kairos: to bear witness to the Great Tribulation but to rise, faithful and triumphant, with the Lord on the day of his final coming. This was not a rationale for violence so much as an exposition on suffering: “These are the people who have been through the great persecution, and because they have washed their robes white again in the Blood of the Lamb, they now stand in front of God’s throne and serve him day and night in his sanctuary; and the One who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them . . . and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:16–17, after Isaiah 25:8). For the faithful, this interpretation vested logic and meaning in what was otherwise inexplicable suffering, a theodic answering to the riddle of overwhelming violence.

A Refuge of the Masses? It is certainly no coincidence that Protestant conversion spiked during the Rı´os Montt period, as people came to correctly make the correlation that

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membership in a Protestant church seemed to offer some promise of protection against being killed by counterinsurgency forces, which viewed Catholics, but not Protestants, as the internal enemy. It is important not to oversimplify this equation, but this is one reason why the Rı´os Montt era marks a significant period of Protestant expansion. Nor was it a coincidence that much of the conversion took place among Mayan people living directly in the zones of conflict. The reasons behind conversion most certainly had to do with the message and emphasis of Protestant, and particularly Pentecostal, theology, which promised solace and peace and helped to reorder the lives of people whose families, communities, and psyches had been ruined by violence. Catholicism, especially in its more mystic and otherworldly forms, as opposed to the here-and-now liberationist manifestation, might have offered similar comfort had not the Church been so wounded and diverted.107 But in other cases, professions of conversion to Protestantism were a conscious survival strategy of people who, according to at least one human rights delegation, “would say [they were] evange´licos for fear of being killed if they said Catholic.”108

The Role of Guatemalan Evangelicals in La Nueva Guatemala While the issue of whether or not localized Protestant affiliation helped to insulate people from the fury of counterinsurgency still remains an open debate, there is no question that the Rı´os Montt administration enjoyed direct ties with international Protestant agencies. These organizations, most based in the United States, provided the regime with much-needed positive publicity and material support that, simultaneously, unreflexively supported the General and his policies. Protestant agencies, especially those with foreign association, were directly involved in the formation of Rı´os Montt’s Nueva Guatemala, from close presidential advisors to local administrators. Protestant institutional cooperation with the government program was particularly evident after December 1982, when Rı´os Montt pronounced Fusiles y Frijoles complete and unveiled the next stage of Victoria 82, Techo, Trabajos y Tortillas, a program of civic action to reconstruct the areas destroyed in the violence.109 At the head of the effort was the government agency the National Reconstruction Committee (CRN), left over from the 1976 earthquake, which oversaw all public and private relief. But at its heart was a private agency, the Fundacio´n de Ayuda al Pueblo Indı´gena (FUNDAPI), a government-sanctioned NGO that was staffed and operated by several evangelical or church-affiliated groups. This, notably, prominently included Rı´os Montt’s own church, which ran an emergency aid group known as International Love

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Lift. Other key members of FUNDAPI were Wycliffe Bible Translators/ Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), and Partners in the Americas, an organization that had close ties to advisors in the Rı´os Montt government and that operated primarily on money supplied by conservative Christian groups in the United States.110 In the Ixil Triangle, where the carnage was especially acute, SIL missionaries based in Nebaj who had deep roots in the afflicted communities served as direct emissaries between the Ixil population and the government through FUNDAPI.111 Technically, FUNDAPI reported to CRN and worked autonomously from the Guatemalan government, but its practical links to the government were quite direct. FUNDAPI workers traveled free on military transportation and received army escorts into controlled areas and enjoyed access to stricken populations that the same army typically denied to Catholic relief workers, who could not receive free-passage assurance to work in afflicted regions.112 The issue of unequal access and questions about proselytization made FUNDAPI a highly controversial vehicle for emergency relief, sometimes even among its constituent organizations. Groups such as Verbo’s Gospel Outreach/ International Love Lift, not surprisingly, worked closely with the government, unwavering in their enthusiastic support for Hermano Efraı´n’s war against subversion. Other groups with longer experience in Guatemala also joined FUNDAPI, but they did so only after long consideration and despite deep misgivings, because they were anxious to provide critical care to a population in immediate need. The SIL missionaries working in Nebaj, for example, while expressing optimism about the president’s plans for the Ixil area because they trusted his religious motivations, explained their willingness to work for FUNDAPI mainly as a pragmatic decision based on the need to get emergency assistance to the population as quickly as possible.113 Even then, others considered such a decision to be a Faustian bargain. The Chimaltenango-based Clinica Behrhorst, an innovator in indigenous health care since the early 1960s, was one such ambivalent organization; although it was not expressly a faith-based group per se, it did receive funding and support from churches and other religious establishments in the United States. Founded by Carroll Behrhorst, an American doctor who had visited Guatemala for the first time in the late 1950s on a visit sponsored by the Lutheran Church, Behrhorst had returned in 1962 to establish a clinic in Chimaltenango, a region of nearly 150,000 people that at the time had no medical facilities at all. There, Behrhorst learned to speak almost passable Kakchikel and designed a groundbreaking medical program that integrated Western medicine with indigenous cultural values.114 Because of the clinic’s work in community development, particularly in the training of ambulant

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indigenous health care workers and also because of its work in politically volatile areas such as Chimaltenango, the Clinica Behrhorst had already fallen under suspicion of subversion, and indigenous health care workers (two of Rigoberta Menchu´’s brothers, in fact, at one time worked for Behrhorst) paid the price. Despite the fact that the clinic avowed a strictly nonpartisan political stance, between 1980 and 1982, government forces kidnapped or killed more than thirty Behrhorst health promoters working in Chimaltenango, or they died in massacres; even more died in El Quiche´. In 1981, after a series of death threats to other foreign members of the clinic’s staff, its founder fled into temporary exile in New Orleans; the following year, the clinic offered its support to FUNDAPI in order to be able to work freely among people in the areas most affected by the scorched-earth campaign.115 The participation of a group like Clinica Behrhorst in FUNDAPI underscores the ambiguities, moral complexities, and contradictory demands that challenged humanitarian groups, both faith-based and secular, in the face of the crisis, as each faced the decision of whether to align itself with the government in order to address the immediate crisis or to eschew all relationship with the government on moral or political grounds, but in so doing lose the opportunity to meet people’s most urgent needs. Carroll Behrhorst continued (uncomfortably) to defend the decision to work with FUNDAPI until his death, but his level of introspection was unusual. Most Protestant organizations that worked as part of FUNDAPI did so without such reflection, believing that in serving the Rı´os Montt administration, they served the greater good. In the year after Rı´os Montt’s ouster from office, the evangelical influence in the afflicted areas remained readily apparent. An observer in a bipartisan task force for the British Parliament on a fact-finding mission in 1984 was startled to notice the number of new evangelical churches that had sprung up in army-controlled model villages, the “strategic hamlets” established in the immediate post–Rı´os Montt era to house, indoctrinate, and reorient indigenous people who had been displaced by the 1982–1983 scorched-earth campaigns. “One cannot fail to notice the ubiquity of evangelical churches in most towns and villages,” he wrote. “In one township in Quezaltenango there were twenty-eight [Protestant] churches in a population of 20,000.”116 He noted that in the model village of Acu´l, in El Quiche´, there were four evangelical churches but not a single Catholic priest, despite the people having repeatedly asked for one. “To be a member of a Protestant sect,” the British human rights report concluded, “was said to give a certain amount of protection and security, even in some cases to gain preference in the receipt of food handed out by state organizations.117

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“Let Every Person Be Subject to the Governing Authorities; for There Is No Authority Except from God” The Guatemalan military, eager to help polarize and break down communities, aggressively pushed the perception that conflated Protestant theology with radical anticommunism or at the very least with political quiescence. One American Church of the Nazarene pastor recorded that during a government-sponsored visit he made to a military base in northern El Quiche´ in early 1983, the base commander openly acknowledged the political expediency of an association with a Protestant church. The pastor recalled that the commander called together 1,000 civil patrol members from the area on a Saturday morning and requested that the minister preach to them on Romans 13:1, “submit yourselves to the authority in power,” a familiar admonition that military officers and pastors alike regularly deployed to persuade evange´licos (a term widely used in Guatemala to describe any Protestant, regardless of denomination) to offer their tacit or overt support for the military government.118 It was this specific text, one of St. Paul’s letters to the Romans, that provided the basis for much evangelical support for Rı´os Montt throughout Guatemala, as a literal reading seemed to demand nothing less than full compliance with the government and its programs. The verse, which many evange´licos took close to heart, reads in full: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of authority? Then do what is good and receive its approval, for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. (Romans 13:1–5, New Revised Standard) In July 1983, a team of Canadian observers at a military-sponsored rally in a newly “subdued” village in El Quiche´ noted an indigenous evangelical preacher admonishing his listeners: “He who lacks God in his heart is the one who is unable to love the authorities.”119 Even Catholic Bishop Pro´spero Penados del Barrio, then president of the CEG, was subject to such an encounter. On a pastoral visit in early 1983 to an unnamed area of the zone of conflict

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where the army had killed several parishioners in the previous six months, Penados visited the commander of the nearby military destacamento. “Monse˜ or,” the commander cautioned Penados, “we don’t forbid you to speak, to n preach the Bible, or to talk about the Church, but we tell you, do the same as the [evange´lico] preachers who only talk about God.”120 The evidence clearly shows that during the Rı´os Montt era, many evange´licos, particularly local pastors in the zones of conflict, often cooperated willingly with the government’s program, moving in quickly to fill local positions of authority left vacant by the death or flight of previous community leaders. In the capital, Rı´os Montt actively courted the support of Protestant pastors, inviting them to attend “presidential breakfasts” at the national palace in which he offered prayers and spin on the rightness and efficacy of his politicalmilitary program.121 Rural pastors often acted as liaisons between their communities and the military at the local level. A survey conducted by the Alianza Evange´lica (a Protestant organization made up of evangelical leaders mainly from historic churches) in 1984 showed that in a disproportionate number of communities, evangelicals held positions of leadership in the local civil patrols.122 Seen as a non-disaggregated group, then, local evangelicals were indeed much more likely to support Rı´os Montt and his counterinsurgency program, although this generalization demands several important caveats. Rather than simply the naive coreligionists of a genocidal president, evangelical theology and worldview made them much more likely than their Catholic counterparts either to passively accept the government’s programs and policies or to actively promote the government’s anticommunist objectives. Seeing in Protestant converts a potential counterweight to Catholic radicals, the government aggressively courted and nurtured the support of rural evangelicals. The evange´ licos’ otherworldly theology, their unquestioning respect for authority, and their isolation from the corporate, Catholic values that had linked them to their communities before their conversions, cast them, in the eyes of the government, in the template for the ideal “sanctioned Maya.” The collusion between the evangelicals and the military naturally led to increased tensions between the Protestants and the rest of the community in the highland areas. The guerrillas nurtured such suspicions by distributing propaganda pamphlets that portrayed FUNDAPI and evange´licos as imperialist agents of the United States sent to divide and control the Guatemalan people— an opinion that even those who disagreed vehemently with the guerrillas in other matters tended to agree with.123 In fact, the greater threat that evange´licos, especially Pentecostals, posed to the guerrilla movement came not their associations with the United States, which were minimal, but from their

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actual religious beliefs. As a moral discourse, Pentecostalism offered an alternative explanation of struggle and victory that challenged the hegemony of revolutionary thinking at the grassroots level. As more and more rural people converted to Pentecostalism, the armed movement began to lose not only much of its potential manpower but also its favored position in the moral landscape of highland Guatemala. While Pentecostals largely removed themselves from the political struggle, the same could not be said for historic Protestants such as Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Primitive Methodists (a small but influential minority of the overall Guatemalan Protestant population), who were neither as apocalyptic in their thinking nor as politically adverse as their Pentecostal counterparts. Within this group were people who were much more willing to engage in the political struggle by joining with Catholic radicals, with whom they shared a common social justice outlook if not a common theology. Some progressive evangelicals found their political homes within secular or ecumenical Catholic organizations. They also formed the Confraternidad Evange´lica de Guatemala in mid-1982, organizing under the rubric that “the message and name of Our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be identified with any political or juridical order, much less with the present government, whose unjust and inhuman characteristics are evident every day.”124 The Confraternidad Evange´lica de Guatemala announced itself with the publication of a paid public anuncio that, in spite of serious restrictions on freedom of speech, appeared in Prensa Libre in July 1982. Addressed directly to Rı´os Montt, it demanded: “Stop using the Name of Jesus to justify injustice and inhumanity!”125 Although it is tempting to position radical Catholics and conservative Protestants as oppositional binaries (a stereotype that, as we have seen, the Guatemalan government deftly exploited), the reality of Rı´os Montt’s “war against the Antichrist” in fact knew few religious boundaries, as the substantial number of Protestants who fled their villages or died at the hands of the army alongside their Catholic brethren attests.126 One of the many common misperceptions of the era was that Protestant identity provided a buffer against the wrath of the counterinsurgency forces, a fallacy that persisted even after April 1982, when thirteen members of a Quanjobal Pentecostal congregation in Xalbal, Ixca´n, were burned alive by the army in their church while at worship.127 Other episodes, though spotty and anecdotal, provide further evidence, such as the kidnapping of a Nazarene pastor in Alta Verapaz by plainclothesmen in the security forces in the middle of a worship service, or the corpses of evangelicals and Catholic catequistas killed by the army being left in kneeling positions and hanging from trees “as if crucified” in Kaibil Balam, Ixca´n.128 Between 1982 and 1983, moreover, Rı´os Montt’s secret tribunals, the fueros

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especiales, tried and executed no fewer than forty-seven evangelical leaders and pastors.129 While evange´licos in general did not share the same theological motivations as Catholics, some Protestants, particularly non-Pentecostals, did join the armed movement for religious reasons. This was especially true of activists from the historic churches—that is, the older missionary-based, non-Pentecostal denominations—who, like Catholic radicals, could no longer see any option for social justice outside of revolution. Although the numbers of evangelical guerrillas were never large, enough joined the EGP to form an “ecumenical” cell named in honor of Vicente Menchu´, Rigoberta’s father and Spanish Embassy martyr. Eventually, radical evangelicals provided some of the key leadership for this sector of the EGP.130 Yet Protestants, taken as a group, suffered far less in the counterinsurgency than Catholics, the beneficiaries of a matrix of counterinsurgency that identified Catholics as communists and radicals and Protestants as politically quiescent government supporters.

Conclusion In the end, was this a holy war? The answer to this question is a qualified yes, but not in the sense that people used that phrase at the time, to signal a confrontation between a radicalized Catholic Church associated with the guerrillas and the highly conservative Pentecostals who did their coreligionist president’s bidding. A more nuanced understanding reveals Guatemala’s holy war to have been, at one level, an ideological struggle for hearts and minds between faith groups and the state. In this light, we can see that although they did not share common religious or political views, both radical Catholicism and Pentecostalism (as a comprehensive worldview) posed a serious challenge to the ragged hegemony of the military government. Both were dangerous because they offered coherent alternatives to a morally bankrupt state. This was so because at its core, the Guatemalan struggle in the late 1970s and early 1980s was about competing moral discourses. At one extreme lay the government’s moral charge to save the nation from communism, while at the other lay the guerrillas’ promises for a better revolutionary future for the nation. The addition of frankly religious concepts, which carried explicit moral weight framed in the language of sin, justice, redemption, and (in the case of many Pentecostals) eschatological judgment, only served to heighten and further polarize this competition. In his work on religious extremism, Mark Jurgensmeyer has argued that people are likely to seek out radical religious solutions in situations where

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secular nationalism has failed to deliver on its promises “of political freedom, economic prosperity, and social justice” and offers only moral corruption in return.131 This was precisely the case in Guatemala, where, after a full 100 years of liberalism and modernization schemes, the state had failed to deliver on its promises even to the extent that it had made enemies of its own citizens. By contrast, religious ideologies, Catholic activism in particular, posed a significant challenge to the hegemony of a nationalism that had its roots in a capitalist, ladino national identity and drew its legitimacy and power from a virulently anticommunist ideology that had been in place in Guatemala since at least 1954. Rı´os Montt’s particular genius was that he was able to reframe the shopworn objectives of secular nationalism within a new moral and explicitly religious discourse, thus granting that secular nationalism just enough longevity and public credibility to get the job done. This marriage of these divergent discourses, however, was a fragile one. It gave way as soon as the army no longer had need for either it or the General himself.

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6 Blind Eyes and Willful Ignorance U.S. Foreign Policy, Media, and Foreign Evangelicals

Viudo del mundo . . . Pero lo se, oscuramente me lo dice la sangre con su tı´mida voz, que muy pronto quedare viudo del mundo. —Otto Rene´ Castillo, “Viudo del mundo,” Poemas

The Reagan Doctrine The inauguration of Ronald Reagan to the U.S. presidency in 1980 brought Central America to the forefront of U.S. foreign policy in a way that no region of Latin America had been since the early days of the Cuban Revolution. Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinistas had taken power in July 1979, overthrowing the dictatorship of long-standing U.S. ally Anastasio Somoza a mere four months prior to the presidential elections that defeated President Jimmy Carter and ushered in Reagan’s “morning in America.” As Reagan took office, El Salvador’s Marxist guerrillas, the Frente Farabundo Martı´ Liberacio´n Nacional (FMLN), seemed literally poised on the edge of victory, launching their “final offensive” to take the capital city of San Salvador in January 1980. The timing and convergence of these events—the pending military triumph of the Far Left in Central America and the

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election of an ardently anticommunist president in the North—meant that the region would end up serving as the proxy venue for a final showdown of the Cold War. Viewing the Central American conflicts of the early 1980s through an East-West prism, the U.S. president would introduce a policy that came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine. This approach offered U.S. alliances and support to anticommunist, often authoritarian regimes in third world nations in order to offset (potential) Soviet advances in the West. The policy was designed to offer a direct challenge to the political influence of the Soviet Union, but to do so in alternative venues so isolated—some would say irrelevant—that they posed little to no risk of nuclear confrontation. While Central America served as a major preoccupation for the Reagan administration—the war in El Salvador dominated foreign policy in Reagan’s first term and the U.S.-sponsored Contra war in Nicaragua preoccupied his second—where policy was concerned, the United States basically defined the region as only those two states. The remaining four Central American nations—Honduras, Costa Rica, Belize, and Guatemala—were peripheral, or at least auxiliary, to larger regional strategic security concerns.1 The ideological centerpiece of Reagan’s Central American policy was the “symmetry doctrine,” also known as the Kirkpatrick Doctrine, a political position outlined in a highly influential journal article published in 1979 in Commentary magazine by Dr. Jeane Kirkpatrick, a Georgetown University professor whom Reagan named as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during his first term. In this seminal article, provocatively titled “Dictatorship and Double Standards,” Kirkpatrick posited the following: that “authoritarian regimes,” while unsavory, were effective in fending off threats from the Left; such regimes could also, in due time, be successfully persuaded to relinquish power through elections or other peaceful means. By contrast, “totalitarian” (read: Marxist) regimes, even more distasteful, were deaf to negotiation or compromise. Because (at that time) no communist regime had been willing to relinquish power peacefully or voluntarily, Kirkpatrick argued, they might therefore justifiably be brought down by force.2 While Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika policy and the subsequent fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, considered Ronald Reagan’s greatest foreign policy achievement, completely negated the central premise of the Kirkpatrick doctrine, the doctrine nonetheless formed the nexus of the Reagan administration’s policy in Central America throughout the 1980s. As such, it provided the justification for the extensive support that the United

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States gave to the Salvadoran military and government (an authoritarian government in the Kirkpatrick model)—nearly $4 billion worth of aid over eight years. Likewise, it offered the theoretical rationale for the United States’ organization, training, and aid to the Nicaraguan Contras—paramilitary counterrevolutionaries—to overthrow the (totalitarian) Sandinista government.3 While Nicaragua and El Salvador slipped easily into the matrix of the Reagan Doctrine as strategic counterweights to one another, the case of Guatemala was considerably more complicated. In the first place, by the terms of the Reagan Doctrine, Guatemala under the reign of the generals obviously fell into the authoritarian category, but within Central America there was no other counterthreat (symmetry), at least at that historical moment. Second, Guatemala had an active and aggressive Marxist guerrilla movement, but the country received no overt military aid from the U.S. government because the Carter administration had suspended aid in 1977 over the Guatemalan government’s continued violation of its citizens’ human rights—that is to say, the United States had suspended aid on the basis of human rights even before the era of massacres began. (In fact, the lack of aid to Guatemala was not as draconian as it appeared, as the United States continued to send military aid to Guatemala steadily throughout the period through third-party proxies, namely Israel and Taiwan.)4 Nevertheless, the official cutoff of aid was a source of bitter resentment within the Guatemalan military and the government; it also left the United States with minimal respect or negotiating power with either. A third complication had to do with the United States’ reputation for intervention and prior, often covert, involvement as an active partisan in Guatemala’s armed conflict during and subsequent to the 1954 Arbenz coup. Although the United States also had an unpopular reputation for intervention elsewhere on the isthmus, especially in Nicaragua,5 the relatively fresh memories of the United States’ direct role in the Arbenz overthrow and its training of and support for the Guatemalan government and military since that time made it impossible for the United States to even pretend to assume a position of impartial broker in the civil war of the early 1980s. Indeed, over the long course of the conflict up to that time, the nation to the north had been anything but neutral in regard to Guatemala’s internal anticommunist politics. The United States, considering Guatemala to be one of the few success stories of the Cold War in Latin America, had aggressively assisted in the construction of Guatemala’s official and unofficial counterinsurgency strategies from the end of the Arbenz era until the late 1970s.6

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A Common Cause The United States’ strategic fingerprints appeared at every level in the formation of Guatemala’s counterinsurgency policy. Beyond the CIA’s central role in the actual overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, the Pentagon had helped the Guatemalan government draft the terms of its first anticommunist doctrine at the dawn of the guerrilla movement in 1962. It is almost impossible to overestimate the centrality of anticommunism to U.S. policy in Latin America in the 1960s; in the Vietnam era, when the domino theory of communist expansion informed U.S. foreign policy in every part of the world, Guatemala, one of a handful of countries where the first socialist domino had been righted before it started a contagion, served as both paragon and threat. In 1964, ten years after the Arbenz overthrow and only five years after Fidel Castro’s victory in Cuba, Thomas C. Mann, a career diplomat with extensive experience in Latin America serving under the Johnson administration, drew up a protocol for communist containment in the region. This so-called Mann Doctrine, which became the basis of U.S. policy in Latin America for more than a decade, included four objectives: (1) to oppose communism in the hemisphere, (2) to foster economic growth yet remain neutral on social reform, (3) to protect U.S. private investment, and, finally, (4) to show no preference one way or the other for representative democratic government if doing so hindered the advance of the other three goals. This final objective expressly included cooperation with military governments, a point about which Mann himself expressed “no political or moral reservations.”7 With some modifications, the Mann Doctrine remained at the heart of U.S. policy in Guatemala and in much of Latin America in general until at least the mid-1970s. In the first decades of counterinsurgency, a fair amount of U.S. aid had taken the form of nonmilitary assistance, especially through such efforts as the Alliance for Progress in the early 1960s and through USAID sponsorship of new agricultural technologies and cooperatives (if not outright land reform) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, the bulk of U.S. interests in Guatemala during this period were dedicated to helping further the Guatemalan government’s efforts to prevent “a takeover of the radically anti-US militant, communist government of the Castro type,” as one Nixon-era State Department charge´ d’affaires emphatically phrased it in 1971.8 This included direct aid (parts and weapons) to the Guatemalan military; it also

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involved the training of many key military officers at the School of the Americas and other U.S.-sponsored war colleges.9 The United States also actively assisted Guatemala in the design and implementation of its counterinsurgency security apparatus throughout the 1960s. This included the development of a sophisticated intelligence-gathering network and also the training and equipping of the army’s first antiguerrilla battalions.10 In addition, the United States provided significant amounts of technical aid and training in communications, intelligence, and irregular warfare to the military; significantly, it was the United States that pushed the Doctrine of National Security as a fully realized rationale for a dramatically expanded counterinsurgency strategy in the late 1960s. Although the United States officially condemned the irregular strategies adopted by Guatemalan power brokers in the late 1960s such as political assassinations and the use of death squads, it covertly condoned such techniques because they were so effective in “putting down the communist threat.” In 1968, the U.S. Embassy’s deputy chief of mission in Guatemala, Viron P. Vaky, wrote a memorandum in which he questioned U.S. support for such methods and offered what was in effect a dissenting opinion to regular U.S. policy. As such, it offers a rather perfect summation of unofficial U.S. policy in Guatemala for most of the years of the armed conflict, including the Rı´os Montt period. “We have condoned counter-terror; we may even in effect have encouraged or blessed it,” wrote Vaky. “We have been so obsessed with the fear of insurgency that we have rationalized away our qualms and uneasiness. This is not only because we have concluded we cannot do anything about it, for we have never really tried. Rather, we suspected that maybe it is a good tactic, and that as long as Communists are being killed it is alright. Murder, torture and mutilation are alright if our side is doing it and the victims are Communists.”11 In the mid-1970s, however, the ruling coalition in Guatemala began to develop what Susanne Jonas has described as “relative autonomy” in regard to its relationship with the United States.12 This arrangement of administrative distance and plausible deniability was somewhat unusual at the time, but it was also efficacious, as it permitted the Guatemalan military to prosecute its war without having to worry about intervention (rhetorical or otherwise) from the United States. It also allowed U.S. policymakers to turn a blind eye to human rights atrocities as Guatemala pursued its counterinsurgency by any means necessary, the lesser of two evils in the face of the ongoing threat from Marxist guerrillas.

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U.S. Aid and Human Rights This practice changed in 1977, when the administration of President Jimmy Carter withdrew aid to Guatemala as part of the administration’s larger policy of diplomatic recognition on the basis of human rights.13 Despite the symbolic importance of the withdrawal of military aid, the gesture was to a large extent window dressing: even during the Carter presidency the CIA remained quietly active in Guatemala, continuing to assist Guatemalan military intelligence. The United States delivered as promised weapons and ammunition that were already in the pipeline prior to the Carter ban, including $8.5 million in military assistance and $1.8 million in export licenses for commercial arms sales.14 At the same time, human rights abuses continued to escalate, including the deaths and disappearances of workers employed at American-owned firms and other U.S. citizens, such as American-born Catholic clergy. Internally, the U.S. government readily attributed these deaths to the Guatemalan government, declining to subscribe to what one U.S. official referred to as the government’s “public pretense that disappearances are leftwing propaganda maneuver [sic].”15 But such clarity was completely behind closed doors. In July 1979, in the midst of the Lucas-era chaos, U.S. ambassador John Bushell was willing to go on record defending Guatemala’s scabrous human rights record. Reporting to Carter’s deputy secretary of state, Warren Christopher, Bushell declared that the Guatemalan government was “not a gross and consistent violator of human rights,” a claim that in all likelihood was a response to the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry’s threats to expel USAID, U.S. military advisors, and the Peace Corps if the United States pressed the issue of human rights too strenuously.16 Despite the ban on military aid, the U.S. government also continued its public support of the Lucas regime, making a mockery of the Carter human rights policy. In real terms, the official human rights policy and sanctions generated little more than bad feelings between the two governments—as one U.S. government official reported of his Guatemalan counterparts, “Even goons and scoundrels develop a sense of offended dignity. . . . On balance our HR [human rights] reports have worked against our national interests in Guatemala.”17 The Carter administration’s well-intentioned but toothless sanctions both failed to improve human rights and left the United States little leverage with which to deal with the Guatemalan government; but when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter for the U.S. presidency in November 1979, these issues became largely null and void. After Reagan assumed office in January 1980, the State Department offered words of firm reassurance to the

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Guatemalan foreign minister, Rafael Castillo Va´ldez. Under the new administration, the Reagan State Department promised, “the United States [will] not castigate human rights offenders nor forget its friends.”18 Finally, a fourth issue complicated the relationship between the North American and Guatemalan governments. While the United States might have wished to offer strong support to Rı´os Montt in his prosecution of his internal war on communism, it became evident by early 1983 that the Guatemalan military’s counterinsurgency offensive was succeeding even without direct assistance from the United States: this was what Latin American military circles meant when they spoke of the “Guatemalan solution.” Already fat from more than two decades of U.S. military aid totaling at least $60 million, the Guatemalan army was powerful enough by the early 1980s to carry out its plan without continued overt support from the United States.19 (A Guatemalan army publication from early 1984 gloated over this very point: “Our own and outsiders ask: How is it possible that they have accomplished this level of pacification and stability? Could it be that this is a land blessed by God? If US assistance has been absent in giving military attention to Guatemala, one must then give proper recognition to the Armed Forces.”)20 In May 1983, the London Economist also commented upon the Guatemalan army’s achievement, pointedly noting that “with the help of Israeli advisors, [Guatemala] has succeeded where a similar campaign in neighboring El Salvador, pushed by American advisors, has failed.”21 While the ability to be successful in going it alone was a source of considerable pride to the Guatemalan military and some official embarrassment to the United States, such a policy was not without its advantages from a U.S. perspective. Utilizing a technique that the Reagan administration rather coyly called “perception management,” the United States sought to create a smoke screen of plausible deniability that U.S. officials knew nothing of human rights abuses. The State Department made the benefits of such a strategic distance clear in a memo from late 1981. “Having failed in our efforts to dissuade the GOG [government of Guatemala] from its policy of repression,” the memo cynically noted, “we ought to distance ourselves from the GOG and not involve ourselves in Guatemala’s ‘dirty war’. If the repression does work and the guerrillas, their supporters and sympathizers are neutralized, we can in the aftermath of the repression work to restore normal relations.”22 It is evident from declassified State Department documents from this period that the Reagan administration would have very much liked to restore official military aid to Guatemala had it been able to find an appropriate pretext to do so, but the watchful eyes of a handful of liberal Democratic congressmen, among others, ultimately prevented this from happening. This

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is not to say, however, that the Reagan State Department did not begin to construct an ideological groundwork that would have made Guatemala’s recertification for military and other types of aid possible anyway.23 These efforts began early in Reagan’s first term, while Lucas Garcı´a was still president. In April 1981, retired General Vernon Walters, special envoy to Reagan’s secretary of state Alexander Haig, traveled to Guatemala to negotiate with Lucas. Walters offered Guatemala renewed military aid and other unilateral initiatives in return for an improvement in the visible human rights situation, an overture that Lucas flatly rejected. Although U.S. in-country intelligence clearly indicated that the already grim human rights situation was rapidly worsening—in February 1982 even the CIA issued a warning that Lucas’s scorched-earth policy “could lead not only to major clashes, but to serious abuses by the armed forces”—the U.S. government’s public position nonetheless continued to heavily favor the Lucas regime.24 “There is no evidence of a systematic campaign by the Guatemalan government to eliminate non-guerilla opposition,” General Walters reported after his unsuccessful negotiations with the Guatemalan president. “There is hard evidence of external support for the Communist insurgents. . . .It is not to be ruled out that some atrocities attributed to the Guatemalan army were, in fact, insurgent atrocities.”25 Privately, the U.S. administration initially agreed to “minimize public statements by U.S. officials on the human rights situation” but then decided to simply wait out the Lucas presidency, in the hope that Guatemala’s future leadership would be more malleable and amenable to U.S. public and strategic interests.26

Reagan and Rı´os Montt When the Lucas cabal was overthrown in the March 23 golpe de estado, the United States was not involved and, in fact, had not even seen the coup coming. The embassy did not at first grasp the origins or the implications of the coup, incorrectly concluding the Movimiento de Liberacio´n Nacional had instigated it and that the coup leaders, Rı´os Montt in particular, were nothing more than figureheads representing the interests of the Far Right.27 As Rı´os Montt began to consolidate his power, however, the embassy’s view of him shifted rapidly, as the General hove into view as the kind of leader with whom the United States could potentially do business, that is to say, with whom the United States could justify the restoration of military aid but who was still willing to prosecute a vigorous counterinsurgency campaign. A U.S. intelligence report from late March 1982 described Rı´os Montt as “intelligent but not brilliant, an eloquent speaker, frank, charismatic and

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honest,” adding, as something of an afterthought, “Rı´os and his wife are religious.”28 A follow-up report several days later offered a more tempered but still optimistic view: “The general is considered to be demagogic and at times somewhat eccentric. However, he is viewed as an interim caretaker who possessed the qualities (honesty, morality, leadership) necessary to change the image of the country while simultaneously constructing a solid government foundation to pass on to a civilian successor.”29 By early April, however, the embassy’s hopes that Rı´os Montt would be a pliable leader began to fade, as intelligence reports began to cast doubts on the General’s motives, character, and even his mental state. A cable from April 6, 1982, sent directly to the U.S. secretary of state, expressed concerned about Rı´os Montt’s “psychological state,” reporting he neither ate nor slept but “was on a persistent emotional high and often made irrelevant remarks and jokes.”30 By May, the embassy’s concerns had escalated dramatically: the General, intelligence reports cautioned, was a religious zealot whose personal beliefs and his “continued attempts to impose his religious convictions on others” posed a threat both to the regime’s relationship with the military (thus threatening a second coup) and to the potential restoration of foreign aid from the United States.31 Later that month, U.S. ambassador Frederic L. Chapin, having taken several U.S. congressional staffers to a disconcerting initial meeting with Rı´os Montt, offered this acid description of a leader whom the U.S. State Department had already begun to categorize as an erratic religious fanatic and an unreliable ally at best: “[Rı´os Montt] believes that he came to the presidency of the junta by the will of God and remains there as his personal emissary and victor and will be removed whenever God pleases it. He believes he has a divine mission not only with respect to corruption but bringing around a profound change in Guatemalan society.” More alarming in light of the goal of resuming full U.S. military aid to Guatemala, Chapin reported, was Rı´os Montt’s dismissal of the need for further military or economic assistance from the U.S. government, given his expectation that North American Protestant churches would provide the government with at least $1 billion in the form of building materials for rural reconstruction. “I believe that President Rı´os Montt is sincere in his religious beliefs and well-intentioned,” the ambassador concluded, “but that he is naı¨ve and not concerned with practical realities.”32 Elsewhere, Chapin penned a tart description of Rı´os Montt to Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas Enders. “As a new-born Christian he was apparently very comfortable, and he has said so repeatedly to me in his new environment of love and human concern in the world of [his] True Word church,” Chapin remarked, “but he

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has evidently not completely overcome the authoritarianism he learned in his long military career and which earned him a reputation as a martinet.”33 The General’s personal shortcomings and religious zeal notwithstanding, the Reagan administration made the goal of normalizing relations with the Guatemalan government and restoring formal military aid a top priority, but this would only be possible if it could convince Congress that Guatemala was making significant and measurable improvements in its human rights situation. The fact that the Guatemalan government was emphatically not making such improvements—the 1981–1983 period, recall, marked the peak of violence in the nation’s thirty-six-year armed conflict—required that the State Department conjure up a smoke screen of deniability around Rı´os Montt and the scorched-earth campaign. This involved two steps. The first of these was to demonize the previous Lucas administration (an effort that required little energy or imagination, given the regime’s genuine and well-chronicled excesses). The second step was to promote the Rı´os Montt government as a reluctant but valiant player in a war not of its own choosing, the restorer of freeworld values to a people long crushed by exploitation and strife at the hands of an unwelcome and unwanted insurgency. The twin thrusts of this policy were simple: to favorably contrast the Rı´os Montt regime with that of Lucas, in terms of both politics and morality, a task made easy by Rı´os Montt’s high-flung religious discourse, as displayed in the anticorruption campaign and the Sunday sermons. In the rhetoric of diplomacy, the military’s campaigns in the countryside were a necessary means to eliminate the insurgency: no matter how bad the human rights violations became, the situation had been “worse under Lucas.” Certainly, Rı´os Montt’s much-publicized order-and-progress campaigns contributed to the credibility of these claims; his anticorruption project and the dramatic decline in urban violence after March 23, 1982, helped U.S. officials to frame a portrait of Rı´os Montt as an effective leader and a champion of law and order. The central dilemma of statecraft, however, was that formal U.S. aid was still contingent upon improvements in human rights, a criterion that was not a high priority within the Reagan administration but which still held credence with much of the U.S. Congress, human rights advocates, and at least some of the American public. The answer to this problem lay within the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala, which set out to obscure the human rights situation behind a scrim of vagueness, claiming that it was virtually impossible to attribute direct blame for abuses on either the Guatemalan army or the Rı´os Montt government. Kate Doyle, director of the Guatemalan section of the National Security Archive, a private archive made up of declassified U.S. government and intelligence

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documents that provided the sources for much of this chapter, writes of these efforts: “Read collectively, the declassified documents covering the period of the highest incidence of violence . . . provide a fairly stunning portrait of an embassy determined to deny the facts before it in favor of misleading government statements, a controlled press, and outright lies served by the very army carrying out the carnage.”34 Even confidential documents within the U.S. Embassy designated for internal consumption and for the State Department in Washington produced misleading and contradictory accounts of the violence. In his diplomatic correspondence, Ambassador Chapin was adamant in his contention that it was “difficult to sort out who is doing what to whom.”35 In his many reports and memos to the State Department, to Congress, and to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ambassador Chapin took three approaches in reference to accusations of significant human rights abuses by the Guatemalan army against civilians: (1) that U.S. intelligence could not substantiate charges of abuse;36 (2) that the guerrillas often deceptively dressed in Guatemalan military uniforms or had committed the vast majority of abuses, or the abuses were committed simply by “unknown persons”;37 or (3) reports of human rights abuses were part of a concerted and intentional propaganda campaign on the part of enemies of the United States (the USSR, Cuba, etc.) that solidarity and human rights groups in the United States and abroad willingly or unwittingly propagated. Throughout this period, the U.S. Embassy made little effort to investigate the claims of state-sponsored violence on its own. The embassy rarely sent staff into the field to gather intelligence information on conditions in the countryside—in fact, the embassy exhausted its entire $1,600 annual domestic travel budget for 1982 on a single fact-finding mission—but instead based its human rights data on information provided to it by none other than the Guatemalan army.38 In June 1982, in the early days of the Fusiles y Frijoles campaign, Chapin outright denied reports of massacres by human rights organizations such as Oxfam and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) on the grounds that such charges were politically motivated and that “allegations of genocidal behavior discredit the efforts of the Rı´os Montt government to reestablish international credibility.”39 Although the records made available through the Freedom of Information Act are replete with examples of U.S. ambassador Frederic Chapin’s reports of disinformation on human rights to the State Department, a few select examples will suffice. For example, a confidential embassy cable to the U.S. State Department attributes massacres in San Marcos and in Xillaj, Coba´n, on June 18, 1982, to “unknowns,” while attesting, “we have no information, either from the press or other sources on the alleged massacres in San Miguel Acata´n

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nor Natiliabaj near Coba´n. The other alleged scenes of massacres reported by Radio Havana (Parraxtut, El Pajarito, Pichiquil, El Managal and Rı´o Negro) [do] not appear in any information available to us as scenes of massacres or killings.”40 In fact, the 1999 REMHI database indicates that the army initiated massacres in at least four of these locations that correspond to the time of this report. These include the notorious massacre in Rio Negro, Rabinal, in which 177 people died at the government’s hands; Parraxtut, Sacapulas, El Quiche´, where Americas Watch recorded 180 killed; and El Managal, where 100 reportedly died.41 Subsequent reports show that the villages of San Miguel Acata´n and Natiliabaj were sites of smaller massacres of 7 and 17 respectively.42 The official U.S. position on human rights abuses allegedly committed under Rı´os Montt’s watch was publicly unequivocal and firm. Although the following quote is lengthy, the embassy’s position as stated in a confidential memo to the U.S. secretary of state and the U.S. embassies elsewhere in Central America in response to criticism from international and domestic human rights groups bears quoting in full. We conclude that a concerted disinformation is being waged in the US against the Guatemalan government by groups supporting the communist insurgency in Guatemala; this has enlisted the support of conscientious human rights groups and Church organizations which may not fully appreciate that they are being utilized. This is a campaign in which guerrilla mayhem and violations of human rights are ignored; a campaign in which responsibility for atrocities assigned to the GOG is alleged when evidence shows guerrilla responsibility; a campaign in which atrocities are cited that never occurred. The campaign’s object is quite simple; to deny the Guatemalan Army the weapons and equipment needed from the US to defeat the guerrillas.43 In October 1982, the ambassador received a deeply troubling and scrupulously detailed report of horrors in the countryside from a friend and fellow American, a priest named Ronald Hennessey, the superior of the Maryknoll Order, a man widely admired for his honesty and reliability, who described to Chapin firsthand some of the horrors that he and his clergy had witnessed in the countryside. The conversation had the desired effect, and after his evening with Hennessey, Chapin seems to have undergone something of a change of heart.44 The tone of his diplomatic correspondence began to change, as the ambassador quietly began to acknowledge in official documents that the government of Guatemala was responsible for the majority of the atrocities

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committed. But Chapin’s reluctant volte-face was far too late and far too contradictory to affect existing U.S. policy toward Guatemala. Despite the steady drumbeat of plausible deniability, it is difficult to believe that, given the United States’ long-standing involvement in Guatemala and its state-of-the-art 1980s intelligence, U.S. officials did not have a reasonably clear sense of the extent of the violence in the countryside and did not indeed know “who was doing what to whom.” Surprisingly, however, the declassified documents do not offer any clear evidence that government officials did actually know or comprehend the extent of the violence that the United States’ strategic ally, the Guatemalan government, was imposing on its own people, although if this were actually the case, it raises serious questions about the efficiency of U.S. intelligence gathering. Yet internal documents indicate that even at the deepest level of security clearance there is no evidence of collusion or outright cover-ups of human rights violations on the part of the United States. Rather, the picture that comes through is one in which the U.S. Embassy, cosseted safely in Guatemala City, chose a utilitarian path of willful ignorance and simply disregarded all evidence that did not serve to advance the United States’ immediate political objectives in Guatemala and in the region at large. In November 1982, a planned visit by Reagan to Central America and pressure from human rights groups on members of Congress forced an inquiry into the veracity of human rights reporting from the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala led by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charles Fairbanks. The inquiry did not produce much in the way of results, due in part to what Fairbanks referred to as “obnoxious and phony questions” on methodology by congressional staffers Otto Reich (later named as special envoy for western hemispheric affairs under President George W. Bush) and Charles Berk of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It did, however, lead the investigation to conclude: “[Our] Embassy does not really know who is responsible for the killings in rural Guatemala. . . . I, myself believe the guerrillas are doing more atrocities than the other side . . . [but] Embassy Guatemala has said for several months that the Army is responsible for major human rights violations, but it has not reported in any cable a single instance that it believes was done by the Army. I do not think there is any misrepresentation by our Embassy, but there maybe wishful thinking; at least we could have made a greater effort to have the facts we need.”45 In December 1982, Ronald Reagan made a presidential sojourn to Central America to meet with all the leaders of that troubled region. Reagan declined to visit Guatemala—a gesture that Rı´os Montt correctly interpreted as a slight

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meant to signal Guatemala’s dim light in the constellation of Central American nations—but he did agree to meet with the General in Tegucigalpa. The intention of the meeting was to negotiate the resumption of U.S. military aid to Guatemala—beginning with helicopter parts for the airships that were most widely used in the counterinsurgency campaign to move troops into remote areas—in return for Rı´os Montt’s pledge to force the military to impose greater discipline on its troops.46 The meeting between the two went well—Rı´os Montt amused Reagan with his quip about the scorched communists, while Reagan, in turn, lauded Rı´os Montt as a “man of great personal integrity and commitment,” against whom charges of human rights abuses were nothing but a “bum rap.” Reagan also pledged to Rı´os Montt that the U.S. administration would “do all it [could] to support [his] progressive efforts.”47 Despite this exchange of warm sentiments, the U.S. Congress ultimately refused to resume aid to Guatemala. This denial of aid came not as a result of Guatemala’s continuing violations of human rights, but rather because of the ill-timed assassination of several contractors for USAID who happened to be killed by the military in February 1983, shortly before the Guatemalan aid matter came to a vote before the U.S. Congress.48 By the time that Rı´os Montt left office in the August 8, 1983, coup, the Reagan administration, though foiled in its attempt to restore aid, continued in its unapologetic and obdurate defense of the regime. In a letter to Dave Durenburger, chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Morton L. Abramowitz of the Council on Foreign Relations offered the Reagan administration’s retrospective assessment of the Rı´os Montt presidency. “The Lucas regime was one of the bloodiest in Guatemala’s history,” he wrote. “After his overthrow there was a noticeable improvement—in the countryside—under the Rı´os-Montt [sic] regime. . . . They increasingly came to realize that the abuses only served to embolden the insurgent cause. . . . In essence, Guatemala’s Indians were fed, sheltered, and protected from the insurgents in return for cooperation with the military. The program has been largely a success, though there were brutal incidents during the program.”49

The Mobilization of the Religious Right in the United States In the old-school world of international diplomacy, the U.S. State Department might well have written Rı´os Montt off as a religious plutocrat, best left to his own devices so long as he kept order, a sort of Guatemalan Protestant version of Spain’s Francisco Franco for the late Cold War. This was not to

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be, however, as Rı´os Montt’s tenure coincided with the beginning of a new type of political mobilization among conservative evangelicals in the United States, who had coalesced for the first time in the modern era around the 1980 presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan. For this sector, Rı´os Montt was no wild-eyed anticommunist fanatic, but rather nothing less than the embodiment of the new conflation of “Christian values” and conservative global politics. While the influence of conservative evangelical Christians would eventually galvanize the Republican Party, to become by the turn of the new century one of the most influential and coveted political bases of that party, the emergence of the Christian Right around the 1980 election marked a dramatic departure from the traditional trajectory of Christian faith-based political action. During most of the twentieth century, much of North American Christian activism had been motivated by a reform-minded, tolerant, and liberal (in both a traditional and also a modern political sense) outlook, a strong current that ran directly from the influence of theologians such as Walter Rauschenbusch in the 1920s, through the “Christian realism” of Reinhold Niebuhr in the postwar era, to the civil rights movement and the Ghandianinfluenced Christian activism of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s.50 In some ways, the liberal social justice impulse of American Protestantism reached its pinnacle with the election of Democrat (and devout Southern Baptist) Jimmy Carter to the presidency in 1976. The election of Carter, who would base his foreign policy on a highly ethical and innovative but regrettably ineffective policy centered on human rights, ushered in an administration that, for the first time in modern history, directly and openly acknowledged the influence of a president’s moral judgments and (in this case, liberal) Christian values in the making of domestic and especially foreign policy. Carter’s direct evocation of Christian activism, ironically, helped open the door to the political mobilization of conservative evangelicals in the late 1970s that would make possible the so-called Reagan revolution a mere four years later, and which would, for the rest of the century, transform conservative Christians into the new base for a revitalized U.S. Republican Party. American conservatives labeled the morally estimable but politically maladroit Carter administration—a period marked by the worst energy crisis to date, severe economic recession, and the national humiliation of a hostage crisis in Iran—a debacle. However, the Carter presidency provided them with a useful catalyst for organizing other disaffected but religious Americans into the political mainstream, an unfulfilled Republican objective since the time of the Nixon administration in the early 1970s.51 With the twin arrows of the Carter presidency and the Supreme Court’s 1973 abortion decision in their quiver, Republican

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party politics and conservative Christianity coalesced with the formation of the Moral Majority in 1979. Although the term Moral Majority soon became political shorthand for conservative Christians, it originated as an actual organization—Moral Majority, Inc.—that a Southern Baptist pastor named Jerry Falwell established to help elect Ronald Reagan, who promised to support the social agendas of conservative evangelicals, to the White House. While the Moral Majority quickly became iconic, it was only one manifestation of a movement eventually known as the Religious Right, a loose coalition that was made up primarily of evangelical Protestants but which also included like-minded Catholics, Mormons, and conservative Jews who used a religious intellectual framework to espouse a profoundly conservative political agenda.52 In his early published work The Liberty Bible Commentary, Falwell described himself as “aggressively fundamentalist” and cited historian George Marsden’s observation that fundamentalism must be clearly distinguished from other conservative Christian movements for “its militant opposition to Liberalism.”53 While the primary purpose of Falwell’s organization and others like it was political, the notion of a Moral Majority tapped into a deep vein of resentment that many traditionalist Americans had felt toward the liberal and, especially, the secular direction that the nation’s culture and politics had taken in the postwar decades.54 Certain touchstone issues—the Supreme Court’s ruling against school prayer in 1962, the (ultimately failed) efforts to pass an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution during the 1970s, and the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion in 1973— helped to consolidate this dissatisfaction. All seemed to this sector emblematic of a secularized American culture unmoored from its fundamental values and adrift in a sea of libidinous sexuality, drugs, crime, and anomie—and a secular government complicit in the cultural drift to perdition. In its earliest days, the Religious Right in the United States was focused almost exclusively on domestic issues, with the exception of its ardent support for Israel, which was based as much—perhaps more—on biblical as on political considerations. With the Reagan presidency, however, the movement quickly assumed a staunch anticommunist position, one that reflected the president’s fervent political beliefs but which also resonated strongly with a generation of conservative Americans who had come of age with the rhetoric of the Cold War and who also believed that communism and Christianity were entirely antithetical. As George Marsden has noted, communism, since the time of the Bolsheviks, had long been a focal point for fundamentalist politics, “serving to funnel more diffuse fears of atheism, evolutionism, and modernism into a single embodied enemy.”55 It was the Ronald Reagan presidency, however, where

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the two preoccupations of conservative Christians—the cultural decline of America and anticommunism—merged into a unified, modern political voice. Although Reagan was not himself religious, he had grasped the value of a conservative Christian coalition early on and had cultivated what he considered to be right-minded church organizations since his film days in the 1950s. Indeed, Reagan was speaking to a convention of conservative evangelical broadcasters when he famously denounced the Soviet Union as the “evil empire” in March 1983.56 Thus, it is not surprising that when Reagan reinvented the civil wars of Central America as the final decisive battles of the international Cold War, the Christian Right was ready and willing to insert itself into the struggles of small countries that many Americans had never heard of before. One of the Religious Right’s most prominent early advocates, Pat Robertson, the host of the Christian cable program The 700 Club (and a great fan of Rı´os Montt) described the struggle in his 1986 book, Dates with Destiny. “It is our responsibility to assist victim nations in their attempts to overthrow their Communist captors and roll back their Soviet expansion. Whatever indigenous freedom fighters volunteer to fight and die to establish liberty and democracy, we must come to their aid with money and arms.”57 Jerry Falwell, weighing in on the subject in his widely read 1980 book, Listen America!, a work that spent many months on the New York Times bestseller list, further underscored this sentiment. “I believe that there are really two philosophies of warfare,” he wrote. “One of them, the Left, represents the Soviet Union and says there is no God. . . .On the other side, the philosophy that I adhered to . . . [was] that of Western Civilization, headed up by the United States of America. It operated on the philosophy that there is a God.”58 Within such a context, Rı´os Montt seemed a literal godsend. The Religious Right immediately embraced him as a “Christian soldier” who would both vanquish communism and at last bring a godly era of peace, justice, and tranquility to his long-troubled country, a metaphoric leader in a metaphoric war. Mere days after the March 23 coup, Pat Robertson lauded Rı´os Montt on The 700 Club as an anointed man of God for whom Americans should pray “day and night without ceasing.” Robertson also pledged that American evangelicals would donate $1 billion to his fledgling government, a contribution which, had it materialized (it did not) would have directly helped to circumvent the federal ban on U.S. military aid to Guatemala. North American evangelicals who were outside the inner circle of the Moral Majority, in the thrall of new emerging evangelical news media, regarded Rı´os Montt from afar with wide-eyed and naive optimism. (“Terrorists Fear ‘New Source of Intelligence’” boasted one evangelical tabloid, “Holy Spirit

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Reveals Whereabouts of Guerilla [sic] Forces.”)59 This sector of true believers refused to be dissuaded by news of human rights violations, which many evangelical U.S. Christians dismissed, as one evangelical magazine put it, as “either totally wrong or totally perverted.”60 This media-victim perspective runs like a rich vein throughout Joseph Anfuso and David Sczepanski’s fawning 1983 biography of Rı´os Montt, a work in English published by an evangelical press before it was translated into Spanish.61 A widely read retrospective account of the Rı´os Montt presidency published in 1984 in Christianity Today, tellingly titled, “Why We Can’t Trust the News Media,” attributed criticism of Rı´os Montt to a skeptical secular press that failed to perceive the divine force that powered the regime.62 Although the effort to explain away human rights atrocities as media bias and hype dominated the evangelical discourse, other readings were not entirely absent, as evinced by the justification for the scorched-earth campaign offered by a Verbo pastor to a group of North American visitors in September 1982. (These visitors, in fact, were a group of California independent Pentecostals who had come to investigate charges of human rights abuses and, naively, to meet with Rı´os Montt himself to express their concerns.)63 The Verbo pastor explained to his aghast visitors: “The Army doesn’t massacre Indians. It massacres demons, and Indians are demons possessed; they are communists. We hold Brother Efraı´n Rı´os Montt like King David of the Old Testament. He is the king of the New Testament.”64 Whether the pastor was referring to King David’s anointing by God to help him to unify the ancient feuding kingdoms of Judah and Israel—a redolent metaphor for the project of unidad nacional—or to the flawed king whose murderous desires made “Yahweh displeased with what David had done” (2 Samuel 11:27)—remained unspecified, although his highly biblically literate listeners would have been well aware of the ambiguous implications.

“Deprestigiando a Guatemala”: Media Coverage of the Rı´os Montt Era The foreign evangelicals were, in fact, correct on the point that most of the secular media’s criticism of Rı´os Montt was directed toward his kinetic persona and evangelical pronouncements rather than at his human rights record, which neither the (heavily monitored and censored) domestic nor international press reported on widely at the time.65 (Unlike the late 1970s, during the early 1980s the government strongly discouraged the Guatemalan press from reporting on the course of the war, to the extent that the word guerrilla rarely

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appeared in any of the media and such reports of violence as did appear did so without attribution as to the perpetrators.) Indeed, the scarce amount of news coverage in the early 1980s was almost in inverse relation to acts of statesponsored violence; for example, between January and November 1981, during the first phase of the dramatic escalation in political violence under Lucas, the domestic press in Guatemala reported virtually no incidents of killings or disappearances.66 Such reporting as there was focused almost completely, as it did throughout the entirety of the armed struggle, on urban killings, a bias that reflected the general disinterest and disassociation that many urban Guatemalans felt toward rural people, particularly Indians. As Patrick Ball has described it, “The State’s campaign of terror against Mayan communities took place largely in silence, especially within Guatemala.”67 Because reporting on Guatemala in the mainstream media was so minimal, solidarity groups and human rights organizations attempted to fill the void. The EGP, which had an active presence in the northern and most violently contested area of the country, reported with reasonable accuracy on extensive massacres during this period, but their announcements were typically buried so deeply in broadly painted propaganda and inflammatory revolutionary language that anyone who did not share the guerrillas’ political objectives could easily dismiss them.68 Amnesty International and Americas Watch issued special emergency reports on Guatemala in 1982, two small voices in a wilderness of underreported devastation. But because news from the altiplano was so scarce and travel in contested zones was highly restricted or prohibited outright, both studies seriously underestimated the scope and gravity of the ongoing human rights situation.69 Amnesty International’s report, for example, described 112 villages in which 2,600 people were killed in massacres between March and July 1982, a period that represented the fiercest fury of the Fusiles y Frijoles campaign, but this figure is considerably lower than the verified 3,330 who died in April alone.70 The Guatemalan army’s own postmortem of the same period reported 440 villages destroyed and an uncounted number dead, four times the Amnesty figure.71 News reports in the United States of atrocities in Guatemala tended to be short and inconclusive, reflecting both the Reagan administration’s desire to cast the regime in a positive light and the media’s inattention to a story that in American eyes seemed far less important than the situations in El Salvador or Nicaragua, where U.S. strategic interests were directly engaged. In Manufacturing Consent, his highly critical study of the U.S. government’s manipulation of a complacent media industry, Noam Chomsky speaks of news “worthiness”—that is, a system that portrays “people abused in enemy states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater severity by its own

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government or clients will be unworthy” (emphasis in the original).72 In the case of Guatemala—where more people eventually died at the hands of government forces than in El Salvador and Nicaragua combined—the state of news unworthiness was so complete as to amount to almost total neglect.73 A study of New York Times coverage of Central America found that the ratio of stories about Nicaragua (mostly negative coverage, given the U.S. support of the Contras) was 5:1 compared to El Salvador, 22:1 compared to Honduras, and an overwhelming 26:1 compared to coverage of Guatemala.74 Media neglect of the Guatemala story clearly contributed to an international awareness of violence on a massive scale that was both faulty and woefully incomplete. The state of local media in Guatemala was even worse. Although it was technically a free press, a study by the Mexico-based Asociacio´n de Periodistas Guatemaltecos en el Exilio published in the early 1980s showed that fortytwo Guatemalan journalists were murdered or disappeared during the four-year Lucas regime.75 This situation improved under Rı´os Montt, perhaps because so many of the nation’s reporters had already fled the country to live in exile in Mexico or Europe. The state of siege that went into effect in July 1982 put an end to even the most limited media coverage of the violence in rural areas, as Rı´os Montt placed a ban on the publication of any news “that may cause confusion or panic or aggravate the situation.”76 To this end, he put rigorous restrictions on an already cowed domestic media, which at the time consisted of four national newspapers, state-monitored television, and some local radio. Even before the state of siege, however, a free and independent press had been a chimera. Government informants, who reported back to the government on domestic and foreign reporters who seemed to be crossing into dangerous territory, infiltrated the offices of all major media in Guatemala. The local media outlets also were riddled with faferos, poorly paid reporters and employees who accepted money (fafa: roughly “halfies”—half to the reporter, half to the editor) in exchange for publishing articles favorable to the government and for suppressing negative news in their news outlets. While fafa typically came from the chief of state’s government press office, the army, politicians, individual ministers, government agencies, and large business associations also paid it out. (This was true even under Rı´os Montt, who generally eschewed bribery. His press secretary, Gonzalo Asturias Montenegro, now a respected journalist, recalled paying out $5,000—then a whopping sum—in “confidential funds” to reporters just to write sympathetic stories about a five-cent hike in bus fares.) The practice was widespread and lucrative—enterprising reporters could hope to increase their monthly salaries—typically, by around $250 but up to as much as $1,000 or even more.77 Given this context, it is hardly surprising that stories

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of government human rights violations barely sullied Guatemala’s front pages or nightly newscasts in the early 1980s. In an era that predated cable news and Internet, real news traveled informally by word of mouth, by chisme (rumor), and, perhaps surprisingly, through local radio (often run out of small evangelical stations, which were among the first to broadcast personal messages in local languages). The URNG for a time operated two small radio operations, Voz de Atitla´n and Radio Quiche´, and sometimes sent out local broadcasts in indigenous languages. Its modest bandwidth and poor technical quality, however, prevented Guatemala’s rebel radio from gaining the kind of listenership or influence that the FMLN’s Radio Venceremos, for example, earned in neighboring El Salvador.78 With such scant solid information, it was not at all difficult for critical sectors to disparage the human rights reports or dismiss them out of hand with apparent credibility. This included the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala, which, as we have seen, shrugged off claims of human rights atrocities as a fiction fabricated by the Left to discredit the regime. In so doing, the U.S. Embassy (as well as the U.S. evangelicals who supported the Rı´os Montt regime with such enthusiasm) not only advanced U.S. strategic interests, but also succumbed to Victoria 82’s plan of disinformation, a psychological operations (psy-ops) strategy for both domestic and international consumption that cast the guerrillas as the authors of massacres and as tricksters who duped gullible villagers into being the agents of their own destruction.79 The terms of the Guatemalan government’s disinformation campaign were overt and precise. In July 1982, the army general staff issued “Standing Orders for the Development of Anti-Subversive Operations to the Victoria 82 Plan of Campaign: Tactics to Be Employed.” This command read, in part, “Trick them: subversion must be fought with its own methods and techniques” and ordered that every effort should be made to attribute human rights violations to the guerrillas and their proxies. These included not only propagandists in Havana and Moscow, but also solidarity groups and any others in Europe and the United States who sought to desprestigiar (literally, to de-prestige), that is, smear the government of Guatemala with outlandish claims of savagery.80 A letter from the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington in November 1982 to an American reporter provides an example of this inverted discourse of culpability. Responding to a question about massacres in the Ixil region, the spokesman replied: These are the subversives who dress like army men, they dress like they’re part of the government troops. And when they harass the civilians, kill them and burn their huts, naturally the civilians identify

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them as being part of the government. This is the tactic. They hit and run, they use the civilians as shields, they hold them as hostages. . . . The guerrillas have entrenched themselves in these areas and use the civilians as shields. They harassed these people, they have taken away from them food, clothes, tools, money, beasts of burden so they can carry whatever they steal into the mountains. They have taken away young boys with the idea of training them into guerrillas. So, the suffering of these people, as you can well imagine, is a tragedy not created by the government. The spokesman, however, concludes with a telling but accurate slip: “The government never harassed them [the rural population] in that manner until the guerrillas used them to protect themselves” (emphasis mine).81

Conclusion Jean-Franc¸ois Lyotard has argued that “knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power.” Jean Franco elaborates: “But in Latin America, the informational commodity was to be productive in a sinister way.”82 This was certainly case for Guatemala during the Rı´os Montt era, a period of time when both internal and external loci of power—the U.S. government and the advocates of “perception management,” the fourth estate of the media, and foreign evangelicals, all of which could have put pressure on the Guatemalan government—willfully turned a blind eye to the regime’s excesses. In the case of the United States, the manipulation of information through diversion, dissemination, and denial on the part of the embassy in Guatemala, designed to allow the advance of U.S. strategic interests through the restoration of aid, instead created a credibility gap between the embassy and Washington that in the long run advanced the interests of neither. For U.S. evangelicals, the new Moral Majoritarians, heady with their own newfound political power, Rı´os Montt represented the new generation of Christian soldier, armored in righteousness and armed with political might; they could countenance no information that contradicted this image. Likewise, the restraint and manipulation of a distracted media helped to create such a fog of banality and indifference around the Guatemalan situation that the rest of the world could, in relatively good conscience, pay no attention to what was happening there at all.

Epilogue

Guatemala no canta, no baila, no danza. —Anonymous

In the first chapter of this book, I suggested that the twentieth century will be remembered as the century of genocides. It is easy and perhaps worthwhile to debate the use of this word, which has been variously defined to the point of overspecificity (does the killing of 10,000 constitute genocide but 1,000 does not? What about 100?) or trivialized to the point of meaninglessness (a 2006 news story called the arrest of twenty African American men in San Francisco a “form of genocide”).1 The precise definition of genocide remains a contested juridical issue, although, as I pointed out in the first chapter of this book, the popular or moral weight of the word is not nearly so exact. In 1944, Raphael Lemkin, the father of the term, defined genocide quite simply as “the destruction of a nation or ethnic group.”2 Jurists soon introduced the question of intentionality, weighing whether or not a government or leader pursued the large-scale killing of a group of people as an intentional (as opposed to a reactive) policy. At one extreme of the debate about what constitutes genocide are historians such as Steven L. Katz, who argues that the Nazi Holocaust was the only “true” genocide, an “event without precedents or parallels in modern history”; at the other end of the spectrum, Israel W. Charny proposes a “generic” definition of genocide that is “powerfully inclusive; that seeks to create a conceptual base that includes all known

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types of assassinations, mass killings, and collective deaths provoked by the hand of man.”3 Here I use a definition of genocide that falls between these two extremes and also somewhat skirts the question of intentionality. By precise legal definition, what happened in Guatemala may or may not have been, exactly, a true genocide, but to equivocate on this juridical point outside of a legal setting is probably splitting hairs.4 I therefore continue to use the word in a simple, undertheorized, but exact sense, to mean the large-scale killing of a sector of people based largely upon who they are, as defined by ethnicity, religion, or some other alterity, as we saw in Guatemala in the 1980s. Why so much concern over this word? Because the word genocide provides us with language that allows us to begin to think about some of the questions that this book poses. Genocide, broadly defined, takes place at the intersection of ideology and identity, but in the case of Guatemala, other factors, especially class divisions, were also at work: not all who died in the 1980 massacres were Maya, though most were. Violence that comes from this kind of thinking is especially pernicious because it ideologically constructs people who might once have been friends, neighbors, even kin, into intractable internal enemies. Unlike other categories of war tropes, the enemy is anything but alien or abstract; the enemy might once have been your neighbor, housekeeper, teacher, shopkeeper, your boss, your parents. The twentieth century is bookmarked by the Turkish slaughter of the Armenians in 1915 and the Rwandan so-called civil war at the end (not, in fact, a war at all, but the slaughter of close to a million people between April and July 1994) and includes all the genocides great and small that took place in between, including the one in midcentury Europe that forced us to develop new language to describe the large-scale slaughter of people. Guatemala is far—very far, in fact—from being the twentieth century’s worst human rights tragedy, but the details of what happened there in the early 1980s nonetheless help illustrate the enormity of what happened and, despite the many bold cries of nunca ma´s, seem to happen instead siempre ma´s. This leads us again to the central question that we posed earlier: How and why do such things happen? What conditions conspire to make it not only possible but even likely that neighbors turn against one another and that a state treats its own citizens as internal enemies? How is it that violence becomes the medium both for prosecuting change and for the maintenance of a state’s power? In his work on Chile, historian Steve J. Stern correctly observes, “The experience of a state turning violently against a portion of its own citizenry is always dramatic.”5 When people (or the government that represents them) kill their neighbors on a large scale, they do so for many reasons: because they

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devoutly believe in a virulent ideology, religion, or nationalism that demands it, or because they have power when others do not, or because they believe themselves and their interests to be mortally threatened by the Other. Such impulses are often underscored by ancient hatreds and rivalries that inspire an internal logic that in turn makes such ideologies credible to potential adherents. Stern, in his work, reminds us to observe what he calls the “unexplored ‘hearts and minds’ aspects of dictatorship experiences.” He argues that political tragedies are crafted from the “making and unmaking of political and cultural legitimacy, notwithstanding the violent rule by terror.”6 Without undermining or underestimating the pernicious power of terror, it is the notion of making political and cultural legitimacy that is key here: what are the forces at work that render terrible and sometimes “inhuman” acts to be subjectively rational and legitimate? Part of the answer comes from a regime’s ability to manipulate information and perception—its facility in rationalizing, to make the unthinkable thinkable. This internal logic stems from an exaggeration or amplification of widely internalized stereotypes or common perceptions that already exist; if a general population did not agree at least to some small degree with the ideologies that the state propagates—if the language and imagery of the program did not resonate at some level with preexisting prejudices or hatreds—would those populations permit their governments to commit atrocities in their name? A common thread that ties all mass killing together is that the people who order the killing and many of those who carry it out do so because they are convinced that it is the right thing to do—they believe they are serving the interests of a compelling moral imperative or utilitarian purpose within life’s metanarrative. When asked, for example, why the Guatemalan National Police had kept such meticulous records of people that they had disappeared, tortured, and assassinated over the decades—seven rooms packed ceiling to floor with the written documentation of state-sponsored terror (along with the tedious recorded minutiae of everyday police work)—Carla Villagra´n, one of the lawyers in charge of the recovery of the archives, explained that the police had kept these records because they had been proud of what they were doing. “The police thought during all those years they were doing the correct thing,” she said. “If your job is well done, are you going to destroy the records? Of course not.”7 The Nazi Holocaust’s moral assessor, Hannah Arendt, writes of the “banality of evil” which comes when one sincerely believes that the deaths of many others serve a greater good. This sort of acquiescence can be enthusiastic and active, but it can also be passive and tacit. There are occasions when even the doing of great evil may masquerade behind apparent courage, heroism, and

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passion, but much of the time it rests in simple banality. The good soldier’s excuse of “only following orders” is one example of this, but passive complicity is another. As historian Ian Kershaw has written of German history, in a phrase that has much broader application, “the road to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.”8 To be complicit, one does not have to actively engage in mass murder, but simply allow it to happen: indifference is a profoundly political (in)action. To some extent, a level of culpability extends even to those whose knowledge of atrocities is based only on incomplete information, suspicion, and unsubstantiated rumor, although their complicity is less venal than that of others who are more directly engaged. In writing of Argentina’s “Dirty War,” Susana Kaiser notes that in describing a society “convulsed” by terror, ordinary people who are not directly involved in the violence “neither have any participation or responsibility, nor . . . accountability. Moreover, this explanation does not call for the evaluation of the role played by large sectors of society that, either from fear, ignorance, or convenience, remained witting bystanders but not protagonists.”9 In Guatemala, the U.S. government, the media, foreign evangelicals, and many Guatemalans who lived in the cities and outside the main zones of violence all succumbed to a common banality that binds them to people in other places and times who have elected to avert their collective eyes. Such a response is clearly self-serving, but it is also fairly universal, and it begs hard questions that need to be asked fearlessly and answered truthfully, at least where answers are possible. The first of these questions has to do not so much with the violence of counterinsurgency as with the legitimacy of counterinsurgency in and of itself. As a matter of established international jurisprudence, governments have the absolute legal right to defend themselves; in fact, if there is a social contract, they have the obligation to do so. Although few would argue that the post-1954 Guatemalan government was legitimate in a democratic sense, most would concur with the idea that it did have the right to defend itself against an armed movement that expressly sought to destroy it, as was the guerrillas’ specific and oft-repeated objective. (On the other hand, although some would disagree with their use of force of arms, most legal scholars would agree that under the stillintact Enlightenment-era notion of the social contract, political dissidents also have a right to rebel against a government they consider to be illegitimate.) The theory behind a government’s right to self-defense is a legal theory known as raison d’e´tat. Of this, Hannah Arendt writes, “According to that theory, the actors of the state, which is responsible for the life of the country and thus also for the laws obtaining it, are not subject to the same rules as the citizens of that country. Just as the rule of law, although devised to eliminate

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violence and the war of all against all, always stands in need of the instruments of violence in order to assume its own existence, so a government may find itself compelled to commit acts that are generally regarded as crimes in order to assure its own survival and the survival of lawfulness.”10 The issue of assurance of survival brings us directly to the question of state-sponsored violence. In our specific case, Rı´os Montt set into motion the forces that would eventually bring an end to the armed conflict: transition to civilian government in 1986, gradual demilitarization, peace talks, and eventually the expansive, if not always implemented, peace accords signed in December 1996. Could such a thing have happened had the guerrillas not been so decimated in the scorched-earth campaign? Might it be possible—and this is a question that, for some, still hangs in the air within Guatemala— that the Guatemalan military’s exertion of power in extremis, in the end, actually served some sort of public good? Did the military’s decisive strike in the early 1980s make it possible to start the process that finally brought a close to what had seemed to be a war without end? (This is the kind of thinking that one might also apply to other cases, such as the United States dropping not just one, but two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945; victory and vengeance share porous boundaries.) Was victory at any cost bought at too high a price? Or was peace, after more than three decades of struggle, the elusive pearl of great price? To answer such questions, we need to examine the use of extreme violence on the part of government to defend itself and the larger interests it represented. Colonel Prudencio Garcı´a, a Spanish military officer who served as a consultant to the United Nations in investigating human rights charges against the Guatemalan army, underscores this point, noting that it is both the duty and the obligation of the military to protect the interests of the state, but that the military must also recognize the limitations of these imperatives and place moral self-limitations (autolimitaciones moral) on its own power. This exercise in self-restraint, Garcı´a argues, is virtually absent and even impossible in totalitarian societies and authoritarian states such as Guatemala.11 In the case of Guatemala, then, assuming that the URNG did indeed, as it claimed, represent a clear and compelling threat to the existence of the Guatemalan state, was the government then justified in “committing acts generally regarded as crimes in order to assure its own survival and the survival of lawfulness”? Where are the limits of that privilege? Do such limits exist at all? Was, then, General Humberto Mejı´a Vı´ctores correct when he mused, “Isn’t the killing of three hundred, five hundred Indians worth it to save the country?”12 Disregarding for the moment that Mejı´a was understating the number of people killed (using the CEH figures) by around 400 percent, let

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us assume for the sake of argument that a Cuban-style government of the type the URNG would have liked to impose was not at all in Guatemala’s best interests. Even so, what exactly was being saved here? A country caught up in an endless cycle of violence, poverty, and injustice? A brutal, venal, and completely nonrepresentative government? Military privilege? A capitalist system that mainly benefited only a small minority of the nation’s citizens? A “Guatemalan way of life” that even Rı´os Montt himself found ample grounds to criticize? A minor U.S. satellite state? Coffee and tourism? By the same token, what other options for change existed on the horizon—Guatemala’s history was already littered with the detritus of failed reforms and experiments in democracy, some destroyed by powerful interests and others that simply collapsed under their own weight. If Marxist revolution were not the perfect solution, it nonetheless seemed to some (though not all), perhaps, the only possible option. On the other hand, what if, conversely, the URNG did not represent a clear and compelling threat to the existence of the state, a claim that the army and the Guatemalan government repeatedly asserted? One line of reasoning that follows from this question leads us directly down the path of interpretation of the textbook definition of genocide at its most precise: the government killed the Maya out of sheer racism, to solve the Indian problem once and for all. This interpretation is elegant in its simplicity and is redolent with Guatemala’s profoundly racist history; it also forms the basis for many of Guatemala’s progressive political movements today. A different interpretive path, however, leads to lacunae of other questions. Given the well-understood constellation of contradictions of race, class, power, and history in Guatemala, what exactly did the regime’s opponents expect to happen when they took up arms against it, especially after they included the nation’s most historically repressed subaltern sectors into that struggle? What, then, of the URNG’s association with and co-optation of grassroots church groups and political movements such as the CUC and, most of all, the incorporation of indigenous people into the struggle that brought down hellfire upon them? In Mayan religious cosmovision, there are celestial intersections where ideas and destinies meet, where the cross is a symbol not of the death of Christ but of the sacred crossroads of the Milky Way. By the early 1980s, did the URNG believe that it had positioned itself in the critical intersection of race and politics, the crossroads of the Milky Way, where all the universe comes together? Could anyone with a clear understanding of Guatemala’s historic patterns of race and class relations have thought it possible that such a challenge would not be met by overwhelming force? Was it possible to anticipate that the repression of the popular movements would

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come at a level entirely unprecedented even in Guatemala’s violent history? Did they believe that they lived in a prophetic and historic moment where victory might really be within reach, even at a price? And yet—what other alternatives were out there? For many, especially those intellectuals who came to embrace the revolution, it was not so much that the option of armed struggle was so attractive but rather that it seemed virtually unavoidable. Global forces largely unrelated to Guatemala had brought its one brief experience of democracy and meaningful reform— the Ten Years of Spring—to a premature and needless end, setting off a catastrophic death spiral of brutality, bloodshed, and exploitation that no moderate developmentalist economic or political program could resolve. Without revolution—that is to say, a complete break of some sort with the status quo—Guatemala seemed destined to languish forever in a purgatory of gross injustice, poverty, and inequality. For Guatemalans who knew their history, it seemed clear that all other options were already exhausted or extinguished completely. The language and ideological constructs of the Cold War offer easy explications of these issues. The Cold War binary was precisely this, and not only in Guatemala: a Marxist armed insurgency, backed by Cuba and its patron, the Soviet Union, sought to overthrow a capitalist and (potentially) democratic government supported by the United States. This struggle was a zero-sum game, with clear winners and losers; victories and defeats on either side upset the balance of (geopolitical nuclear) power between the United States and the USSR. As such, each and every armed conflict such as Guatemala’s was simultaneously local and global, specific and general, a simulacrum of the contest between the two great superpowers. Although many postmodern scholars now frame the Cold War as a discursive rationale for the accumulation of power and resources on the part of global elites (especially the capitalist elites who won it), at the time many of its fiercest proponents were not clued into the rules of the Great Game, at least not the metanarrative. For many activists on both sides, especially at the local and regional levels, the Cold War struggles represented the hope for an optimal life, and they took its threats and promises completely at face value. Many people on either side willingly or unwillingly gave their own lives for these beliefs; for them, this was no reified struggle. For this reason, it is important that we continue to examine Cold War politics in a place like Guatemala on their own terms and in their own words, as well as through a more sophisticated, if distant, interpretive lens. But when we do so, a looming question arises, not only for Guatemala but also for many countries in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere: how

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and why did the war on communism become a dirty war? It is ethically simple to justify a government’s attempts to defend its power and the dominant economic system, but less so to justify extreme criminality or immorality in the effort to do so. This is obviously not a problem that is exclusive to Guatemala. Jean Franco and many others have suggested that the Cold War was simply a martial expression of capitalism’s expansion (with “communists” broadly defined as any person or group that hindered that expansion), framed in a persuasive ideological discourse (much as the wars of Reformation were about capitalism’s expansion, but framed in a religious discourse).13 Yet more recent history shows us that, if capitalism is a highly virulent contagion, it finds willing hosts even in places—indeed, especially in places, as we see in Russia and (most of all) China—where there was once a strong ideological cordon sanitaire against it. If capitalism, for better or worse, is as resilient as it would appear to be—to invert Marx, perhaps even a historical inevitability, this again begs the question: why did Guatemala’s Cold War turn so dirty? This brings us, obviously, to the issue of power. As unlikely a twosome as Karl Marx and Jeane Kirkpatrick have, along with many others, pointed out that neither people nor entities, least of all governments, are willing to cede power without duress, and this is as true of the Guatemalan government as anyone else. Indeed, should they have? Did the guerrillas speak for all the Guatemalan people? Did the government? In both cases, the answer is a qualified no. Although it is clear that while the guerrillas spoke for more people than some may once have thought, they by no means represented the interests of all or even the majority of Guatemalans, whose long-deferred dreams of a better government did not include a Cuban-style socialist state. Nevertheless, the guerrillas’ challenge was a real one, as, by the late 1970s and early 1980s, they genuinely threatened not so much to take power as to harness it, through the incorporation of popular groups into the Left—not just the usual suspects of organized labor, students, and ladino campesinos—but also church people and, most important, the heretofore apolitical (a term that was not entirely accurate, as we have seen) rural Mayan population. As the weight of the pendulum swung toward them, the reaction, predictably, was extreme. Again, the severity of the government’s response was hardly unique to Guatemala: no less an expert in the matter than Michel Foucault reminds us that we should always look for “power at the extreme of its exercise, where it is always less legal in character.”14 What is unique to the Guatemalan case, however, is how institutional violence, originally used to reinforce the state’s power through the use of Cold War ideology, became divorced from that power in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By that time, violence became a political and social commodity in its own right, reducing Guatemala’s diverse

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heritage to what Robert Carmack and Sheldon Davis once termed a “harvest of violence.”15 During the 1960s, the struggle for Guatemala reflected two competing moral as well as political discourses: one was to mold Guatemala into a socialist ideal, the other to defend the nation at any cost against the perils of communism. Both ideologies, in their own ways, laid claims to moral legitimacy. By the late 1970s, however, the army’s use of extreme violence had almost completely eroded the moral core of its war against communism. Under Lucas, unbridled violence spun out of control into a self-propelled force majeur, which threatened to suck not only the state’s enemies but even the state itself into its maw. It was not until Rı´os Montt assumed office in 1982 that violence and state power became ideologically reunited; that is to say, he successfully channeled violence to advance the interests of the nation-state rather than to allow the government’s extreme use of violence to swing like a counterweight against itself. It fell to Rı´os Montt, then, to restore a moral core to counterinsurgency. His dark genius lay in his ability to manipulate violence, images, and language in such as way as to reinvent them to serve the interests of the state, his New Guatemala. As a military matter, Rı´os Montt’s scorched-earth campaign accomplished its two key objectives: to defeat the guerrillas in the field, and also to seize from them their claims to moral authority (the promise of a Marxist utopia)—the process that “convert[ed] revolutionaries into subversives and transgressors.”16 The military accomplished this first task through the outright physical destruction of the guerrillas and their base of support, but the second—the reinvention of Guatemala’s moral universe—remained Rı´os Montt’s task alone. This he effected through an adept manipulation and reinvention of symbols and ideological space—the fact that much of his new symbolic universe was idiosyncratic and internally contradictory did not seem to matter much at the time. His was a moral discourse of a sort that built for him both political and cultural legitimacy. His use of evangelical language and the Sunday sermons are the most obvious evidence of this, but the discourse, in fact, ran much deeper, touching on themes of Guatemalans’ deeply rooted insecurities about race, nationalism, status, and identity. To some extent, there is nothing particularly original about this: Gramsci, of course, described how elites who control the “ideological sectors” of society “engineer consent” for their rule.17 What is unique to this case is that Rı´os Montt’s challenge, though not entirely shared by his elite cohort (and which ultimately resulted in his ouster from office, once the hard job of razing the insurgency was done with), was to reengineer consent for the Guatemalan state by promoting a complete symbolic universe for a New Guatemala created almost entirely from his own imagination of what the nation should be. For a single historic

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moment, Rı´os Montt—terror and unparalleled violence notwithstanding— won the battle of hearts and minds. Someone—his or her name now lost in the mist—once remarked, “Genocide cannot be perpetuated without popular support.” This thought brings us full circle in our discussion of violence in Guatemala, for Rı´os Montt’s program was only as successful as the Guatemalan public and the rest of the world allowed it to be. This by no means suggests an effort to blame the regime’s victims, or even those who were tacitly complicit with it. James Scott rightly cautions us that when observing political acquiescence, “one may claim that the exploited group accepts its situation as a normal, even justifiable part of the social order. This explanation of passivity assumes at least a fatalistic acceptance of that social order and perhaps even an active complicity—both of which Marxists might call ‘mystification’ or ‘false consciousness.’” Scott continues, “It typically rests on the assumption that elites dominate not only the physical means of production but the symbolic means of production as well—and that this symbolic hegemony allows them to control the very standards by which the rule is evaluated.”18 While this explanation goes a long way to helping us understand the dynamics of ideological submission, it also lets people off the hook. It is clearly the case, and not only in Guatemala, that ordinary people can become so overwhelmed by symbolic hegemony that they are, in Scott’s words, “unable to think their way free.”19 On the other hand, there are also many others who willingly and mindfully embrace authoritarian regimes because they value and appreciate certain dividends that the regime seems to, or actually does, offer: safety, security, and orderliness, for example. In his immense study of Spain’s Generalissimo Francisco Franco, historian Paul Preston proffers this observation that might just as readily describe Guatemala City during the Rı´os Montt era: “The regime’s primordial objectives of eliminating the class struggle and silencing left-wing . . . protests could, in the eyes of its supporters at least be measured in terms of quiet, trouble-free streets in the major cities. In addition, the external publicity value of an apparently soporific public order . . . was enormous.”20 In Guatemala, citizens were willing to give up enormous amounts of civil liberty (and especially to permit other citizens to give up theirs) in return for a perception of individual security and safety. Note that it was the perception of safety that was paramount, whether or not it reflected actual reality. This transparent self-interest is, of course, hardly unique to urban Guatemalans in the early 1980s. As Richard Turits shows in his study of the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic, ambivalence and contradictory sentiments about state repression are quite common, perhaps even the norm, among people who live under

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authoritarian regimes.21 Over the short run, at the very least, ego trumps the bien comu´n. The role that this kind of individual self-interest plays serves to illustrate one final point of this essay. In their studies of dictatorial societies, scholars such as Hannah Arendt and Zbigniew Brzezinski (who was a noted political scientist before he became Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor) judged regimes such as the Nazis and the Soviets under Stalin, not the people who lived under them, to be responsible for genocide and large-scale abuses of human rights, arguing that terror and coercion are essential features of abusive states.22 But the recent efforts of a new generation of European historians who have systematically pored through previously neglected or heretofore unavailable archival materials (secret police and police files, court and party records and oral history interviews with people who are nearing the end of life and have something to get off their chests) vigorously challenge this view. Their work provides a fundamentally new view of how ordinary people viewed even some of the most notorious regimes of the twentieth century. This new work stresses consent and complicity over coercion and fear.23 One such historian, Eric A. Johnson, concludes that the Nazi rise to power and the advance of National Socialism took place not so much because of political manipulation and coercion but because of this simple truth: “Hitler and his ideology,” he writes, “had widespread support from the German population.”24 “Many Germans,” Johnson continues, “were quick to accept the new situation and concerned themselves only with their own private lives and tended not to think about what was happening to the Jews.”25 “It is also evident,” he later notes, “that many Germans did not want to know what was being done to the Jews. Either it did not interest them or they wanted to suppress it from their consciousness. All too often, they were too involved in their own lives and worries, and they became blind to the suffering of the Jews and deceived themselves about their fate.”26 The comparison here—one hopes this is painfully obvious—is not between Hitler and Rı´os Montt, which would be wrong and woefully overblown, but simply to point up the similarities of what happens when blind self-interest (the sort of capillary-level motivation for personal selfishness that is so integral to human nature that Catholics refer to it as original sin) and willful ignorance collide. Outside of the zones of conflict, if we can believe our sources to any extent (and recognizing the very real limitations of taking newspapers, polls, and face-to-face interviews at face value in such a context), many Guatemalans, at some level, supported and believed in the Rı´os Montt regime. In a contest of conflicting and competing moral claims—for a Marxist utopia or a world free from the plague of communism—it was Rı´os Montt’s

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Pentecostalized vision of a New Guatemala that, temporarily at least, carried the day. Many Guatemalans, especially urban dwellers and ladinos who could disengage with the rural violence, seem to have taken Rı´os Montt exactly at his word, believing that he had brought the nation back from the brink of oblivion, and that he offered his people the nonfungible currency of citizenship: a restored sense of safety, security, and a purposeful sense of national identity. To use Rı´os Montt’s own language, he offered nothing less than redemption. That the cost was the deaths of leftists, radical Catholics, and Mayans—problematic sectors all, with whom old prejudices and mistrust already resided— was, for many Guatemalans, not at all too high a price to pay for the New Guatemala. This, of course, was true for the military, the planter class, and the industrial elites who benefited directly from a stable, pro-capitalist government and who could not tolerate the sort of political upheaval that added up to the “poor investment climate” that Guatemala had become by the late 1970s and Lucas-era 1980s. But it was also true for many middle- and lower-class Guatemalans of the post-Arbenz generation, whose political and social formation had developed within the milieu of fear, coercion, blinkered thinking, and enforced acquiescence that defined the 1960s and 1970s. Within this repressed, fed-up, defensive, and hard-shelled mind-set, Rı´os Montt’s program simply made sense. William Shulz, the former director of Amnesty International USA and a long observer of such relationships, makes this point. “Human rights violators are not born, but made,” he observes. “It’s a combination of social context, leadership, and political opportunity that often leads people astray.”27 This is not to place blame where it does not belong. In any situation where a government massively abuses the rights of its own citizens, culpability and blame belong firmly at the feet of the perpetrators: the leader or leaders of that government. But not every citizen is a victim, even when many are. Those who are complicit—those who are willing to be led astray, both citizens and interested outsiders—or who, especially, condone outright a government’s willingness to commit atrocities, must also be willing to accept some small share of responsibility for what happens “in the name of the people.”

Notes

PREFACE

1. Marta Zambrano, “Introduccio´n: El pasado como polı´tica de la Historia,” in Cristo´bal Gnecco and Marta Zambrano, eds., Memorias hegemo´nicas, memorias disidentes: el pasado como polı´tica de la Historia (Cauca, Colombia: Instituto Colombiano de Antropologı´a e Historia, 2000), pp. 17–18. 2. Arturo Taracena Arriola, ed., Etnicidad, estado, y nacio´n en Guatemala, 1808–1944 y 1944–1985, vols. 1 and 2 (Antigua: CIRMA, 2004); and Richard N. Adams and Santiago Bastos, Las relaciones E´tnicas en Guatemala, 1944–2000: una sı´ntesis (Antigua: CIRMA, 2004). 3. Daniel Wilkinson, Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002). 4. Diane Nelson, A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). 5. See, for example, Demetrio Cojti Cuxil, Ri Maya Moloj pa Iximuleu: El movimiento maya (en Guatemala) (Guatemala: IWGIA-Cholsamaj, 1997); Gaspar Pedro Gonza´lez, La otra cara (Guatemala: CEDIGUAT, 1992); see also Edward T. Fischer and Robert McKenna Brown, eds., Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); and Victor Montejo, Maya Intellectual Renaissance: Identity, Representation, and Leadership (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005). 6. Arturo Arias, ed., The Rigoberta Menchu´ Controversy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2001); see also Arturo Arias, Taking Their Word: Literature and the Signs of Central America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), chapters 4–7. 7. James Joyce, Dubliners, as cited in Lisa Belkin, “The Trials of My Babysitter,” New York Times Magazine, January 7, 2007, p. 40.

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8. Linda Green, Fear as a Way of Life: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 68–69. 9. The process of “recovering” history has been, as one might expect, highly contested, even, or perhaps especially, among North American scholars. A good example of the level of contestation over “correct interpretation” can be seen in chapter 7 of Victoria Sanford’s book Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala (New York: Palgrave, 2003), in which she devastatingly dismantles the work of David Stoll and Yvon Le Bot for their assertions, based on their own fieldwork, that many indigenous people were unwittingly caught “between two armies” and suffered grievously as a result during the violence due in part to the guerrillas’ willingness to put them in harm’s way. See also David Stoll, Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); Yvon Le Bot, La guerre en terre maya: commune, violence et modernitee´ au Guatemala (1970–1992) (Paris: Kathala, 1992). 10. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983). 11. See Nicola King, Memory, Narrative and Identity: Remembering the Self (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), pp. 11–14. 12. Ranajit Guha, “The Prose of Counterinsurgency,” in Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Spivak, eds., Selected Subaltern Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 72. 13. Ranajit Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies II: Writings on South Asian History and Society (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983). 14. Walter Benjamin, “Tesis sobre filosofı´a de la Historia,” in Para una crı´tica de la violencia (Mexico: Editorial Premia, 1982); Sergio Tischler Visquerro, Memoria, tiempo y sujeto (Puebla: Instituto e Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de la Beneme´rita Universidad Auto´noma de Puebla, 2005). 15. I am borrowing Steve J. Stern’s paraphrase of Nora in Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory and Struggles in Pinochet’s Chile, 1973–1988 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), p. xxxvii. Nora’s most well-known work includes his seven-volume study, Les lieux de me´moire (Paris: Gallimard, 1984). 16. Stern, Battling for Hearts, p. xxviii. 17. Ibid., p. xxxviii. 18. Indra is a Vedic name, but the image occurs in the Avatamsaka Sutra within Chinese Buddhism. It posits a heaven across which is spread a net of infinite proportions, and set in each eye of the net is a jewel, a jewel so brilliant that it reflects every other jewel in the celestial net, and more than that, every reflection in every other jewel in the net. The image suggests a cosmos in which all things are infinitely interrelated.

CHAPTER

1

1. Jon Sobrino, cited in Virgil Elizondo, ed., The Way of the Cross: The Passion of Christ in the Americas, trans. John Dury (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992), p. 97.

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2. Robert G. Moeller, “War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany,” American Historical Review, 101, no. 4 (1996): 1008–1048. 3. For more on this topic, see Homi K. Bhaba, ed., Nation and Narration (London: Routledge Press, 1990). 4. Martha Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), p. 76. 5. David E. Lorey and William H. Beezley, “Introduction,” in Genocide, Collective Violence and Popular Memory: The Politics of Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002), p. xiii. 6. Greg Grandin and Thomas Miller Klubock, “Editors’ Introduction: Truth Commissions: State Terror, History and Memory,” Radical History Review (Winter 2007): 6. 7. Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala (ODHAG), Never Again: Recovery of the Historical Memory Project, the Official Report of the Human Rights Office, Archdiocese of Guatemala (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), p. xxxiii. This is the single-volume English language summary of the four-volume, ODHAG, Recuperacio´n de la memoria histo´rica (REMHI) (Guatemala: ODHAG, 1999). REMHI collected testimony on 4,042 victims. 8. Comisio´n para la Esclarecimiento Histo´rico (CEH), Memoria del silencio: Tz’inil na’tab’al (Guatemala: CEH, 1998); Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala, Informe: Proyecto Interdiocesano de la Recuperacio´n de la Memoria Histo´rica (Guatemala: ODHAG, 1998), vols. 1–4. (This latter source is popularly known as and is hereinafter cited as REMHI.) 9. See REMHI, “Table 2: Massacres Distributed by Year and Department,” in Never Again, p. 303. 10. Patrick Ball, Paul Kobrak, and Herbert F. Spirer, State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996: A Quantitative Reflection (Washington, DC: AAAS, 1999), p. 24. The CEH reported 200,000 as an estimate, based on a 6.7 percent multiplier for 29,830 documented deaths. See David Stoll, “Strategic Essentialism, Scholarly Inflation and Political Litmus Tests: The Moral Economy of Hyping the Contemporary Mayas,” in Stacy Lathrop and Gabriela Vargas-Centinela, eds., The Anthropology of Representation (Los Angeles: University of California Press, forthcoming). 11. Xavi Albesa, Amarga ma´scara (Guatemala: Editorial Imprenta El Centro, 1998), p. 15. 12. The CEH argues for these figures thusly: “With the outbreak of the internal armed confrontation in 1962, Guatemala entered a tragic and devastating stage of its history, with enormous human, material and moral cost. In the documentation of human rights violations and acts of violence connected with the armed confrontation, the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) registered a total of 42,275 victims, including men, women and children. Of these, 23,671 were victims of arbitrary execution and 6,159 were victims of forced disappearance. Eighty-three percent of fully identified victims were Mayan and seventeen percent were ladino. Combining this data with the results of other studies of political violence in Guatemala, the CEH

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estimates that the number of persons killed or disappeared as a result of the fratricidal confrontation reached a total of over 200,000” (http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/ report/english/conc1.html). 13. In her book on the Guatemalan military, Jennifer Schirmer, for example, estimates the number of dead at 75,000. See Jennifer Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), p. 1. 14. The CIIDH human rights database provides documentation for only 37,255 killings but notes that “this number represents only a fraction of the deaths attributable to the Guatemalan State during the years of the armed conflict. Documentary sources as well as information not included in this database . . . suggest that the government extra-judicially murdered a much higher number between 1960 and 1996. On the basis of one non-random, non-probabilistic sample, however, we hesitate to estimate total numbers of Guatemalans killed or disappeared during the conflict” (Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996, p. 11, n. 5). 15. Between 1992 and 2003, the Fundacio´n de Antropologı´a Forense de Guatemala (FAFG) exhumed 284 mass gravesites that date from the early 1980s. Of this total, 143 were in the department of El Quiche´. Chimaltenango and Baja Verapaz had the second highest totals, with 43 exhumed sites in each department. Note that these figures do not necessarily represent the total number of mass graves in existence, but only the total of sites exhumed during this period. Fundacio´n de Antropologı´a Forense de Guatemala, Reconocimiento a la memoria de la vı´ctimas del conflicto armado interno, June 2004, pamphlet, unnumbered pages. 16. The word ladino is deeply contested, as it can be both a cultural definition (i.e., an indigenous person who abandons an indigenous lifestyle) and a form of ethnic identity, that is, referring to a person who is biologically of mixed indigenous and European descent. I am using the term here in an unproblematized way simply to mean anyone who does not self-identify as indigenous. For a full discussion of such issues, see Charles R. Hale, Ma´s que un Indio/More Than an Indian: Racial Ambivalence and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Guatemala (Santa Fe, NM: American School for Social Research, 2006). 17. The word comes from the grandmother of Presbyterian pastor and Mayan activist Antonio Otzoy as she reflected upon the implications of the violence for the Mayan people. I have borrowed this term from Matt Samson, who notes that Kline Taylor has reflected at some length on the notion of “defleshment” in a collaboration in which she worked with Antonio Otzoy. C. Mathews Samson, “Toward a Revolution of the Sun: Protestant Mayan Resistance in Guatemala,” in Nantawan Boon Prasat, ed., Revolution of Spirit: Ecumenical Theology in Global Context (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998). 18. Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996, pp. 3–7. 19. Although ambivalence about the fate of a victim was part of the larger strategy of disappearances—leaving grieving families to wonder if a loved one had been killed or to believe rumors that they had run off with the guerrillas, gone to live abroad, or simply abandoned them—the CIIDH treats unsolved cases of disappearances as

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outright killings, noting that “now that the conflict has ended, survivors hold out little hope that loved ones that remain disappeared survived the government terror” (ibid., p. 7). 20. REMHI, “Impacto de la violencia” [chart], vol. 1, p. xxi. 21. Subaltern studies was started in the 1980s by a group of South Asian scholars who were profoundly influenced by the work of Antonio Gramsci and interested in the postcolonial and postimperial societies of South Asia and the developing world in general. Within Latin American history, the term subaltern studies usually refers to an approach to history done from below, focused more on what happens among the masses at the base levels of society than among the elite. 22. Charles R. Hale, “Consciousness, Violence and the Politics of Memory in Guatemala,” Current Anthropology, 38, no. 5 (1997): 8; Arturo Arias, “Comments,” Current Anthropology, 38, no. 5 (1997): 824. 23. Widow from Malacata´n, San Marcos (REMHI, Nunca ma´s, vol. 1, p. 227). 24. Frederick Crews, The Memory Wars: Freud’s Legacy in Dispute (New York: New York Review Imprints, 1995), cited in King, Memory, Narrative and Identity, p. 12. 25. Rı´os Montt attempted to run as the candidate for the Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (a party he established in the late 1980s) in every presidential election between 1990 and 2003. See “El pecado original que el general Rı´os Montt no ha podido lavar,” Cro´nica, July 20, 1990, pp. 12–16. As a person who had taken power in a coup d’etat, the 1985 constitution expressly prohibited him from running for office, but in July 2003, the judicial assembly overrode the constitution to permit his candidacy. However, in the first round of presidential elections that took place in November 2003, Rı´os Montt came in a distant third, winning only 17 percent of the popular vote and marking, perhaps, the end of his presidential aspirations. See “Guatemalan General Beaten in Polls,” BBC World News, November 11, 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ americas/3256721.stm. 26. Edelberto Torres-Rivas, “La meta´fora de una sociedad que se castiga a sı´ misma,” in CEH, Guatemala: Causas y orı´genes del enfrentamiento armado interno (Guatemala: F&G Editores, 1999), p. xvi. 27. According to this survey, Rı´os Montt carried 19.7 percent, followed by Alvaro Arzu´ at 17.4 percent and Jorge Carpio Nicolle, with 15.9 percent. The other seven candidates all had less than 4 percent of the vote, including Jorge Serrano Elı´as (3.2 percent), who eventually won the election anyway when people began to think of him as a proxy candidate for Rı´os Montt because he was a fellow evangelical. “Las encuentras como arma,” Cro´nica, February 9, 1989, p. 18. 28. “El presidente ideal: cualedades ma´s relevantes que deberı´a tener el presidente ideal,” Cro´nica, April 21, 1989, p. 15. 29. “Elecciones 1995, Guatemala,” Tribunal Supremo Electoral, Memoria de las Elecciones 1990/1991, vol. 1, and Tribunal Supremo Electoral, Memoria Elecciones 1995–96, vol. 2, http://www.idrc.ca/. 30. See Magda Alejandra Menegazzo Amado and Ervin Fidel Us Alvarez, “Violencia institucional y concepciones polı´ticas: la relacio´n entre el gobierno de facto de Efraı´n Rı´os Montt (1982–83) y el proceso de Elecciones Nacionales de 1999 en

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la aldea Las Marı´as, municipalidad de Uspanta´n, El Quiche´,” Tesis de licenciatura, Universidad de San Carlos, 2005, pp. 94–100. Specifically, this study shows that Rı´os Montt and the FRG won 50.8 percent of the popular vote. 31. Stoll, “Strategic Essentialism,” p. 12. 32. Paul Kobrak, Huehuetenango: Historia de una guerra (Huehuetenango: CEDFOG, 2003), p. 78. 33. Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996, p. 41. 34. Stoll, Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala, p. 111. 35. Ibid., p. 94. 36. Ibid. 37. Menegazzo Amado and Us Alvarez, “Violencia institucional y concepciones polı´ticas,” p. 90. 38. “Atacan a pedradas a Rı´os Montt en Rabinal,” Prensa Libre, June 15, 2003. 39. Jeremy Bentham is actually the originator of the idea of the panopticon, a penal building that “incorporates a tower central to an annular building that is divided into cells, each cell extending the entire thickness of the building to allow inner and outer windows. The occupants of the cells . . . are thus backlit, isolated from one another by walls, and subject to scrutiny both collectively and individually by an observer in the tower who remains unseen.” Toward this end, Bentham envisioned not only Venetian blinds on the tower observation ports but also mazelike connections among tower rooms to avoid glints of light or noise that might betray the presence of an observer. Foucault borrowed the image to explain how surveillance, monitoring of one’s neighbors, and seeing-without-being seen are the epitome of asymmetrical power. See Ben F. Barton and Marthalee S. Barton, “Modes of Power in Technical and Professional Visuals,” Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 7, no. 1 (1993): 138–162. 40. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 39. 41. Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996, p. 41. 42. Sheldon Annis, God and Production in a Guatemalan Town (Austin: University of Texas, 1987), pp. 5–6. 43. Madhava Prasad, “On the Question of a Theory of (Third World) Literature,” Social Text, Third World and Post-Colonial Issues, 31/32 (1992): 64. 44. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), pp. 48–49. I am grateful for the insights of Creighton Chandler in his unpublished paper “The Second Front: The Conflict of History, Memory, and Politics in Post-Conflict Guatemala,” May 2005. 45. Miguel Angel Asturias, El problema social del indio y otros textos (Paris: Centre de Recherches de l’Institut d’E´tudes Hispaniques, [1923] 1971). This work, which was Asturias’s thesis at the San Carlos University, is a highly indigenista polemic in which Asturias blames Guatemala’s lack of development on the Indian population’s cultural backwardness as people of “clogged blood.” It shows none of the sensitivity that would appear in Asturias’s later works, such as El Sen˜or Presidente (1949) or, especially, Hombres de Maı´z (1948). A few years after he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1967 (he also won the Lenin Peace Price the previous year), Asturias wrote a new

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introduction to the Parisian edition of El problema social del indio (1971), but he did not use this as an opportunity to repudiate, explain, or reevaluate his youthful work. 46. CEH, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, p. 23. 47. Ibid. 48. Arturo Taracena, ed., Etnicidad, estado y nacio´n en Guatemala, 1808–1944, vol. 1 ˜ an, (Antigua, Guatemala: CIRMA, 2002); see also Marı´a Luisa Cabrera Pe´rez-Armin Violencia y impunidad en comunidades mayas de Guatemala: La masacres de Xama´n desde una perspectiva psicosocial (Guatemala: Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios y Accio´n Psicosocial, 2006). 49. CEH, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, p. 1; see also Victoria Sanford, Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 50. Phillip Berryman, Stubborn Hope: Religion, Politics and Revolution in Central America (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), p. 121. 51. Nelson, A Finger in the Wound, p. 71. 52. See Waqi’ Q’anil (Demetrio Cojtı´), Ub’anik ri una’ooj uchomab’aal ri may’ tinamit: Configuracio´n del pensamiento polı´tico del pueblo maya, part 2 (Guatemala: Editorial Cholsamaj, 1995); see also Centro para la Accio´n Legal en Derechos Humanos, Genocidio, la ma´xima expresio´n del racismo (Guatemala: CALDH, 2004). 53. American anthropologists and U.S.-trained Guatemalan anthropologists, many of whom had lost friends and had seen communities where they had done fieldwork devastated by the violence of the early 1980s, embraced the pan-Mayan movement and did much to help Mayan “organic intellectuals” frame and disseminate their ideas. See Kay B. Warren, Indigenous Movements and Their Critics: Pan-Mayan Activism in Guatemala (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998); Kay B. Warren and Jean E. Jackson, eds., Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation, and the State in Latin America (Austin: University of Texas, 2002); Montejo, Maya Intellectual Renaissance; Edward T. Fischer and R. McKenna Brown, eds., Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala (Institute of Latin American Studies Critical Reflection on Latin America Series. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Victor Ga´lvez Borrell and Alberto Esquit Choy, The Mayan Movement Today: Issues of Indigenous Culture and Development in Guatemala (Guatemala City: FLACSO, 1997). The movement also came along at a time when anthropology was reinventing itself as a discipline, from the old structural-functionalist model involving the etic study of subjects to a highly theoretical postmodern realm in which anthropologist and subject mutually interact from their own positionalities and subjectivities. See Nelson, A Finger in the Wound. 54. See Rudolfo Stavenhagen, Derecho indı´gena y derechos humanos en Ame´rica Latina (Mexico: Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, El Colegio de Mexico, 1988). The Mayan movement got its formal start in the mid-1980s, when a group of Mayan intellectuals drew up a template for the reconstruction of Mayan society and to lay out a series of legal demands designed to fully reconfigure the role that Mayan people play in Guatemala’s hierarchy of power. These demands were based upon three principles: (1) the conservation of Mayan culture production, (2) self-representation and self-determination, and (3) the promotion of governmental reform within the framework of Guatemalan and international law. In 1991, the selection of

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Rigoberta Menchu´ Tum for the Nobel Peace Prize gave the movement momentum and international attention, although Menchu´ did not consider herself to be an activist in the pan-Mayan movement per se at the time she received the award. The 1996 peace accords clearly reflect the demands of the Mayan movement, particularly regarding the issue of cultural rights. For a clear statement of the Mayan position, see Rajpop’ri Mayab’ Amaq, Consejo de Organizaciones Mayas de Guatemala, Rutz’aqik rutikik qamaya’ xeel: rujunamil ri Mayab’ Amaq pa rub’inib’al runuk’ik re Saqk’aslemal: Construyendo un futuro para nuestro pasado: derechos del pueblo maya y el Proceso de Paz (Guatemala: Editorial Cholsamaj, 1995). 55. See Marta Casau´s Arzu´, Linaje y racismo (San Jose´: FLACSO, 1992). ˜ an, Violencia y impunidad en comunidades mayas de 56. Pe´rez-Armin Guatemala, p. 5. 57. Jean-Marie Simon, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny (New York: Norton, 1987). 58. Nelson, A Finger in the Wound, p. 95. 59. Anonymous interview, July 1983. 60. REMHI, Never Again, p. 140. 61. Yvon Le Bot, La guerre en terre maya (Paris: Kathala, 1992). 62. Stoll, Between Two Armies, p. 91, as cited in Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 304, n. 18. 63. This particular criticism of Stoll’s interpretation became much more vociferous after the publication of his later work on Rigoberta Menchu´, Rigoberta Menchu´ and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), which retrospectively caused many scholars hostile to the Rigoberta book to view Between Two Armies as being much more contrived and polemical than it had appeared to them before. The Rigoberta Menchu´ debate stirred up a firestorm of scholarly controversy about such issues as indigenous voices, ethnicized subjects and agency, the outsider’s gaze, and the imperial (and imperious) eye of academic research, and so on. See Arturo Arias, ed., The Rigoberta Menchu´ Controversy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001); and Arturo Arias, “Forever Menchu´, Part II,” in Taking Their Word: Literature and the Signs of Central America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007); see also David Stoll, introduction to 2nd ed., Rigoberta Menchu´ and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007). 64. Robert M. Carmack, ed., Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians and the Guatemalan Crisis (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), p. 26. See especially Sanford, Buried Secrets, chapter 7. 65. “La primera gran confrontacio´n: el movimiento campesino indı´gena del altiplano guatemalteco, 1984,” Payeras-Colom Collection, Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoame´rica, Antigua Guatemala. 66. Urng.com/gt, January 1997. Some mischief maker apparently pirated the URNG Web site around 2005 and turned it into a site to view teen bondage porn. At this writing the site has yet to be restored. 67. During a sermon held at a Catholic charismatic service in Coba´n, Alta Verapaz, on July 16, 2006, the (indigenous) lay preacher underscored this view. “Don’t you

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remember,” he said, “how it was that when the guerrillas came into our towns, the first thing they would do would be to take away all our means of communication— the radios, telephones, etc. Then they would say to us: ‘The army isn’t coming here anymore! The army has been defeated! The people’s revolution is victorious!’ How many deaths resulted from this? From us not having access to good information?” 68. George Black, Milton Jamail, and Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, Garrison Guatemala (New York: Praeger, 1984), p. 22. 69. Robert McNamara, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (Produced by Erroll Morris, Sony Pictures, 2003). 70. “Rı´os rechaza acusaciones: se declara inocente de genocidio y dice que no se entero´ de desmanes ocurridos en su gobierno,” Prensa Libre, July 13, 2006, pp. 1–2.

CHAPTER

2

1. Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project. 2. Newsweek, December 13, 1982. 3. Sewall Menzel, Dictators, Drugs, and Revolution: Cold War Campaigning in Latin America 1965–1989 (Blomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2006), pp. 11–112. 4. Interview with Harris Whitbeck, July 14, 2005. Whitbeck, who served as Rı´os Montt’s “personal del presidente” in 1982–1983, said, “When we took power, the guerrillas controlled 90 percent of the altiplano. They really did. They absolutely could have taken over. They had a lot of popular support out there. Some of it was coercion, but some of it wasn’t. If the March 23 coup had not taken place, very possibly they would have won the war.” General Hector Gramajo also affirmed the guerrillas’ presence, if not outright control, throughout most of the altiplano in 1982. 5. This phrase comes from Daniel James, Red Design for the Americas (New York: Day Publishers, 1954), which is very much a historiographical relic from the Cold War. 6. Menzel, Dictators, Drugs, and Revolution, p. 80. 7. According to a 1967 article in the journal Revolucı´on Socialista, the uprising involved 120 officers, of whom 56 percent were lower ranking. CEH, Guatemala: Causas y orı´genes del enfrentamiento armado interno (Guatemala: F&G Editores, 2000), p. 56; see also Jorge Antonio Ortega Gayta´n, Los kaibiles (Guatemala: Biblioteca de Estudios Militares, 2003), pp. 31–32. 8. Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, pp. 15–16. 9. See Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes, Carta de Guatemala, April 1965, Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, Taracena-Flores Collection. For a detailed account of the founding, ideology, and alliances of the early guerrilla movement, see Gabriel Edgardo Aguilera Peralta, “La violencia en Guatemala como feno´meno polı´tico,” cuaderno 61 (Cuernavaca: Centro Intercultural de Documentacio´n, 1971). 10. Executive Order 2260 suspended constitutional guarantees and placed the country under a state of siege for thirty days, a condition that was extended indefinitely. (“Ministerio de la Defensa Nacional, Palacio Nacional, Guatemala, 13 de noviembre de

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˜ or Presidente de la Republica, Decreto No. 603,” cited 1960, disposiciones del Sen verbatim in Gayta´n, Los kaibiles, p. 43). 11. For a self-serving Cold Warrior period piece, see Miguel Ydı´goras Fuentes (as told to Mario Rosenthal), My War with Communism (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963). For a more scholarly assessment, see Roland Ebel, Misunderstood Caudillo: Miguel Ydı´goras Fuentes and the Failure of Democracy in Guatemala (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998). 12. These included Manuel Estrada Cabrera, 1898–1920; Jose´ M. Orellana, 1922–1927; La´zaro Chaco´n, 1927–1931; Jorge Ubico, 1931–1944; Federico Ponce, 1944; Jacobo Arbenz, 1950–1954; Carlos Castillo Armas, 1954–1956; and Miguel Ydı´goras Fuentes, 1958–1963. The careful reader will note that the only president that this list does not include is Juan Jose´ Are´valo, 1944–1950. 13. Despite Ydı´goras’s role in the establishment of Guatemala’s counterinsurgency, he was not beloved by the military, especially after he, at the urging of the United States, arranged to have anti-Castro Cubans train at a private finca on the south coast without obtaining the military’s permission or without offering the army any of the payoff for the arrangement. Military displeasure against Ydı´goras accounted in large part for the November 13 revolt, which drove the president temporarily to Quezaltenango. The term “assumption of regnancy” comes from Richard N. Adams, Crucifixion by Power: Essays on Guatemalan National Social Structure, 1944–1966 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970), pp. 261–262. 14. CEH, Guatemala: Causas, pp. 68–69. 15. Jose´ Luis Cruz Salazar and Fernando Hoyos, “Postura polı´tica de los oficiales de eje´rcito guatemalteco,” Estudios Sociales (1975): 95, as cited in Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 17. 16. I am intentionally overlooking the administration of civilian Julio Ce´sar Me´ndez Montenegro, who served as president of Guatemala 1966–1970, because of the military’s de facto control of power during his term of office. 17. See: Constitucio´n de la Repu´blica de Guatemala (Guatemala: Tipografı´a Nacional, 1965); Hector Alejandro Gramajo Morales, De la guerra . . . a la guerra: la difı´cil transicio´n polı´tica en Guatemala (Guatemala: Fondo de Cultura Cultural, 1995), pp. 100–101; see also Pedro Zamora Castellanos, Vida militar de Centro Ame´rica, vols. 1 and 2 (Guatemala: Editorial del Eje´rcito, 1966). 18. Torres-Rivas and Aguilera-Peralta describe a double rationale as such: “una transformacio´n de la autoimagen de las fuerzas armadas, que desarrollaron un propio concepto de sus status y de sus funciones de el interior del Estado y en las relaciones con la sociedad. Y, una derivacio´n fatal, dotarlos de un instrumental te´cnico y conceptual claramente orientado al control, la vigilancia y la represio´n de la poblacio´n, en cuyo interior habitada ‘un enemigo’ gene´rico. Se supone, de ese manera, una condicio´n be´lico autodefinido y una identificacio´n del contrincante en te´rminos ideolo´gicos.” Edelberto Torres-Rivas and Gabriel Aguilera, Del autoritarismo a la paz (Guatemala: FLACSCO, 1998), p. 33. 19. The DNS, known formally as the Doctrine of National Security and Development, originated in Brazil when the military government took over in 1964

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and formed a major part of the anti-Soviet strategy of the United States in Latin America. Its three main components included a geopolitical analysis of global warfare in the nuclear age, a theory of the internal enemy, and a model of economic development combined with security. Maria Helen Moreira Alves, “Cultures of Fear, Cultures of Resistance: The New Labor Movement in Brazil,” in Juan Corradi, Patricia Weiss Fagan, and Manuel Antonio Garreto´n, eds., Fear at the Edge: State Terror and Resistance in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 187. 20. George Black, “Introduction,” in Mario Payeras, Days of the Jungle: The Testimony of a Guatemalan Guerrillero (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), p. 9. 21. Arturo Arias, “El movimiento indı´gena en Guatemala, 1970–1983,” in Daniel Camacho and Rafael Menjı´var, eds., Movimientos populares en centroame´rica (San Jose´: FLACSO, 1985), p. 71; see also Timothy Wickam-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since 1956 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 80–83; George Black, Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, and Milton Jamail, Garrison Guatemala (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984), p. 22. 22. See National Security Archives (NSA) Electronic Briefing Bulletin document #11. (Please note that there are two separate sources for the National Security Archives, including the online resources cited here, found at http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/, and the complete archive of Guatemalan documents, which includes many more documents than are available online. This work uses both, as indicated in subsequent notes.) 23. NSA Electronic Archive Briefing Book #11, document #12. 24. Jorge Tapia Valde´s, “La doctrina de seguridad nacional e el rol polı´tico de las fuerzas armadas,” in Juan Carlos Rubenstein, ed., El Estado Perife´rico Latinoamericano (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, Tercer Mundo Editorial, 1981), p. 246. 25. CEH, “Lista de organizaciones paramilitares anticomunistas (1962–1981),” Guatemala: Causas, p. 227. 26. See Carlos Figueroa Ibarra, “Los que siempre estara´n en ninguna parta: la desaparicio´n forzada en Guatemala” (Mexico: GAM/CIIDH, 1999), p. 142. For an insider’s view of the ultraright, see Mario Sandoval Alarco´n, Ante la crisis, la unidad nacional (Guatemala: n.p., 1982). 27. “Request for Special Training,” Department of State, secret cable, December 3, 1966, NSA Electronic Archive Briefing Book, #11, document 3. 28. Menzel, Dictators, Drugs, and Revolution, p. 56. 29. Ibid., p. 82. 30. U.S. Department of State, “Guatemala: Counter-Insurgency Running Wild?,” secret intelligence note, October 23, 1967, NSA Electronic Archive Briefing Book, #11, document 4. 31. It is difficult not to take a cynical view of this election. Although Me´ndez considered himself to be a reformer, the military was eager to permit civilian elections in order to comply with the terms of the Alliance for Progress, particularly to garner U.S. military aid to prosecute its war against the FAR and MR-13 guerrillas—then

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numbering approximately 500 combatants—in the eastern departments of Zacapa and Izabal. The Alliance for Progress gave out funding in three categories, military aid, social reform, and economic development, but in countries such as Guatemala where there was the perception of a credible communist threat, military aid was by far the ˜ is, The Alliance That Lost Its Way: highest priority. See Jerome Levinson and Juan de On A Critical Report on the Alliance for Progress (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970); and Nathan Todd, “The Alliance for Progress’ Effect on the Development of Law and the State of Inequality in El Salvador and Costa Rica,” master’s thesis, Latin American Studies, University of Texas, 2003. 32. Sheldon Davis, “State Violence and Agrarian Crisis in Guatemala,” in Martin Diskin, ed., Trouble in Our Own Backyard: Central America and the United States in the Eighties (New York: Pantheon, 1983), p. 162. 33. See Ricardo Falla, “Hacia la Revolucio´n Verde: adopcio´n y dependencia del fertilizante quı´mico en un municipio del Quiche´, Guatemala,” Ame´rica Indı´gena, 32, no. 2 (1972): 437–479. 34. James Painter, Guatemala: False Hope, False Freedom (London: Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1987), p. 13. 35. Jeffrey M. Paige, “Social Theory and Peasant Revolution in Vietnam and Guatemala,” Theory and Society, 12, no. 6 (1983), p. 728. 36. Secretarı´a General del Consejo Nacional de Planificacio´n Econo´mica (SEGEPLAN), “Guatemala: Poblacio´n censada y proyectada, 1950–2025,” in Guatemala: Indicadores Sociodemogra´ficos, no. 1 (Guatemala: Cuadernos de la SEGEPLAN, 1991), p. 3. 37. The population of Guatemala City in 1950 was 438,913; in 1981 it was 1,311,192. In terms of relative population density, the number of inhabitants per square kilometer was 206:1 in 1950. By 1981, the number of inhabitants per square kilometer had tripled to 617:1. “Guatemala: densidad poblacional por regio´n y departamento segu´n censos de poblacio´n,” cuadro 19, SEGEPLAN, p. 41. 38. Direccio´n General de Estadı´stica, Guatemala: Estimaciones y proyecciones de poblacio´n 1950–2025 (Guatemala: Agencia Canadiense para la Desarrollo Internacional, 1985), p. 45; see also Richard N. Adams, “Indian Population of Guatemala, Table 2-17,” in Crucifixion by Power, p. 158. 39. The first government-sponsored project to colonize the Pete´n was under Are´valo, who initiated a project in Poptu´n in 1945 that failed, due to bad communications and malaria. The project was revived in 1963 by General Peralta Azurdia and then codified into the National Development Plan for 1965–1969. Peter Calvert, Guatemala: A Nation in Turmoil (Boulder, CO: Westview Profiles, 1985), p. 150. 40. CEH, Guatemala: Causas, p. 75. By the late 1970s, USAID had invested $23 million in the Guatemalan cooperative movement. See Julio Castellanos Cambranes, 500 an˜os de lucha por la tierra, vol. 2 (Guatemala: FLACSO, 1992), p. 15, as cited in CEH, Guatemala: Causas, p. 75. 41. Albesa, Amarga ma´scara, p. 13. 42. REMHI, Memoria de Ixca´n: tierra guerra y esperanza, 1966–1992 (Santa Cruz del Quiche´: Dio´cesis de El Quiche´, 2000), p. 25. The moshavim plan is different from a

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kibbutz in its specific design: twenty-four parcels around a center, where community services and activities take place, and four squares of communal land. 43. REMHI, Memoria de Ixca´n, p. 25. 44. For example, General Romeo Lucas Garcı´a owned at least five fincas totaling 311 caballerı´a of land in the Transversal del Norte and the Pete´n. Although he inherited some of this land from his father, he acquired the rest through his connection with the army. Ricardo Falla, “Chisec: Tierras, caminos y petroleo en la FTN),” unpublished paper, April 1980, p. 35 (Centro Ak’Kutan). 45. “Los militares no debemos ser instrumento de la iniciativa privada, sino sus socios.” Arias, “El movimiento indı´gena en Guatemala,” p. 71. 46. Falla, “Chisec,” pp. 66–70. 47. These figures come from a USAID study cited in Sheldon H. Davis and Julie Hodson, Witness to Political Violence in Guatemala: The Suppression of a Rural Development Movement (New York: Oxfam, 1983), p. 14. 48. See Artimus Millet, “The Agricultural Colonization of the West Central Pete´n Guatemala: A Case Study of Frontier Settlements by Cooperatives,” PhD dissertation, University of Oregon, 1971. See also Guy M. Lawson, “Flowers from the Ash: The Communities of Population in Resistance and the Process of Reintegration in the Ixca´n Jungle of Guatemala,” master of science thesis, University of Texas, 1995; and Juanita Sundberg, “A History of Colonization Projects in Guatemala’s Tropical Lowlands,” unpublished paper, May 1993. For the Ixca´n, see James A. Morrissey, “A Missionary Directed Resettlement Project among the Highland Maya of Western Guatemala,” PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1978. 49. For an early, insightful view of a colonization project in the Ixca´n, see Beatriz Manz, “The Transformation of La Esperanza, an Ixca´n Village,” in Carmack, ed., Harvest of Violence, pp. 70–89. 50. Ja C’Amabal I’b (1986), cited in Arturo Arias, “Revisiting the Guatemalan Genocide: Crisis of the Ladino Left, Pyrrhic Victory of the ‘Maya Populares,’” unpublished paper presented at “What’s Left of the Left: 40 Years after 1968,” conference, University of Texas, Austin, April 2008. 51. Torres-Rivas and Aguilera Peralta, Del autoritarismo a la paz, p. 64. 52. Direccio´n General de Estadı´stica, Guatemala: Estimaciones y proyecciones de poblacio´n 1950–2025 (Guatemala: Agencia Canadiense para la Desarrollo Internacional, 1985), p. 45. 53. In total, there were four major guerrilla groups by 1980, when they all united under a single umbrella known as the Unidad Revolucionaro Nacional Guatemalteco (URNG). The four groups were the EGP, ORPA, and the Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR). The FAR’s roots went back to the 1960s, but when it reorganized in the late 1970s, it followed the lead of the EGP and ORPA in adopting a more pro-indigenous orientation. The other major guerrilla group was the older ˜ os del Eje´rcito Guerrillero PGT, which dated from the Are´valo-Arbenz era. “Diez an de los Pobres,” Compan˜ero, no. 5, January 1982, p. 3. See also “Guerrilleros ataquen ˜ as del Quiche´, en selvas de El Quiche´, Huehue. y en las Montan ˜ as de montan ´ Solola,” El Imparcial, August 26, 1976; ORPA, “Comunicado a la Prensa, Radio y

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Televisio´n: Septiembre: Tercer aniversario de la operaciones de ORPA,” PayerasColom Collection. 54. See Santiago Santa Cruz Mendoza, Insurgentes: Guatemala, la paz arrancada (Santiago, Chile: LOM, 2004) for more on internal discussions and rifts in the URNG. 55. ORPA, “Guia para el desarrollo de las pla´ticas de estudio,” mimeographed, 1988 (INFOSTELLE). 56. Emilio Roma´n Lo´pez (Pascual), a Maya Achı´, rose to the rank of comandante in the FAR in the late 1970s. See Figueroa Ibarra, “Los que siempre estara´n en ninguna parta,” p. 144. 57. For (much) more on the Guatemalan labor movement, see Deborah Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists against Terror: Guatemala City, 1954–1985 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994). 58. James A. Goldston, Shattered Hope: Guatemalan Workers and the Promise of Democracy (Boulder, CO: Westview Special Studies on Latin America and the Caribbean, 1989), p. 8. 59. Central America Report, February 21, 1986, pp. 51–52. 60. For a rich assessment of the radicalization of the student movement at the University of San Carlos, see Virgilio Alvares Arago´n, Conventos, aulas y trincheras: ˜ o de Universidad y movimiento estudiantil en Guatemala, volumen II, el suen transformar (Guatemala: FLACSO, 2002). Alvarez traces the intellectual roots of the second-generation guerrillas, a movement he calls neo-Marxist, to two key books written by San Carlos professors, both published in 1970. The first is Carlos Guzma´n Bo¨ckler and Jean-Loup Herbert, Guatemala: una interpretacio´n histo´rico social (Guatemala: Universidad de San Carlos, 1970); the other is Severo Martı´nez Pela´ez, La patria del criollo: ensayo de interpretacio´n de la realidad guatemalteca (Guatemala: Universidad de San Carlos, 1970). Martı´nez Pelaez’s groundbreaking work is the first to charge that “Indian” identity is the dialectical outcome of the colonial means of production, thus making “indio” a social-economic category that remains only as an enduring consequence of capitalism; as such, the indio’s dialectic antagonist is, by definition, the ladino (see Alvarez, pp. 14–15). By contrast, Bo¨ckler (who generally gets more credit for the work than his French collaborator), declared the ladino to be a “fictional being,” existing solely to intermediate between exploiter and Indian; yet he also insists that ethnic distinctions are ultimately subordinate to those of class, even while recognizing that within Guatemala the indigenous was the most exploited class. (Bo¨ckler and Herbert, p. 110, as cited in Alvarez). Alvarez describes a theoretical rift emerging at San Carlos in the 1970s between students who considered themselves severistas (or orthodox Marxists) and bocklerianos (radicals), who shared a common Marxist outlook but who nonetheless engendered such antagonism defending their ideological positions that it eventually, in Alvarez’s words, worked to the benefit of the Right and the “apparatus of repression” (Alvarez, p. 17, notes 11 and 12). 61. The Taracena-Flores Collection of ephemera from this period in the Benson Latin American Library at the University of Texas contains many materials that this group produced. See, for example, Asociacio´n de Estudiantes Universtarios, “Boletı´n

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de informacio´n, enero-mayo 1954” (Guatemala: San Carlos, 1954, Taracena-Flores Collection). 62. The ORPA leadership included, for example, Rodrigo Asturias, son of Guatemala’s 1967 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Miguel Angel Asturias. (Rodrigo took his nom de guerre, Gaspar Ilom, from the indigenous hero of his father’s novel, Hombres de Maı´z). Aura Marina Arriola, an intellectual and revolutionary in her own right and the wife of EGP commander in chief Ricardo Ramirez de Leon, was the daughter of a diplomat. Arturo and Luis Taracena, both intellectuals connected to the EGP, were the nephews of Eduardo Taracena, an anti-Arbencista and avowed anticommunist. That said, however, most of the guerrilla leadership came from the middle, not the elite, sector of Guatemala society. ´ ngel 63. For more on the radicalization of students in the 1960s, see Miguel A ˜ os de la Resistencia: relatos sobre las guerrillas urbanas de los an˜os 60 Sandoval, Los an (Guatemala: Editorial Oscar de Leo´n Palacios, 1997), particularly “Marzo y abril y el autogobierno estudiantil,” pp. 163–167, in which he discusses the mobilization of students following what both Sandoval and the REMHI report call the “jornadas de marzo y abril”—the detention of people involved in protests over the fraudulent presidential elections that took place in December 1961, and the government’s violent response to street protests in March and April 1962, resulting in the deaths, by gunshot fired from a military vehicle, of three student leaders on the USAC campus. The students’ deaths resulted in the expansion of the protest movement (consisting at that time primarily of strikes and street demonstrations) beyond the capital to other parts of the country, including the south coast around Puerto Barrios. See also REMHI, Nunca Ma´s: El entorno histo´rico, vol. 3, p. 30. 64. “The Guatemalan Revolution,” Compan˜ero, March 1981 (no number), p. 3. 65. Movimiento Revolucionaria del Pueblo, “Marco de referencia del movimiento revolucionaria guatemalteca en esta etapa,” Ixim, no. 2, July 1983, pp. 2–3. 66. Black, “Introduction,” in Payeras, Days of the Jungle, p. 10. 67. For a series of arguments in support of the “indigenization” of the guerrilla movement, see Ricardo Pozas, “Introduccio´n,” in Aura Marina Arriola, “La resistencia y las luchas de los indı´genas de Guatemala”; R. Gilberto Lo´pez and Eduardo Perrera, “El concepto de ‘Minorı´a Subordinad,’ Elementos para su definicio´n”; Antonio Garcı´a de Leo´n, “Cuando el pasado nos alcance: Historia, fuerza de trabajo y subordinacio´n,” (mimeographed, @ 1980–1982), Encuentro indı´genas de Ame´rica Latina (ENIAL), Mexico, 1982 (Payeras-Colom Collection). 68. Arturo Arias, “El movimiento indı´gena en Guatemala: 1970–1983,” in Camacho and Menjı´var, Los movimientos populares en centroame´rica, p. 72. 69. Mario Mene´ndez Rodrı´guez, “Entrevista al comandante el Jefe del Eje´rcito Guerrillero de los Pobres Rolando Mora´n,” reprinted from Revista Por Esto in El EGP en la Prensa, 1981, a compilation of photocopies (Payeras-Colom Collection). 70. In a document describing its early formation, the CUC recorded “Durante ˜ os nos habı´amos estado preparado en todos los rincones del campo de varios an Guatemala; en fincas y aldeas, en barrios y galeras, en la Costa Sur y en el Altiplano . . . pero nos faltaba como una forma segura, una arma, un instrumento

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para poder cambiar la situacio´n tan injusta que vivimos los trabajadores del campo.” “El Trabajo Organizativo del Comite´ de Unidad Campesina” (no date, photocopy, Holandesa Collection). The CUC had its origins in the 1967 Sindicato de Trabajadores Agricolas Independientes de Chichicastenango, and the modern CUC was established in 1978 in El Quiche´. Even before this time, the CUC had met as an informal organization in El Quiche´, when at least as early as 1974 “Catholic Action leaders began meeting secretly with Indian leaders from the wider El Quiche´ area.” Robert Carmack, “The Story of Santa Cruz El Quiche´,” in Carmack, ed., Harvest of Violence, p. 51. Even in 1978 the CUC was a semiclandestine organization dedicated to claiming fundamental rights for peasants, including the recovery of lands, antidiscrimination, fair pay for farm labor, freedom from false arrest, and so on. Its slogan, however, underscored the CUC’s willingness to embrace militancy: “Cabeza ˜ o combativo de todos los trabajadores del campo.” Two clara, corazo´n solidario y pun excellent studies that connect the dots between political activism in the Are´valo and Arbenz eras and this later period are Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre, cited above, and David Wilkinson, Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002). While the conventional wisdom for some time indicated that indigenous people were largely disengaged from the political discourse and then were unwittingly caught “between two armies,” more recent scholarly work and public disclosures in the Guatemalan press suggest that indigenous support for the guerrillas by 1980 was considerably stronger than many had previously thought. 71. Carmack, “The Story of Santa Cruz del Quiche´,” in Harvest of Violence, p. 51. 72. The first strike, in February, involved 70,000 cane cutters and 40,000 cotton pickers. The second, in October, engaged 10,000 coffee pickers in fifteen municipalities around Colomba. Davis, “State Violence,” p. 165. 73. It bears noting that the term Maya was not popularly used in Guatemala during this period, being a word that appeared mainly in the ethnological literature or in reference to the Classic Maya. Ladinos and others tended to use the word indı´gena or the more perjorative indio, while the indigenous people typically referred to themselves by their community or language group, or simply as naturales. The idea of a common Mayan identity as such was, ironically, partly a result of the repression of the early 1980s and, later, of the Mayan movement’s efforts to generate a sense of pan-Mayan collectivity. 74. “Se gesta la situacio´n revolucionaria, 1976–1979,” in “La primera gran confrontacio´n del movimiento campesino indı´gena del altiplano guatemalteco, 1984,” p. 10 (Payeras-Colom Collection); see Susanne Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and US Power (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), p. 103. See also Greg Grandin, “To End with All These Evils: Ethnic Transformation and Community Mobilization in Guatemala’s Western Highlands, 1954–1980,” Latin American Perspectives, 24, no. 2 (1997): 7–34. 75. See Jennifer Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, who interviewed Gramajo extensively, for a detailed account of Gramajo’s involvement in counterinsurgency from the mid-1960s until his retirement in 1990. In addition to

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serving as Rı´os Montt’s deputy chief of staff, Gramajo helped plan and orchestrate much of the Fusiles y Frijoles campaign in the areas where the most massacres occurred. He was one of the founders of the G-2 military intelligence. 76. Gramajo in ibid., p. 40. 77. Juan Fernando Cifuentes, “Operacio´n Ixil,” Revista Militar, 27 (September–December 1982): 27, cited in ibid., p. 40. 78. An early mission statement of the EGP states, “[El] EGP, partiendo del reconocimiento de la mayorı´a de la poblacio´n guatemalteca es indı´gena (ma´s del 55%), le ha asignado a la contradiccio´n nacional-e´tica un rango importante de su concepcio´n estrategia,” “Caracterizacio´n del EGP,” internal document (Payeras-Colom Collection). 79. This is very much a paraphrase. The full text (somewhat obscured by mistypings): “Los ladinos pobres [admiran] la ideologı´a de sus amos, de la burguesı´a les reforzo´ su sienten o de superioridad en relacio´n a los indı´genas sientes desprecio por los indı´gnas a partir de entonces todos los que no eran indı´genas se llamaron ladinos; fueron ladinos los pobres indı´genas que perdieron sus culturas en oriente, los ˜ oles, los extranjeros alemanes y de otros paı´ses, los menos mismo que los espan empobrecidos, todos los que no son indı´genas son ladinos, son parte de la unidad nacional, todos participan de la misma ideolo´gicas con fuertes contenidos burgueses. A trave´s de esa ideolo´gica los ladinos pobres se identifican con sus amos quieren se iguales, que ellos, aspiran a tener dinero y a ser explotadores como ellos sin darse cuenta que el mismo sistema.” “Sobre las reindivicaciones revolucionarios de los indı´genas guatemaltecos,” no name or date, p. 5 (Holandesa Collection). 80. See CEH, Guatemala: Causas, p. 115. 81. See “Enfrentemos a los enemigos del pueblo: organicemos nuestra autodefensa,” De Sol a Sol, perio´dico campesino, October 1980, which offers tips on self-defense and sabotage; see also Ixim (newsletter of the MRP, Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo), no. 1, March 1983 (INFOSTELLE collection). Ixim means “maize” in Ki’che and several other Mayan languages. The MRP, formerly clandestine, was a predominantly indigenous movement that moved into the public eye in 1982. 82. Susanne Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and US Power (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, Latin American Perspectives Series no. 5, 1991), p. 133. The operative word here is “with,” which could mean anything from passive, indifferent support to being an active combatant. The vague definition of what being “with the guerrillas” meant eventually contributed to the deaths of many thousands of people, as the scorched-earth campaign called for the elimination of everyone who had seemed to have any connections with the guerrillas whatsoever. 83. REMHI, Quiche´, Ixca´n, pp. 62–64. 84. Informador Guerrillero, 82, no. 4. 85. REMHI, Quiche´, Ixca´n, p. 97. 86. Ibid., p. 66. See also Yvon Le Bot, La guerra en las tierras mayas: comunidad, violencia y modernidad en Guatemala (1970–1992) (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econo´mica, Mexico, 1995), p. 66. 87. Beatriz Manz, Refugees of a Hidden War: The Aftermath of Counterinsurgency in Guatemala (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), p. 17. Manz’s estimation

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of 250,000 guerrilla supporters, made at a time when reliable information of this nature was extremely difficult to obtain, is probably low. 88. Menzel, Dictators, Drugs, and Revolution, pp. 111–112. 89. “La revolucio´n guatemalteca,” Compan˜ero, March 1981 (no issue number), p. 4. 90. NSA, “Prospects for Stability in the Caribbean Basin through 1984,” Secret Intelligence Report #6, April 22, 1982, document 802; Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, 41. U.S. intelligence reports often used the estimates reported by military analyst Cesar Sereseres, who later published “The Highlands War in Guatemala,” in George A. Fauriol, ed., Latin American Insurgencies (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies and National Defense University, Government Printing Office, 1985). 91. URNG, “Proclama unitaria,” January 1982. Publicaciones diversas del EGP (Payeras-Colom Collection). 92. “Bajo las banderas de la unidad revolucionaria, material de formacio´n polı´tica e ideological, EGP, April 1983,” pp. 3 and 12 (Payeras-Colom Collection). 93. See note 92 for the theoretical debate that swirled around the challenges that the “indigenous” approach posed to classic Marxist thinking. For a less theoretical but fascinating account of how this and other issues divided leaders and sectors within the emergent URNG, see Santiago Santa Cruz Mendoza, Insurgentes: Guatemala, la paz arrancada (Santiago, Chile: LOM, 2004). 94. For more on the development of Payeras’ political thinking, see Mario Payeras, Los dı´as de la selva (Mexico, DF: Escuela Nacional de Antropologı´a e Historia, Instituto Nacional de Antropologı´a e Historia, 1981), and Oswaldo Salazar, “Mutaciones en la conciencia narrativa de Mario Payeras,” unpublished paper, presented at “Ten Years after the Peace Accords” conference, University of Texas, Austin, September 2006. 95. For additional internal discussion of these matters, see Antonio Garcı´a de Leon, “Cuando el pasado nos alcance: Historia, fuerza de trabajo y subordinacio´n” (mimeographed, @ 1980–1982), “Notas del Autor (Mario Payeras) al Material,” “Los pueblos indigenas a y revolucio´n guatemalteca, 1982–1991” (Payeras-Colom Collection). 96. Ibid. 97. In 1991, Mario Payeras, the author of the 1982 statement, offered this word of caution: “Tambie´n es erro´neo negarle el ladino, como se hace en ese escrito [Los pueblos] . . . la etnicidad que le es propia. Los ladinos en realidad constituyen la base principal de la nacio´n guatemalteca. Los indios son grupos e´tnicos subordinados dentro del Estado nacio´n que se llama Guatemala, el cual es el proyecto histo´rico de la burguesı´a naciente al finales del siglo XVIII” (Payeras-Colom Collection). 98. For a feminist insider’s view of the EGP, see Yolanda Colom, Mujeres en la alborada: guerrilla y participacio´n en Guatemala, 1973–1978: Testimonio (Guatemala: Artemis & Edinter, 1993). The reason for women’s restricted status was not always political. ˜ eros no estaban de acuerdo As one ladina compan˜era wrote, “Muchas veces los compan ˜ con que a sus mujeres las atendieron otros companeros, por celos. . . . Hablamos de la

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discriminacio´n de la mujer, de por que´ no nos podı´amos mezclar con los hombres, por la desconfianza que tenı´an.” “Testimonio: Marı´a Lupe, mujer parcelaria de la selva,” Compan˜ero, January 5, 1982, p. 28. 99. CEH, Guatemala: Causas, p. 114. 100. See URNG, “Proclama,” February 4, 1982, as cited in ibid., p. 115. 101. NSA, “Congressional Hearing on Guatemala,” U.S. Embassy in Guatemala to Department of State, classified memorandum, August 1982, #00836. 102. Hector Rosada-Granados, Soldados en el poder: Proyecto militar en Guatemala (1944–1990) (San Jose´, Costa Rica: FUNDAPEM/Utrecht University, 1999), pp. 157–164. 103. Fuentes Mohr, the founder of the Social Democratic Party, was assassinated in broad daylight on the way to his office in Guatemala City—located next to the Escuela Polite´cnica—on January 25, 1979, signaling to many middle-class Guatemalans that the Lucas regime would not tolerate even moderate political opposition. The surprising source for this information is Efraı´n Rı´os Montt, Mi defensa: caso de Rı´os Montt contra Estado de Guatemala (Guatemala: Serviprensa, 1991), p. 15. 104. Early polls in this election showed Rı´os Montt to be ahead, but after television screens reporting the vote went blank, the final results were: Kjell Laugerud Garcı´a (Movimiento Liberacio´n Nacional), 41.2 percent; Efraı´n Rı´os Montt (Democracia Cristiana), 35.7 percent; and Ernesto Paiz Novales (Partido Revolucionario), 23.1 percent. Calvert, Guatemala: A Nation in Turmoil, p. 85. 105. Carlos Rafael Soto Rosales, El suen˜o encadenado: el proceso polı´tico guatemalteco (Guatemala: Tipografı´a Nacional, 2000), p. 69. 106. Deborah Levenson, “Reaction to Trauma: The 1976 Earthquake in Guatemala,” International Labor and Working-Class History, 62 (Fall 2002): 60–68. 107. Phillip Berryman, Christians in Guatemala’s Struggle (London: Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1984), p. 24; Gustavo Berganza, ed., “El terremoto de 1976: drama y convulsio´n polı´tica,” in Compendio de Historia de Guatemala, 1944–2000 (Guatemala: ASEIS, 2004), p. 51. 108. See Andrew A. Morrison and Rachel A. May, “Escape from Terror: Violence and Migration in Post-Revolutionary Guatemala,” Latin American Research Review, 29, no. 2 (1994): 111–132. Morrison and May aptly describe the earthquake as a “class earthquake.” 109. For a through account of the politics of earthquake relief, see Deborah Levenson, “Reaction to Trauma,” pp. 60–68. 110. Francisco Villagra´n Kramer, Biografı´a polı´tica de Guatemala, volumen II: an˜os de guerra y an˜os de paz (FLACSO-Guatemala-Costa Rica: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1993–2004), p. 105. Villagra´n himself is a good example of the political complexity of the period described here. A former pro-Are´valo “militant” (to use his own autobiographical description) during the 1940s, he, along with two other prominent leftist leaders, fled into exile in the mid-1960s during the administration of General Peralta Azurdia. He returned to Guatemala in the early 1970s and served as vice president under Lucas from 1978 until 1980, when he again left Guatemala to go into exile.

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111. Levenson, “Reaction to Trauma,” p. 63. 112. Davis, Witness, p. 164. 113. Ibid., p. 164. 114. Legend has it that Guatemala originated the use of death squads, a singular contribution to the counterinsurgency programs found in the 1970s and 1980s in much of Latin America, especially in neighboring El Salvador. Guatemala’s first death squad, the Mano Blanca, first appeared around 1966. See Jim Handy, Gift of the Devil (Boston: South End Press, 1984), p. 162. While the United States did not publicly support the creation of death squads, it did assist and encourage the Guatemalan government to establish lists of “communists and terrorists” and helped to develop a “covert and overt” operation to deal with such threats, such as members of the Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajadores (PGT), the Arbenz-era communist party, and the Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR), the guerrilla front that operated in the eastern part of the country and in Guatemala City. See “U.S. Counter-Terror Assistance to Guatemalan Security Forces,” January 4, 1966, USAID secret cable, and “Death List,” March 1966, CIA, secret cable, National Security Archives Electronic Archives, documents 1 and 2. 115. Carlos Figueroa Ibarra, El recurso del miedo: ensayo sobre el estado y el terror en Guatemala (Costa Rica: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana, 1991), pp. 66–67. 116. Marco Aurelio Carballo, “Con la muerte del Tigre de Ixca´n, en junio de 1975, comenzo´ la militarizacio´n de Guatemala,” Uno Ma´s Uno, February 17, 1980; CEH, Memoria del silencio, anexo 1, volumen 2, “Caso ilustrativo #59: Ejecucio´n de Jose´ Arenas Berrera por el Eje´rcito Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP),” http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ ceh/mds/spanish/anexo1/vol2/no59.html. 117. El Gra´fico, June 10, 1975. 118. Ricardo Falla, Massacres in the Jungle: Ixca´n, Guatemala, 1975–1982 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), p. 18. 119. See Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 41. 120. For a definitive analysis of the long series of events that culminated in the Panzo´s massacres, see Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005). Grandin notes that forensic anthropologists have exhumed the bodies of 34 people killed in the massacre, but that “then and now, survivors insist that the dead numbered in the hundreds” (p. 1). For a contemporary account, see Gabriel Aguilera Peralta, “The Massacre at Panzo´s and Capitalist Development in Guatemala,” Monthly Review (December, 1979). 121. Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 41. 122. NSA, John T. Bennett to Department of State, secret cable, April 11, 1979, #000574. 123. James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 33. 124. The officer who actually gave this order was Herma´n Chupina Barahona, who served as Director of the Nacional Police under Lucas Garcı´a. See Claire Boetticher, “Third-World Nationalism in Print: The Spanish Embassy Fire and Cold-War

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Conceptions of the Guatemalan Nation,” master’s thesis in Latin American Studies, University of Texas, 2006. 125. Ma´ximo Cajal y Lo´pez, ¡Saber quien puso fuego ahı´! (Madrid: Siddharth Mehta Ediciones, 2000), p. 32. 126. David Stoll, Rigoberta Menchu´ and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), p. 80. 127. A Waco-like ambiguity continues to float around some accounts of the Spanish Embassy fire. While there is no question that the police attacked the building with incendiary bombs, some sources, including the Spanish ambassador, Ma´ximo Cajal y Lo´pez, who was in the building at the time and who, though burned, managed to escape, told Spanish radio a few days after the fire, “When the police entered my office, one of the campesinos threw a Molotov cocktail. The fire spread rapidly and the office was transformed into a ˜ ol,” Ultimas Noticias, roasting pan.” “Ataque Injustificado: El Embajador Espan February 1, 1980, p. 1, cited in Stoll, Rigoberta, p. 80. Stoll also notes that many of the doors were either locked or blocked from the inside (Stoll, Rigoberta, pp. 85–86). ˜ a,” 128. See “A fondo: Reportaje Especial: la Quema de la Embajada de Espan television special hosted by Haroldo Sa´nchez, Guatevision, July 17, 2006; “La matanza de indı´genas un modo de apropiacio´n,” Repuesta (Costa Rica), March 15, 1980, p. 33. 129. Black et al., Garrison Guatemala, p. 106. 130. Arturo Arias, “Changing Indian Identity: Guatemala’s Violent Transition to Modernity,” in Carol A. Smith, ed., Guatemalan Indians and the State, 1540–1988 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), pp. 253–254. 131. In her book, Me llamo Rigoberta Menchu´ y ası´ me nacio´ la consciencia (London: Verso, 1984), Nobel Peace Prize winner and Ki’che´ activist Rigoberta Menchu´ describes the Spanish Embassy burning, which killed her father, Vicente, a CUC activist, and which marks the moment when her “consciousness was born.” While the veracity of some of Rigoberta’s story has been seriously challenged by David Stoll, her father’s death in the Spanish Embassy fire is not disputed, although her early leadership role, and even her father’s crucial membership in the CUC is (Stoll, Rigoberta, pp. 98–103). For more on the Rigoberta Menchu´ debate, see Arturo Arias, ed., The Rigoberta Menchu´ Controversy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). 132. See Arias, “Changing Indian Identity,” pp. 230–257; see also Handy, Gift of the Devil, pp. 246–247. Jennifer Schirmer notes that the army’s version of the Spanish Embassy fire was that culpability for the events lay with “guerrilla commandos, dressed in indigenous dress from El Quiche´, who were following the Sandinista example of taking the National Palace in Nicaragua on August 22, 1978.” Juan Fernando Cifuentes H., “El secuestro,” Revista Militar #29, May–August 1982: 221, cited in Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 303 n. 2. 133. Iximche´, located near present-day Tecpa´n, was the city-state of the Kakchikel people at the time of their co-optation and conquest by Pedro de Alvarado in 1524. Although the Guatemalan government considers Iximche´ to be a restricted archaeological site, it continues to hold deep spiritual significance for modern Kakchikeles. For

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further description of the gathering at Iximche´, see Grandin, “To End with All These Evils,” pp. 70–34. 134. “Declaracio´n de Iximche´, Guatemala, febrero de 1980, Los pueblos indı´genas de Guatemala ante el mundo,” document 32, Dio´cesis del Quiche´, El Quiche´: El pueblo y su Iglesia (Santa Cruz del Quiche´: Dio´cesis del Quiche´, 1994), pp. 265–273. 135. Specifically, the manifesto called for “lucha contra la explotacio´n; por una sociedad de igualdad y respeto; porque el indio desarrolla su cultura; por una economı´a justa donde el indio no explota al indio; porque la tierra sea comunal; porque cese la discriminacio´n . . . termine toda represio´n, tortura, secuestro, asesinato y matanza; porque haya igualdad en material de derecho del trabajo y porque no se utilice a los indios como atraccio´n turı´stica; por una justa distribucio´n y aprovechamiento de su riquezas.” Aura Marina Arriola, “La resiste´ncia y las luchas de los indı´genas de Guatemala,” Encuestro indı´genas de Ame´rica Latina (ENIAL), Mexico, 1982, p. 11 (Payeras-Colom Collection). These demands anticipate the core demands of the Mayan movement that emerged in the late 1980s and are also reflected in the 1996 peace accords in the sections on cultural rights. 136. Beatriz Manz, Refugees of a Hidden War: The Aftermath of Counterinsurgency in Guatemala (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), p. 17. 137. See Gonzalo Sichar Moreno, Masacres en Guatemala: los gritos de un pueblo entero (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria Felix, 2000). 138. Falla, Massacres in the Jungle, p. 60. 139. Kobrak, Huehuetenango, p. 76. 140. Quoted in Handy, Gift of the Devil, p. 180. 141. See Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala, p. 146. 142. See James Dunkerely, Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of Modern Central America (London: Verso, 1988). 143. Jonas, Battle for Guatemala, p. 147. 144. Jean Franco, The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 12. 145. The list of Guatemalan “republicans” is extensive, but a list of superstars might include Jose´ Milla y Vidaurre, Lorenzo Montu´far, Antonio Batres Jaureguı´, Miguel Angel Asturias (especially as expressed in his novel, El Sen˜or Presidente), and Juan Jose´ Are´valo. Two important Guatemalan men of letters who have written directly about their disillusionment with the republican ideal after 1954 include Luis Cardoza y Arago´n and the poet Rene´ Otto Castillo. 146. Bertolt Brecht, “The Anxieties of the Regime,” in Ralph Manheim and John Willet, ed., Bertolt Brecht: Poems, 1913–1945 (London: Methuen, 1976), pp. 296–297.

CHAPTER

3

1. Angel Anibal Guevara, a general and member of the PID, Lucas’s hand-picked successor, won the presidency in patently rigged elections in 1982. In a show of strained partnership, young officers in the army who did not like the way the Lucas regime

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was conducting the counterinsurgency war joined forces with the Christian Democrats and the MLN to prevent Guevara from taking office. 2. Joseph Anfuso and David Sczepanski, He Gives—He Takes Away. The True Story of Guatemala’s Controversial Former President Efraı´n Rı´os Montt (Eureka, CA: Radiance Press, 1983), p. 20. This is more readily available in its Spanish version, which uses the title Servidor o Dictador? (Guatemala: Gospel Outreach, 1984). 3. Kobrak, Huehuetenango. 4. NSA, “Analysis of Rı´os Montt Government after 11 Months,” classified report, February 1983, document #901. 5. Anfuso and Sczepanski, He Gives—He Takes Away, pp. 28–31. These details differ slightly from some of Rı´os Montt’s biographies (some sources, for example, say that there were only eleven children in the family, although this probably does not count the older son who died in childhood). The details here, however, come from a biography of Rı´os Montt that was sponsored in part by Verbo Church in 1984 and which he personally vetted, so I am assuming that these basic biographical details are correct. 6. Efraı´n’s younger brother, Mario Enrique, became a priest and was consecrated bishop in 1974. 7. Several sources claim that Rı´os Montt was a graduate of the School of the Americas, but neither the official Lista de Oficiales Militares nor SOA Watch’s list for Guatemala, nor Rı´os Montt’s own CV include this as part of his biography. At least one source states that he studied at the School of the Americas in 1950, the year after he graduated from the Escuela Polite´cnica, but this would put him at SOA during the heart of the Are´valo-Arbenz period, which begs the intriguing question: did Guatemala’s democratic government of the 1950s also send its officers to train at the SOA (or rather, one of its predecessor institutions)? The same source suggests that Rı´os Montt was one of the “young officers” who supported Carlos Castillo Armas in the overthrow of Arbenz, a charge that is thus far unsubstantiated. See Jeffrey St. Clair, “Back to the Future: The Return of General Rı´os Montt,” July 13, 2003, http://www.countercurrents.org/guastclair170703.htm. Rı´os Montt did indeed study as a young man at Fort Gulick, which predated the School of the Americas. For more on the School of the Americas, and specifically its training of the Guatemalan officer corps, see Lesley Gill, Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004); and David M. Lauderback, “The U.S. Army School of the Americas Mission and Policy during the Cold War,” PhD dissertation, University of Texas, 2004. 8. Curriculum Vitae de General Rı´os Montt, appendix to “Mensaje del Presidente Rı´os Montt a La Prensa Internacional, 1982” (photocopy). 9. One source sympathetic to the guerrillas claims that the campesinos at Sansirisay were indigenous, although this does not seem very likely in El Progreso, but the episode does seem to offer a foreshadowing of events to come. See Jacobo Vargas Foronda, “Guatemala: Rı´os Montt, la evangelizacio´n del exterminio y una introduccio´n a la regionalizacio´n de la guerra de contrainsurgencia en Centroame´rica,” paper delivered July 24, 1982, Universidad de Guadalajara (photocopy, CIRMA). Curiously, the REMHI report does not include Sansirisay in its list of massacres.

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10. Secretariado de la Conferencia Episcopal de Guatemala, Directorio de la Provencia Eclesia´stica de Guatemala, 1992–1994 (Guatemala: Conferencia Episcopal de Guatemala, 1994), p. 45. 11. The three parties that made up the UNO coalition included the Democracia Cristiana Guatemalteca (DCG), Frente Unido de la Revolucio´n (FUR), and the Partido Revolucionaria Aute´ntico (PRA), all centralist, populist parties. Rı´os Montt, Mi defensa, p. 15. ˜o 12. For a detailed journalistic account of the 1974 coup, see Soto Rosales, El suen encadenado, pp. 69–81. 13. Peter Calvert, Guatemala: A Nation in Turmoil, p. 85; Gyl Catherine Wadge, “The Rı´os Montt Regime: Change and Continuity in Guatemalan Politics,” master’s thesis, Tulane University, 1987, p. 43. 14. Pentecostalism is the variation of Christianity that places primary emphasis on the experience of God though the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” as expressed through miraculous occurrences, such as faith healing, speaking in tongues, and ecstatic behavior. The vast majority of Guatemalan Protestants today are Pentecostal, as is Rı´os Montt himself. 15. For a detailed explication of these factors, please see my Protestantism in Guatemala: Living in the New Jerusalem (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998). 16. “Neo-Pentecostalism” refers to a religious current that grew out of the charismatic movement of the 1960s rather than the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 and the earlier Holiness movement. Neo-Pentecostalism often stresses “prosperity theology,” which refers to the notion that God rewards the faithful with material prosperity. Neo-Pentecostalism took root in Guatemala in the late 1970s, and, unlike traditional Pentecostalism, tended to attract a middle- and upper-class membership. Rı´os Montt’s church, the original Iglesia Cristiana El Verbo, which then met in a tent-shaped building (reflecting its earthquake-relief origins) in wealthy Zone Nine, was one of the largest and most prominent neo-Pentecostal churches in Guatemala in the early 1980s. 17. Time, May 5, 1982, p. 30. 18. Statement to the press from Iglesia Cristiana Verbo, August 10, 1983. 19. Deborah Huntington, “God’s Saving Plan,” NACLA, 18, no. 11 (1983): 26. 20. NSA, U.S. Department of Defense confidential internal cable briefing to Joint Chiefs of Staff, March 1982, document #0078. 21. NSA, “Confidential Memo to Department of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff,” March 1982, document #0079. 22. Interview with Jorge Serrano Elı´as, February 11, 1985, Guatemala City. 23. Victor Ga´lvez Borrell, Transicio´n y re´gimen polı´tico en Guatemala, 1982–1988 (San Jose´, Costa Rica: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, 1991), p. 29. 24. I am indebted to the work of Alejandra Batres Grenados, whose work in an unpublished paper titled, “Morality, Order, and Unity: The Experience of Rı´os Montt in Guatemala” (December 1994), was an early influence on this chapter. 25. See “El pecado original que el general Rı´os Montt no ha podido lavar,” Cro´nica, July 20–26, 1990, p. 15.

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26. REMHI classifies a massacre as any event in which five or more people are intentionally killed at the same time. 27. Patrick Bell, Paul Kobrak, and Herbert F. Spirer, “Terror and Regime, figure 6.4” in State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996: A Quantitative Reflection, http://hrdata. aaas.org/ciidh/qr/english/chap6.html. 28. Anonymous interview with author, Santa Cruz del Quiche´, October 1984. 29. Anfuso and Sczepanski, He Gives—He Takes Away, p. 122; interview with Jorge Serrano Elı´as. 30. “Ningu´n asesinado a tiros hoy,” El Imparcial, March 27, 1982, p. 1. 31. In using the word imaginaire I am referencing the work of French scholars such as Serge Gruzinski who, broadly speaking, use the word to mean a common universe of understanding and belonging in much the same way that Benedict Anderson uses the phrase “imagined community.” Although many people translate imaginaire as “imaginary,” I find the use of this English adjective in place of the French noun to be misleading, giving a sense more of “imaginary” as in “delusional,” rather than imaginaire, as in “of the imagination.” 32. “Tenemos que llevar a cabo reconciliacio´n,” April 11, 1982. Mensajes del presidente de la repu´blica, General Jose´ Efraı´n Rı´os Montt (Guatemala, Tipografı´a Nacional, 1982) (hereinafter cited as MPR). This publication consists of the unedited verbatim transcripts of Rı´os Montt’s discursos del domingo. 33. “Tenemos que llevar a cabo reconciliacio´n,” MPR, April 11, 1982. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. ˜ ala causas que mantienen el empobrecimiento en que esta 37. “Rı´os Montt sen el paı´s,” “Rı´os Montt se califica as mismo, mayordomo del pueblo,” El Imparcial, August 9, 1982, p. 1; “Ahora o nunca, para un cambio en Guatemala, dijo Rı´os Montt,” El Imparcial, May 10, 1982, p. 1; “5 militares combaten los focos de subversio´n, dijo Rı´os Montt,” El Imparcial, July 19, 1982, p. 1. 38. Anfuso and Sczenpanski, He Gives—He Takes Away, p. 153. 39. “Guatemalan President’s News Conference in Honduras,” BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, December 7, 1982. 40. “Ahora o nunca salvemos a Guatemala,” MPR, April 25, 1982. 41. Ibid.; “Consolidar la familiar, consolidar la sociedad,” MPR, April 30, 1982. 42. “No estoy aquı´ para ejercer venganza,” MPR, March 29, 1982. 43. “Este Gobierno tiene el compromiso de cambiar,” Gobierno de Guatemala, Press booklet, no date, p. 7. 44. “Hacer las cosas como Dios manda,” MPR, May 2, 1982. 45. The notion of a covenantal relationship between the Guatemalan government and the populace does not originate with Rı´os Montt. See Douglass Sullivan-Gonzales Power, Piety and Politics: The Role of Religion in the Formation of the Guatemalan Nation State, 1821–1871 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998) for a good discussion of related issues during the nineteenth century.

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46. “Se que Dios me puso aquı´, dice el presidente Rı´os Montt,” Prensa Libre, January 10, 1983, p. 4. 47. “Rı´os Montt Says Guatemala Needs Pastors, Not Troops,” Charisma, May 1984. 48. “No estoy aquı´ para ejercer venganza,” MPR, May 29, 1982. 49. Ibid. 50. “Estamos en una crisis de valores,” MPR, May 23, 1982. 51. “Diagno´stico en una crisis de valores,” MPR, May 30 [June 13], 1982. 52. Ibid. 53. This was the first of two amnesties offered by the Rı´os Montt government. The second amnesty went into effect March 22, 1983, to commemorate the first anniversary of the March 23, 1982, coup. “Decreto Ley #27–83,” Secretarı´a de Relaciones Publica de la Presidencia de la Repu´blica. 54. “Guatemalan Amnesty,” BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, May 25, 1982. 55. “No queremos prensa subordinada al estado,” MPR, June 20, 1982. 56. Central America Report recorded that 237 guerrilla sympathizers and only three combatants surrendered under the amnesty. See “War of Words as Hundreds Die,” Central America Report, June 25, 1982, p. 191; “1857 subversivos se acogieron a la Amnistı´a,” El Imparcial, July 1, 1982. 57. “Estamos dispuestos a que reina al honestidad y la justicia,” MPR, June 30, 1982. 58. “Rı´os Montt anuncia cambios de Ministros,” El Imparcial, May 21, 1982, p. 1. 59. “Diagno´stico sobre Guatemala,” MPR, May 30 [June 13], 1982. 60. Ibid. 61. Miguel Angel Asturias, El problema social del indio y otros textos (Paris: Centre de Recherches de l’Institut d’E´tudes Hispaniques, 1971 [1923]). 62. CEH, “Conclusions,” in Guatemala: Memory of Silence, http://shr.aaas.org/ guatemala/ceh/report/english/conc1.html. 63. Ibid. 64. See Schirmer, “Psychological Warfare, Social Intelligence, and the Sanctioned Maya,” in The Guatemalan Military Project, pp. 103–124. 65. “Triple cimera centroamericana aquı´,” El Imparcial, December 6, 1982, p. 1; Raul Villatoro, “Vamos a cambiar todo, dijo Rı´os Montt,” El Imparcial, April 27, 1982, p. 1. 66. Simon, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny, p. 121. 67. See Cesar Sereseres in Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 58. 68. The locations of the model villages were, Ixil Triangle: Acul, Tzalbal, JuilChacalte´, Palay, Ojo de Agua; Chacaj, Huehuetenango; Playa Grande (El Quiche´): Cantabal, Xaclbal, Trinitaria, San Pablo, San Jose´ “La 20,” Efrata, Playa Grande Uspanta´n, El Quiche´, Playa Grande (Alta Verapaz), Salacuı´n and “aldeas fronterizas”; Chisec, Alta Verapaz, Setzı´, Sesajal, Saguachil, Sesuchaj, Carolina, Las Palmas, Semococh, Santa Maria, Yalihux (Senahu´, Alta Verapaz); El Pete´n: Yanahı´. Eje´rcito de Guatemala, Polos de Desarrollo: Filosofı´a desarrollista (Guatemala: Impresa en Editorial del Eje´rcito, 1984), p. 72. 69. Ibid., p. 43.

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70. Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 111. 71. Ibid. 72. Washington Office on Latin America, Security and Development Conditions in the Guatemalan Highlands (Washington, DC: WOLA, Report on Mission of Inquiry, 1984), p. 39. 73. “El 23 de marzo exalta el concepto patrio,” MPR, July 18, 1982. 74. “Estamos dispuestos a que reina la honestidad y la justicia,” MPR, June 30, 1982. 75. “Tu y yo tenemos que cambiar,” MPR, July 4, 1982; and “El 23 de marzo exalta el concepto patrio,” MPR, July 18, 1982. 76. See SEPAL, La Hora de Dios para Guatemala (Editoriales Sepal: Guatemala City, 1983). 77. Garrard-Burnett, Protestantism in Guatemala, pp. 157–158. 78. Interview with Virgilio Zapata Areceyuz, January 25, 1985, Guatemala City. 79. Paul E. Pretiz, “Two Views on Rı´os Montt,” Latin American Evangelist, July–September 1983, p. 14. 80. Dispensationalists believe that human history is divided into different (usually seven) epochs, or “dispensations.” In each, God interacts with and reveals himself to humanity in different ways. For dispensationalists, biblical exegesis is only possible through understanding which dispensation a passage refers to (Karla Ann Koll, “Presbyterian Evangelicals in Guatemala: Status Quo or Subversion?” Unpublished paper presented at LASA, Dallas, Texas, 2003, p. 3, n. 5). Koll also notes that Central American Mission (CAM), one of the earliest and most pervasive missions to Guatemala in the nineteenth century, introduced dispensationalism to the country, and that dispensationalism continues to be the dominant theological paradigm undergirding Guatemalan Protestantism even today. 81. In fact, they fell far short of this goal. A CID-Gallup poll conducted in November 2001 found Guatemala to be 30 percent Protestant, 55 percent Catholic, and 13 percent “other.” “Statistics on Religious Affiliation in the Americas, Plus Spain and Portugal,” http://www.prolades.com/. 82. SEPAL, La Hora de Dios para Guatemala, p. 8. 83. Galo E. Vasquez, “Por amor a Guatemala,” in ibid., pp. 5–28. ˜ ez, “A toda la nacio´n,” in ibid., p. 28. 84. Emilio Nun 85. “Aid for Guatemala,” The Christian Century, May 1982, p. 688. 86. “Tenemos que llevar a cabo la reconciliacio´n,” MPR, April 11, 1982. 87. “Dios nos hizo para manejar esta tierra,” MPR, September 26, 1982. 88. Pretiz, “Two Views on Rios Montt,” p. 14. 89. “Tu y yo tenemos que cambiar,” MPR, July 4, 1982. 90. See Garrard-Burnett, Protestantism in Guatemala, pp. 1–20. The concept of the imagined community is, of course, borrowed from Benedict Anderson.

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91. “Estamos dispuestos de que reina la honestidad y la justicia,” MPR, June 30, 1982. 92. “Ahora que se acercan las festividades de Navidad,” MPR, December 12, 1982. 93. “El 23 de marzo exalta el concepto patrio,” MPR, July 18, 1982. 94. Ibid., “El mundo sepa que existe Guatemala, pero Guatemala existiera si usted quiere entenderlo.” 95. “Compromiso con nosotros mismos,” MPR, November 21, 1982. 96. “El 23 de marzo exalta el concepto patrio,” MPR, July 18, 1982. 97. “Guatemala tiene un pacto con usted,” MPR, October 3, 1982. 98. “Falta el sentido de la responsabilidad,” MPR, November 7, 1982. 99. “Consciencia de la nacionalidad,” MPR, [August 21] August 22, 1982. 100. “Robustecer la consciencia nacional,” MPR, September 5, 1982. 101. “Guatemala merece el sacrificio de todos,” MPR, October 3, 1982. 102. “Consciencia de la nacionalidad,” MPR, [August 21] August 22, 1982. 103. “No hemos aprendida ser Guatemala,” MPR, October 31, 1982. 104. Calvert, Guatemala: A Nation in Turmoil, p. 113. 105. “Motivos del golpe: abusos de un grupo de religiosos, fana´tico, y agresivo,” La Razo´n, August 9, 1983; “Golpe contra la secta ‘El Verbo’ y la corrupcio´n,” La Razo´n, August 9, 1983. 106. The president of the Council of State, Jorge Serrano Elı´as, was a fellow evangelical who by most accounts won the 1991 presidential elections on Rı´os Montt’s coattails, but at the time Serrano belonged to Elim Church, which had notoriously hostile relations with the Church of the Word. See James Jankowiak, “Guatemalan President, Two Aides Return to Ministry after Coup,” International Love Lift Newsletter, 8, no. 8 (1983): 1–4. 107. “No habra´ elecciones en el ’84,” El Imparcial, May 9, 1982, p. 1. 108. Stan Persky, In America: The Last Domino (Canada: New Star Books, 1984), p. 326. 109. Interview with Harris Whitbeck, Guatemala City, February 18, 1985. ˜ a-Portillo, The Revolutionary Imagination in the Americas and the 110. Marı´a Saldan Age of Development (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 64–65. 111. James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 40. 112. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), quoted in ibid., p. 39. 113. Pierre Bourdieu, quoted in Nieves Go´mez Dupuis, Informe sobre el dan˜o a la salud mental derivado de la masacre de Plan de Sanchez, para la Corte Interamericana de derechos humanos/ Report about the Mental Health Damage from the Massacre of Plan de Sanchez, for the Inter-American Commission (Guatemala: F&G Editores, 2005), pp. 31–32.

CHAPTER

4

1. Robert Carmack introduces the phrase “culture of fear” in the introduction to Harvest of Violence, p. 27.

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2. According to one general, the Fusiles y Frijoles plan was actually conceptualized by the army high command during the Lucas era, but it never advanced beyond Fusiles. Conversation with Brigadier General Carlos Villagra´n de Leon, November 6, 2006. 3. REMHI, Nunca ma´s, vol. 1, pp. 157–158. 4. Tom Barry, Guatemala: The Politics of Counterinsurgency (Albuquerque, NM: Inter-Hemispheric Educational Resource Center, 1986), pp. 19–20. 5. “La conciencia de la historia,” MPR, [September 15] September 19, 1982. 6. Efraı´n Rı´os Montt, Ese gobierno tiene el compromiso de cambiar: no robo, no miento, no abuso, press packet, July 1982, pp. 11–14. 7. Simon, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny, p. 119. 8. Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 62. 9. See CEH, “Conclusions,” in Guatemala: Memory of Silence, http://shr.aaas.org/ guatemala/ceh/report/english/conc1.html. 10. “Los frentes guerrilleros del EGP,” map, Compan˜ero, inner cover no. 5, January 1982 (INFOSTELLE). 11. “Counterinsurgency Operations in El Quiche´,” secret cable, CIA, February 1982, National Security Archives, http://gwu.edu/˜nsarchiv/NSAEBB32/20–01.htm. 12. Fundacio´n de Antropologı´a Forense de Guatemala (FAFG), Breve descripciones y resen˜as de investigaciones realizados (FAFG, internal document, 2004), Centro Ak’Kutan. 13. REMHI, Nunca ma´s, vol. 2, p. 22. 14. “Counterinsurgency Operations in El Quiche´,” CIA, February 1982, NSA Electronic Archives, Electronic Briefing Book #11, document #14. 15. See Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, p. 40. 16. See Carlos Figueroa Ibarra, Los que siempre estara´n en ninguna parte: la desparacio´n en Guatemala (Mexico: GAM, CIIDH, 1999). 17. Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, chapter 6, http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala /ciidh/qr/english/chap6.html. 18. The two editorials appeared in El Gra´fico on May 17 and May 20, 1982. Jorge Carpio Nicolle went on to found a center-right political party, the Union de Centro Nacional (UCN), and ran as its presidential candidate in 1993. He was assassinated in July 1993, killed by a gunman on the road outside of Chichicastenango. Although Carpio’s murder was officially attributed to robbery, the killers did not take any of the expensive electronic equipment that Carpio’s crew carried with them. The military was widely assumed to be responsible for his death, but the link was never fully established. 19. Simon, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny, p. 110. 20. These figures come from the CEH report and are the basis of charges brought ˜ a by judge Santiago Pedraz in which he ordered the by the Audiencia Nacional de Espan capture of eight Guatemalan military officers, including Rı´os Montt. See Prensa Libre, July 13, 2006, p. 3. 21. Ambassador’s confidential cable, summary of analysis of reports made in the United States by Amnesty International, WOLA/NISGUA, October 1982, http://www. gwo.edu/˜nsarchives/NSAEBB/SNABESS11/docs/16.01.htm.

208

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22. “Rı´os rechaza acusaciones: se declara inocente de genocidio y dice que se entero´ de desmanes ocurridos en su gobierno,” Prensa Libre, July 13, 2006, pp. 1–2. His actual words were, “Durante me gobierno el Eje´rcito complio´ o´rdenes, pero cuando no se dieron o´rdenes se cometio´ desmanes, pero y nunca estuve enterado.” Rı´os Montt’s careful use of the uncommon word desmanes in place of the much more widely used abusos shows a special concern for the semantics of this case. 23. Quoted by Robert M. Carmack, “The Story of Santa Cruz del Quiche´,” in Harvest of Violence, p. 57. 24. Quoted in Roger Plant, Guatemala: Unnatural Disaster (London: Latin American Bureau, 1987), p. 12. 25. “Additional Information on Operation Plan Victoria 82,” confidential intelligence report to U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, July 1982, NSA #00833. 26. REMHI, Nunca ma´s, vol. 2, pp. 21–22. 27. Gabriel Aguilera Peralta, “Contrainsurgencia rural,” mimeo, 1985, cited in ibid., p. 22. 28. Ricardo Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco, Nento´n Huehuetenango, July 17, 1982,” unpublished paper, Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin, p. 2. Ricardo Falla is a Jesuit priest who had worked in Guatemala since the 1940s. He was active in promoting Catholic Action in the 1960s and 1970s until he was forced to flee the country in the early 1980s. During his exile he worked among Guatemalan refugees in Mexico and earned a PhD in anthropology at the University of Texas. A long-time political activist, Falla’s political sympathies lay largely with the Left. 29. Regarding Guatemalan place names, which can be confusing: the basic unit of measure is the municipio, or township, located in a department, which is the equivalent of a state. Each municipio is surrounded by a series of smaller villages, known as aldeas. From the aldeas, in turn, radiate out smaller settlements known as cantones, and beyond these even smaller settlements known as carcerı´as. All of these small settlements are legally bound to the municipio. Beyond the carcerı´as there may be a finca, which can be either a large commercial farm or, as in this case, a settlement of small-scale farmers. A place name may or may not include all of these spatial references; thus, Finca San Francisco is part of the municipio of Nento´n, in the department of Huehuetenango. However, it is not unusual for a small settlement to be referred to simply by the name of the nearest municipio, a practice that has led to some discrepancies in the identification of massacre sites in REMHI and the CEH and CIIDH reports. 30. See Grahame Russell, Sarah Kee, and Ann Butwell, Unearthing the Truth: Exhuming a Decade of Terror in Guatemala (Washington, DC: Epica/CHRLA, 1996), p. 2; for Rabinal, see Gonzales Sichar Moreno, Masacres en Guatemala: los gritos de un pueblo entero (Guatemala: GAM, 2000). 31. Sichar Moreno, Masacres en Guatemala, pp. 56–60. 32. Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco, Nento´n Huehuetenango, July 17, 1982.” This work is available through the special collections at the Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin. I have also used a longer Spanish version of this paper that was eventually published by a solidarity group in Denmark.

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This published version includes appendices that did not appear in the English paper, p. 2. See Ricardo Falla, “Masacre de la Fina San Francisco Huehuetenango, Guatemala, 17 julio de 1982” (Copenhagen: Group Internacional de Trabajo Sobre Asuntos Indı´genas [IWGIA], September 1983). In the subsequent notes, I refer to the English text as “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco” and the Spanish paper as “FSFN.” There is also a published source written by Falla called Massacres in the Jungle: Ixca´n, Guatemala, 1975–1982 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994) that I use through this section; this is noted as such. 33. Paul Kobrak, Huehuetenango, historia de una guerra (Huehuetenango: CEDFOG, 2003). Kobrak’s work, which is also based on interviews with survivors of the massacre and with other residents of Nento´n, concurs closely with Falla’s, but Kobrak’s study offers a good example of how, by the time he did his interviews, a more “standard” narrative of the massacre had begun to emerge. 34. Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco.” 35. Hayden White writes that “survivors’ testimonies are constituted by various rhetorical mediations such as figurality, tropes, and emplotments, despite the author’s/ narrator’s desire to render factually accurate historical re-presentations of the event. In the course of testimonial practices, such textural and transtextural negotiations produce different types of knowledge—didactic, moral, and aesthetic as well as cognitive.” Cited in Lisa Yoneyama, Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory (University of California Press, 1999), p. 212. 36. Kobrak, Huehuetenango, p. 80. 37. Ibid. 38. Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco,” p. 9. 39. Kobrak, Huehuetenango, p. 85. 40. Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco,” p. 11. 41. Despite the army code of conduct’s strict prohibition against rape, it was a widely used form of terror. As Brinton Lykes notes, “Under conditions of . . . statesponsored violence, violence against women takes on additional dimensions of horror,” a quality the Guatemalan army apparently understood all too well. M. Brinton Lykes, Mary M. Brabeck, Theresa Ferns, and Angela Radan, “Human Rights and Mental Health among Latin American Women in Situations of State-Sponsored Violence,” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 17 (1993): 527. In his study of the violence in the Ixca´n, Jesuit priest Ricardo Falla noted that when women were captured and raped by soldiers, they were often forced to cook and clean for them afterward. In at least one case, soldiers, fresh from the bloodlust of a massacre, forced the surviving young women of the village to strip and dance for them; they then raped them (REMHI, Nunca ma´s, vol. 2, pp. 213–214). This kind of sexually enforced servitude humiliated and broke women down both emotionally and physically. By invading their homes, their bodies, and their work, the military was able to demonstrate that it fully dominated even the most intimate spheres of the women’s worlds. Falla, Massacres in the Jungle, p. 132, in Paula Emilia Winch, “Maya Women’s Organizing in Post-Violencia Guatemala: ‘Tenemos el derecho de decir lo que paso´,’” master’s thesis in Latin American Studies, University of Texas, 1999, p. 52.

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94–99

42. Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco,” p. 12. 43. Ibid., p. 13. 44. Ibid. 45. Kobrak, Huehuetenango, p. 86. 46. Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco,” p. 13. Cabrones: literally, a mean goat, but here more like “bastards.” 47. Kobrak, Huehuetenango, p. 86. 48. Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco,” p. 14. 49. Ibid. 50. Kobrak, Huetenango, pp. 85–87. 51. Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco,” p. 16. 52. Falla, FSFN, p. 15. 53. Ibid., p. 19. 54. Ibid., p. 19. 55. Ibid., p. 19. 56. Falla, “Massacre at the Rural Estate of San Francisco,” p. 21. 57. Ibid., p. 3. This flight took place between late July and August 1982. 58. Ibid., p. 2. 59. Ibid., p. 16. 60. Falla, FSFN, p. 88. 61. “Embassy Attempt to Verify Alleged Massacres in Huehuetenango,” Ambassador’s report, October 1982, http://www.gwu.edu/˜nsarchiv/NSAEBB/ NSAEBB11/docs/15–01.htm. 62. “Command authority” is a legal and military term that refers to the ultimate lawful source of military orders. 63. Whitbeck interview, July 14, 2005. 64. Secret cable, CIA, February 1982, National Security Archives, http://www. gwu.edu/˜nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB32/30–01.htm. 65. See Terri McComb and Toma´s Guzaro Gallero, Escaping the Fire: How an Ixil Mayan Pastor Led His People Out of a Holocaust in the Guatemalan Civil War (Austin: University of Texas Press, forthcoming 2010). 66. REMHI, Nunca ma´s, vol. 2, p. 20. 67. Testimony of Juana Tzoc, in Jonathan Moller, ed., Nuestra cultura es nuestra resistencia: represio´n, refugio y recuperacio´n en Guatemala: testimonios de sobrevivientes de al guerra civil guatemalteca (Mexico: Editorial Oce´ano de Me´xico, Turner Books, 2005), p. 34. 68. CEH, “Conclusions,” in Guatemala: Memory of Silence, http://shr.aaas.org/ guatemala/ceh/report/english/conc1.html. 69. Hale, Ma´s que un indio, p. 32. 70. Some of these details are found in Guy M. Lawson, “Flowers from the Ash: The Communities of Population in Resistance and the Process of Reintegration in the Ixca´n Jungle of Guatemala,” master’s thesis in Community and Regional Planning, University of Texas, Austin, 1995. There are stories of mothers being told by the guerrillas to cover their babies’ mouths with cloths to prevent

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211

their crying so that the group would not be found by the army, a move that sometimes resulted in the babies’ death by suffocation. Other women reported being told by the guerrillas to throw their babies away or to leave them behind to prevent apprehension by the army. See Sanford, Buried Secrets, pp. 102–104. 71. Lawson, “Flowers from the Ash”; see also Ricardo Falla, “Las CPR,” in Moller, Nuestra cultura es nuestra resistencia, pp. 57–59. 72. See Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, pp. 107–109. 73. Sanford, Buried Secrets, p. 105. 74. In the mid-1960s, anthropologist Benjamin Colby noted a “long tradition of patrolling in Nebaj. You were asked to do it as a service to your community.” Quoted in Americas Watch, Civil Patrols in Guatemala (New York: Americas Watch Committee, 1986), p. 15. 75. Ibid., p. 25. 76. Although the official ages for participation were 18–60, at least one report claimed that “many boys as young as 12 and men as old as 70 were forced to serve.” Alice Jay, Persecution by Proxy: The Civil Patrols in Guatemala (New York: Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, 1993), p. 17. 77. Americas Watch, Civil Patrols, p. 56. 78. Ibid., p. 5. 79. See Marvin Estuardo Ramı´rez Cordo´n, “Las patrullas de autodefensa civil como estrate´gia de la doctrina de seguridad nacional, Guatemala 1982–1996,” tesis de licenciatura, Universidad de San Carlos, June 1998, p. 52. 80. Guatemalan Public Relations Office, “Las patrullas de autodefensa civil: la respuesta popular al proceso de integracio´n socio-econo´mico-polı´tico en la Guatemala actual,” Guatemalan Army Public Relations Office, 1984, p. 2 (photocopy). 81. Consejo de Comunidades e´tnicas Runujel Junam (CERJ), “Inconstitucionalidad de Los Comite´s ‘Voluntarios’ de Defensa Civil o Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil e Institucionalizacio´n de la Violacio´n des los Derechos Humanos en Guatemala, Guatemala, 1992,” cited in Ramı´rez Cordo´n, “Las patrullas de autodefensa civil,” pp. 43–44. 82. Americas Watch, Civil Patrols, p. 18. 83. Jay, Persecution by Proxy, pp. 20–21. 84. “Annex H, Standing Orders for the Development of Counterinsurgency Operations, National Plan for Security and Development, July 16, 1982,” cited in Americas Watch, Civil Patrols, p. 19. 85. Americas Watch, Civil Patrols, pp. 26, 28–30. 86. “Guatemala: Reports of Atrocities Mark Army Gains,” secret U.S. Embassy to State Department, http://www.gwu.edu/˜narchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB11/docs/17–01. htm. 87. Americas Watch, Civil Patrols, p. 16; Harris Whitbeck interview, July 14, 2005; Edelberto Torres-Rivas and Gabriel Aguilera Peralta, Del autoritarismo a la paz (Guatemala: FLACSO, 1998), p. 68.

212

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101–105

88. See Torres-Rivas and Aguilera Peralta, Del autoritarismo a la paz, pp. 68–69. 89. Menegazzo Amado and Us Alvarez, “Violencia institucional y concepciones polı´ticas,” p. 81. 90. Guatemalan Public Relations Office, “Las patrullas de autodefense civil: l,” p. 2. 91. Whitbeck interview, July 14, 2005. 92. Ramı´rez Cordo´n, “Las patrullas de autodefensa civil,” p. 54. 93. Green, Fear as a Way of Life, p. 168. 94. Ramı´rez Cordo´n, “Las patrullas de autodefensa civil,” p. 55. 95. Americas Watch, Civil Patrols, pp. 68, 70–71. 96. REMHI, Victimas del conflicto, vol. 4, “Masacres: distribucio´n por ˜ o,” p. 530; Sichar Gonza´les, Masacres en Guatemala, pp. 47–71. departamento y an 97. Of this “will to power,” Nietzsche wrote, “Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.” Frederick Nietzsche, translated by Helen Zimmern, Beyond Good and Evil (New York: Modern Library, 1917). For more on the will to power, see Frederick Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1994 [1891]). 98. See Chris Krueger and Kjell Enge, Security and Development Conditions in the Guatemalan Highlands (Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 1985), p. 20. 99. Americas Watch, Civil Patrols, p. 73. For a vivid sense of how the creation of the civil patrols changed village equilibrium, see Beatriz Manz, Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), chapter 5. 100. See Davis and Hodson, Witness to Political Violence in Guatemala. 101. Sichar Moreno, Masacres en Guatemala, pp. 47–71. This work combines the findings of REMHI and the CEH and includes some additional reports of massacres taken from the Noticias de Guatemala and other sources that the author of the book feels that REMHI and CEH missed. 102. Russell et al., Unearthing the Truth, p. 7. 103. Benjamin Paul and William Demarest, “The Operation of a Death Squad in San Pedro La Laguna,” in Carmack, ed., Harvest of Violence. 104. Alexander Laban Hinton, Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), pp. 211–251. 105. Ibid. 106. Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, pp. 80–81. 107. See ibid., “Figure 15.2: Percent female victim of killing and disappearances by year, 1966–1995,” pp. 80–81. 108. Ibid., p. 80. According to the CIIDH, adult females made up 26–29 percent of people killed in massacres, but only 14 percent of individual assassinations or disappearances. 109. CEH, Memoria del Silencio, 1999, p. 1.

NOTES TO PAGES

105–109

213

110. Organizacio´n para las Migraciones (OIM), Aid, “Programa de Asiste´ncia a Victimas de Violaciones de los Derechos Humanos,” Informe: Diagno´stico comunitario en cuatro municipalidaes del Departmento de El Quiche´, Guatemala, Cuadro No. 3-B (Guatemala: OIM, 1999). 111. Equipo de Antropologı´a Forense de Guatemala (EAFG), “Las Masacres en Rabinal: Estudio Histo´rico-Antropolo´gico de la Masacres de Plan de Sa´nchez, Chichupac y Rı´o Negro” (Guatemala City: EAFG, 1995), pp. 287–288. 112. Dupuis Nieves Go´mez, Informe sobre el dan˜o a la salud mental derivado por la masacre de Plan de Sa´nchez, para la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Guatemala: Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios y Accio´n Social Psicosocial, 2005), p. 32. 113. Green, Fear as a Way of Life, p. 104. 114. Winch, “Maya Women’s Organizing in Post-Violencia Guatemala,” pp. 60–61. 115. PAVVA was a small private nonsectarian organization that included among its membership some former Peace Corps members, graduate students associated with Tulane University School of Public Health, and some British and American foreigners who had resided in Guatemala for many years. 116. Programa de Ayuda para las vı´ctimas de la violencia en el Altiplano (PAVVA) (A Proposal to Avert Imminent Calamity in the Highlands of Guatemala), September 1983, p. 1 (CIRMA). 117. Judith N. Zur, Violent Memories: Mayan War Widows in Guatemala (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), pp. 127–137. 118. Organizacio´n par alas Migraciones (OIM), Aid. Informe: Diagnostico comunitario en cuatro municipalidaes del Departmento de El Quiche´, “Programa de Asistencia a victimas de Violaciones de los Derechos Humanos” (Guatemala, for internal distribution of participating organizations, 1 August 1999), p. 38. 119. For an excellent study, see Green, Fear as a Way of Life. 120. Aldous Huxley, Beyond the Mexique Bay (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1934), pp. 63–64. 121. Adams, Crucifixion by Power, p. 248. 122. Sheldon H. Davis and Julie Hodson, “Conscription of Indian Youth,” in Witness to Political Violence in Guatemala, p. 30. 123. Kobrak, Huehuetenango, p. 69. 124. See John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Viking Press, 1976). 125. Mario Alfredo Me´rida Gonza´lez, Venganza o´ juicio histo´rico: una lectura retrospectiva del informe de la CEH (Guatemala: self-published, 2003), p. 38. 126. Kobrak, Huehuetenango, p. 102. Kobrak’s careful study of Huehuetenango provides a microhistory of the effects of the early 1980s in Huehuetenango, including the work of the civil patrols. For more on civil patrols, see also Paul Kobrak, “Village Troubles: The Civil Patrols in Agucata´n, Guatemala,” doctoral dissertation in sociology, University of Michigan, 1997. 127. REMHI, Never Again, p. 8. 128. See Case 2811, Chinique, El Quiche´, for example (REMHI, Never Again, p. 23).

214

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129. Kobrak describes cases in Huehuetenango where even fellow patrollers who arrived late or drunk to duty received harsh treatment at the hands of the PACs: “‘they beat the [slacker] or put him in a well of cold water over night. . . . They made him carry rocks on his back,’ according to one ex-patroller from San Rafael La Independencia” (Kobrak, Huehuetenango, p. 106). 130. See Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Viking, 1963). 131. Hinton, Why Did They Kill?, p. 278; see Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Anthority: An Experimental View (New York: Harper and Row, 1974). 132. Ibid., 287. See Kenneth Quinn, “Pattern and Scope of Violence,” in Karl D. Jackson, ed., Cambodia, 1975–1978, Rendezvous with Death (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 240. 133. See Rafael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944). 134. Chomsky speaks of “manufacturing consent” to describe the media’s ability to form and sway public opinion at a subconscious level, by manipulation, and not only in what appears in new coverage of events, but in what is excluded from coverage as well. This issue looms large in the Guatemalan case, a point I shall return to in chapter 6. See Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York : Pantheon Books, 1988). 135. See Hinton, Why Did They Kill?, pp. 211–251.

CHAPTER

5

1. Iglesia Guatemalteca en el Exilio (IGE), “La santa contrainsurgencia,” Boletı´n de la Iglesia Guatemalteca el en Exilio, no. 16, January 1983, p. 1. 2. See Amnesty International, “Massive Extrajudicial Executions in Rural Areas under the Government of Efraı´n Rı´os Montt,” 1982; “Guatemala: A Commentary on Human Rights,” Plenty International, 1982; Comisio´n de Derechos Humanos de Guatemala, “The Repression of Christians in Guatemala: Preliminary Report on Human Rights and Basic Liberties in Guatemala, July–October 1983.” 3. Quoted in Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 156. 4. Comunicado de la Conferencia Episcopal de Guatemala, “Iglesia condena masacre de campesinos,” in Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Polı´ticos (ICEP), Iglesia Cato´lica, crisis y democratizacio´n en Centro Ame´rica: documentos seleccionados de la Conferencias Episcopales y del SEDAC, 1978–1990 (Guatemala: Panora´mica Centroamericano, 1990), pp. 70–72. 5. Ibid., p. 71. 6. Fernando Bermu´dez, Historia de la Iglesia Cato´lica (Guatemala: Dı´ocesis de San Marcos, 2003), p. 185. 7. Agustı´n Estrada Monroy, “Acontecimientos polı´ticos de importancia nacional,” Datos para la historia de la Iglesia en Guatemala, vol. 3 (Guatemala: Tipografı´a Nacional, 1979), pp. 639–670.

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8. Berryman, Stubborn Hope, p. 117. 9. For a sample of Casariego’s political views, see Conferencia Episcopal de Guatemala, Carta pastoral del episcopado Guatemalteco sobre los problemas sociales y el peligro comunista en Guatemala (San Salvador: Tipografı´a Emiliano, 1967). 10. Adams, Crucifixion by Power, p. 287. 11. See Susanne Jonas, Guatemala! (Berkeley: NACLA, 1984), p. 186. 12. Gustavo Berganza, ed., Compendio de Historia de Guatemala, 1944–2000 (Guatemala: ASEIS, 2004), pp. 41–42. 13. John Lloyd Mecham, Church and State in Latin America: A History of Politico-Ecclesiastical Relations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), pp. 320–321. For more on Church-state relations in the 1960s, see Bruce Calder, “Growth and Change in the Guatemalan Catholic Church,” master’s thesis, University of Texas, Austin, 1968. 14. The clergy shortage in the Guatemalan Catholic Church was quite acute in the first half of the twentieth century, due largely to the government’s long-standing restrictions on foreign clergy and a shortage of both local seminaries and potential priests. Although precise figures are surprisingly hard to come by on this subject, in 1946, Archbishop Rossell y Arellano authorized a survey, which found that there were twenty ordained priests in all of Guatemala. See Censo clero, an˜o 1946, from the Archivo Eclesia´stico de Guatemala, as cited in Estrada Monroy, “Acontecimientos polı´ticos de importancia nacional,” pp. 616–620. 15. Carlos Martinez Okrassa, Apuntes de historia del la Iglesia desde las vı´ctimas de Centro Ame´rica (Guatemala: self-published, 2006), p. 212. 16. Curiously, the phrase “liberation theology” was rarely used in Guatemala, although the ideas were certainly present, probably because the term and its use of revolutionary and dialectic discourse were too dangerous to voice. In discussions with clergy in the 1980s, several priests advised me against using the term at all. Anthropologist Matt Samson recalls the same semantic self-censorship. See C. Mathews Samson, “The Martyrdom of Manuel Saquic: Construction of Mayan Protestantism in the Face of War in Contemporary Guatemala,” Le Fait Missionnaire 13 (October 2003), n. 12. 17. Adams, Crucifixion by Power, p. 287. 18. REMHI, Nunca ma´s, vol. 3, pp. 130–131; for the full text of all the CEG documents up to 1997, see CEG, Al servicio de la vida, la justicia, y la paz (Guatemala, CEG, 1997). 19. The three were Maryknoll brothers Arthur and Thomas Melville and Sister Marian Peter. After they renounced their orders, Thomas and Sister Marian Peter (given name, Marjorie) eventually married. The Melvilles, following Colombian priest Camilo Torres, were among the first clergy in Latin America to be openly associated not merely with liberation theology but with the armed resistance. According to the New York Times, the three “had been cooperating with a group of about 25 university students in work that ‘evolved into guerrilla activity.’” See George Dugan, “Maryknoll Suspends 2 Priests as Guatemala Guerrilla Aides,” New York Times, January 19, 1968, p. 15. Phillip Berryman takes care to note that the three clergy were “in contact with one faction of the

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guerrillas. While they were still preparing to become actively involved, however, they were detected and forced to leave the country.” Berryman, Stubborn Hope, p. 15. 20. See Thomas Melville and Marjorie Melville, Guatemala: The Politics of Land Ownership (New York: Free Press, 1971). This book, written shortly after the authors’ expulsion and marriage, does not actually have much to say about the Melville affair but is more of a detailed account of the disintegration of civil society and the economic inequity in Guatemala in the mid-1960s. 21. Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens, “From Symbols of the Sacred to Symbols of Subversion to Simply Obscure: Maryknoll Women Religious in Guatemala, 1953 to 1967,” The Americas, 61, no. 2 (2004), p. 214. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., p. 196. 24. Falla, Massacres in the Jungle, pp. 24–25. 25. See Stoll, Rigoberta Menchu´, p. 97. 26. Hoyos eventually left the Jesuit order to join the EGP and became part of its national directorate. He was killed by a civil patrol in 1982. Ibid., p. 98. 27. Fitzpatrick-Behrens, “From Symbols of the Sacred to Symbols of Subversion,” p. 209. 28. CEH, Guatemala: Causas, p. 78. 29. Fitzpatrick-Behrens, “From Symbols of the Sacred to Symbols of Subversion,” p. 209. 30. Iglesia Guatemalteca en el Exilio, “La santa contrainsurgencia,” p. 44. 31. Agustı´n Estrada Monroy, Datos para la historia de la Iglesia en Guatemala, vol. 3 (Guatemala: Sociedad de Geografı´a e Historia de Guatemala, 1979), p. 504; Ricardo Falla, Quiche´ Rebelde: estudios de un movimiento de conversio´n religiosa, rebelde a las creencias tradicionales en San Antonio Ilotenango, Quiche´ 1948–1970 (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria de Guatemala, 1978), p. 427. 32. Ricardo Falla’s Quiche´ Rebelde, though an anthropological monograph, is based on his experience as a young Jesuit priest working in San Antonio Illotenango in the late 1940s and recounts the violent conflicts that occurred between the accionistas and the Zanhorines (the traditionalists). 33. Jorge Murga Armas, Iglesia cato´lica, movimiento indı´gena y lucha revolucionaria (Santiago Atitla´n, Guatemala) (Guatemala: Impresiones Palacios, 2006), p. 34. 34. Ibid., p. 34. 35. Arias, “El movimiento indı´gena en Guatemala,” p. 76. 36. Dio´cesis del Quiche´, El Quiche´, p. 52. 37. See Bruce J. Calder, Crecimiento y cambio de la iglesia guatemalteco, 1944–1966, Estudios Centroamericanos del Seminario de Integracio´n Social Guatemalteca, no. 6 (Guatemala: Editorial Jose´ Pineda Ibarra, 1970). Although they are not as known for their activism as the Maryknolls, the Jesuits played a very prominent role in the advance of Catholic social action in Guatemala. In the mid-1970s, the Jesuits established the Centro de Investigacio´n y Accio´n Social (CIAS) in Guatemala City, which promoted social action work among campesinos in El Quiche´, Chimaltenango, and the south coast, all three areas where the armed movement gained substantial support and

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which the army subsequently crushed. This mobilization, according to REMHI, led poco a poco to the formation of the CUC in 1977. REHMI, “La vida religiosa en el fuego del conflicto armado en Guatemala,” 1997, mimeo, cited in REMHI, vol. 3, p. 134. 38. Kay Warren, The Symbolism of Subordination: Indian Identity in a Guatemalan Town (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), p. 88. 39. See ibid., chapter 4. 40. Bermu´dez, Historia de la Iglesia Cato´lica, p. 186. 41. EGP, “Intensificacio´n de la presencia de la iglesia cato´lica en el altiplano indı´gena,” in La primera gran confrontacio´n, el movimiento campesino indı´gena del Altiplano de Guatemala, 1984, p. 6 (internal document, EGP). 42. The seminal idea behind that was the desire of a sector of the Church to locate the “Indian face of God,” that is, to valorize indigenous culture and even spiritual beliefs within a Catholic context, a current in Catholic thought that comes out of the Medellı´n Conference in 1968 but which took a back seat at the time to liberation theology. The first evidence of what would eventually be known as “inculturation theology” in Guatemala appears in 1973, when Dominican clergy in Alta Verapaz sponsored a pastoral week (semana de pastoral) to examine the possibilities inherent in a pastoral indı´gena—at that time, conceptualized primarily as conducting the liturgy, preaching, and translating prayers and hymns into indigenous languages. See Centro Ak’Kutan, Evangelio y culturas en Verapaz (Coba´n: Centro Ak’Kutan, 1994), p. 47. For more on inculturation theology in Guatemala, see Virginia Garrard-Burnett, “God Was Already Here When Columbus Arrived”: Inculturation Theology and the Mayan Movement in Guatemala,” in Edward L. Cleary and Timothy J. Steigenga, eds., Resurgent Voices in Latin America: Indigenous Peoples, Political Mobilization, and Religious Change (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004). 43. Cited in Arias, “El movimiento indı´gena en Guatemala,” p. 77. 44. Murga Armas, Iglesia cato´lica, pp. 39–40. 45. Taracena Arriola et al., Etnicidad, estado y nacio´n, p. 359. 46. Ibid., p. 360; Melville and Melville, Guatemala: The Politics of Land Ownership, p. 215. 47. See Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 41. 48. Guia de la Iglesia, 1967, p. 343, as cited in Robert S. Carlsen, The War for the Heart and Soul of a Highland Maya Town (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), p. 127; see also REMHI, vol. 3, p. 128. 49. “[Y]a entro´ entre nosotros una mal semilla, son los comunistas, esta´n peleando contra nosotros con cooperativas y otras babosadas,” EGP, “Sebastia´n Guzma´n, principal de principales” (mimeograph), cited in Arias, “El movimiento indı´gena en Guatemala,” pp. 86–87. 50. Ibid., p. 87. 51. REMHI, “La Iglesia Guatemalteca en la segunda mitad del siglo XX,” 1996, mimeographed. 52. Fitzpatrick-Behrens, “From Symbols of the Sacred to Symbols of Subversion,” p. 215. 53. EGP communique´ 1977, cited in Levenson, “Reaction to Trauma,” p. 64.

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54. In his radio address to the victims of the earthquake on February 4, 1976, Casariego offered these words of comfort: “Dios habı´a puesto el dedo sobre Guatemala y ojala´ no fuera a poner la mano” (REHMI, vol. 3, p. 131). 55. Levenson, “Reaction to Trauma,” p. 64. 56. Ibid., pp. 64–65. 57. De Sol a Sol, perio´dico campesino, 1977. The issues of De Sol a Sol do not carry any further identification, but were probably produced by or with assistance from the Jesuits (Holandesa Collection). 58. Some of the most important of these centers included the Centro de Capitacio´n Campesina, Quetzaltenango; Casa de Emau´s, Esquintla; Campo de Dios y Centro Aposto´lico, Izabal; Centro de Desarrollo Integral, Huehuetenango; Centro de Formacio´n, San Pedro Sacatepe´quez, San Marcos; and the Centro San Benito, Coba´n. Note that all these centers were located far from Guatemala City. REHMI, “Presencia y accio´n de la Iglesia en el conflicto armado, 1997,” mimeographed, cited in REMHI, vol. 3, p. 129. 59. Bermu´dez, Historia de la Iglesia Cato´lica, p. 187; Amnesty International, Report 1982: A Survey of Political Imprisonment, Torture, and Executions (London: Amnesty International, 1982), p. 140. 60. Grandin, “To End with All These Evils,” p. 22. 61. Rigoberta Menchu´ Tum, I, Rigoberta: An Indian Woman of Guatemala (New York: Verso, 1984), p. 183. ˜ a, el 62. Comite´ pro Justicia y Paz, “Lista de los Ma´rtires de la Embajada de Espan dı´a 31 de enero 1980,” Boletı´n #3 de la Comite´ pro Justicia y Paz, January 1980 (INFOSTELLE Collection). 63. “Dura persecucio´n religiosa en Guatemala,” El Paı´s (Madrid), July 31, 1980. 64. EGP, “Carta fraternal a los cristianos que luchan junto al pueblo,” no. 7, August 1980, EGP mimeograph, “La represio´n contra los cristianos forma parte de la represio´n . . . y es testimonio de que Lucas y los ricos no combaten a una tendencia en particular o a una determinad ideolo´gica, sino a todo aquel que esta´ en contra o resista sus sistema de explotacio´n y muerte,” p. 1 (Payeras-Colom Collection). 65. EGP, “Carta fraternal a los cristianos que luchan junto al pueblo” (La religio´n no puede aislarse del mundo en que se desarrolla . . . en un a´rbol que no da ni fruto ni sombra, p. 9) (Payeras-Colom Collection). 66. “Hermanos, cuando se termina la oportunidad del dia´logo, haciendo esfuerzos por la vida legal Dios sabe que el ultimo recurso son las armas. Eso debemos entender todos nosotros, no queremos la guerra ni la muerte para tanta gente, pero el enemigo de Dios y de nosotros, empuja la guerra y nos obliga a responder con la fuerza e las armas.” “Mensaje de un catequista a otro catequista, La Iglesia sufriente del Altiplano a las dema´s Iglesias de Guatemala,” typed message, no date, approximately 1980, EGP archives, CIRMA. 67. “Las ideas cristianas verdaderas son una fuerza en la lucha del pueblo,” De Sol a Sol, perio´dico popular no. 35, 1980 (Holandesa Collection). 68. Bermu´dez, Historia de la Iglesia Cato´lica, p. 193; see also REMHI, vol. 3, p. 132. 69. See Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, 77.

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70. REMHI, vol. 3, p. 132. 71. CEH, Memoria del silencio, p. 20. 72. Of the nine priests killed in Guatemala during the armed struggle (Father Guillermo Woods died in a suspicious plane crash during a visit to the Ixca´n in 1976, an accident widely attributed to the army), eight were foreign: Walter Voordeckers (Beligum, 1980); Juan Alonso Ferna´ndez (Spain, 1980); Conrado de la Cruz (Philippines, 1980); Jose´ Marı´a Gran Cirera (Spain, 1980); Faustino Villanueva (Spain, 1980); Tulio Marcelo Maruzzo (French/Italian, 1980); Stanley Rother (United States, 1981); and John David Troyer (United States, 1981). Three foreign seminarians from the United States, Belgium, and Canada were also assassinated in 1981. Conferencia de Religiosas de Guatemala (CONFREGUA), Ma´rtires de Guatemala (Guatemala: CONFREGUA, 1988), pp. 14–17. 73. Simon, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny, p. 193. 74. Monsignor Gerardi was murdered outside his home in Guatemala City on April 26, 1998, two days after the public release of the REMHI report. The Gerardi case still has not been fully resolved, and the bishop’s assassination is surrounded by a cloud of rumors and disinformation that are all too typical in Guatemala’s elliptical search for truth. For a comprehensive account of the Gerardi murder written as compellingly as a murder mystery, see Francisco Goldman, The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? (New York: Grove Press, 2007). He traces the murder up to the top echelons of military command. See also Maite Rico and Bertrand de la Grange, Quien mato´ al obispo? Autopsia de un crimen polı´tico (Mexico DF: Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 2003). They attribute the murder to a complex series of motives that were not overtly political in nature. 75. REMHI, vol. 3, pp. 135–136. The one priest who stayed to administer the sacraments in the diocese was Padre Axel Mencos Mendez. The Diocese of El ˜ os de la violencia fue el u´nico sacerdote que decidio´ Quiche´ notes that “En los an permanecer en la Dio´cesis, a pesar de la soledad y el riesgo que implicaba.” Dio´cesis del Quiche´, El Quiche´, p. 140. In a 1984 interview, Father Mencos declined to discuss politics or the ongoing violence in any context (Interview, Chichicastenango, September 1984). For more information about the state of the Catholic Church in Guatemala during la violencia, see Berryman, Stubborn Hope; Dio´cesis del Quiche´, El Quiche´: El pueblo y su Iglesia (Santa Cruz del Quiche´, privately published, July 1984); Conferencia Episcopal de Guatemala, Al servicio de la vida, la justicia y las paz (Guatemala: CEG, 1997); Falla, Massacres in the Jungle: Ixca´n; Falla, Historia de un gran amor: recuperacio´n autobiogra´fica de la experiencia con las Comunidades de Poblacio´n en Resistencia, Ixca´n, Guatemala (privately published, May 1993); Julio Cabrera Ovalle, Consuela a mi pueblo: seleccio´n de homilı´as (Guatemala: Voces del Tiempo, 1997); Centro Ak’Kutan, Evangelio y culturas en Verapaz (Coba´n: Centro Ak’Kutan, 1994); as well as the REMHI report. 76. Cabrera Ovalle, Consuela a mi pueblo, p. 11. 77. Falla, Massacres in the Jungle, p. 188. 78. Gerardo Flores, “Resumen sobre la situacio´n de las parroquias, sus comunidades y sus catequistas o delegados, 10–17 mayo 1982,” cited in REMHI, El entorno histo´rico, vol. 3, p. 215.

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79. CONFREGUA, pp. 15–16. Of this number, twelve were priests and nuns; the rest were lay “Delegates of the Word.” See REMHI, vol. 3, pp. 144–154. 80. IGE, “La santa contrainsurgencia,” Boletı´n de la Iglesia Guatemalteca el en Exilio no. 16, January 1983, p. 1. 81. Dora Ruth del Valle Co´bar, Violencia polı´tica y poder comunitario en Rabinal, Baja Verapaz (Guatemala: Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios y Accio´n Psicosocial, 2004), p. 70. 82. National Council of Churches inquiry team on human rights abuses, November 7–11, 1982 (photocopy). 83. ORPA’s publication Ixim (the word for corn in several Maya languages), which circulated clandestinely in El Quiche´ briefly during the early 1980s, described Rı´os Montt’s failure to heed the papal call for clemency as an act of “religious fanaticism” designed to foment further religious antagonism between the Catholic and Protestant churches. Ixim, no date, probably publication date around March 1983 (INFOSTELLE Collection). 84. URNG, “Declaracio´n con ocasio´n de la visita del Papa a Guatemala,” February 26, 1983. 85. “The Pope asks for an end to the executions, and the Episcopal Conference meets with Rı´os Montt,” Enfo Prensa, 1, no. 27 (1983): 6. 86. “Represio´n de los gobiernos militares de Guatemala al sector protestante,” communique´ from the Iglesia Guatemalteca en el Exilio, no date (1983). 87. Juan Pablo II, “Homilı´a: Fortalecimiento de la fe y promocio´n social,” March 7, 1983, in Mensaje a Centro Ame´rica 2–9 de Marzo de 1983 (Guatemala: Instituto Teolo´gico Salesiano, 1983), p. 90. 88. The blessing was brief—“Quinya´ rutzil iwach conojel, ishokib, achijab, alobom, alitomab, e rij tak winak” (I give a greeting of peace to all of you, women, men, young men, young women, and elders)—but marked a high point of the service as listeners heard the head of the Church speak formally in their own language, so long devalued by the rich and powerful. Ibid., p. 99. 89. Juan Pablo II, “A los indı´genas,” March 7, 1983, in Mensaje a Centro Ame´rica, p. 95. 90. Ibid., p. 97. 91. Berryman, Stubborn Hope, pp. 123–124. 92. Proyecto Centroamericano de Estudios Socio-Religiosos, Directorio de Iglesias, organizaciones y ministerios del movimiento protestante: Guatemala (San Francisco de Dos Rı´os, Costa Rica: Instituto Internacional de Evangelizacio´n, 1981). 93. Virginia Garrard-Burnett, “Tongues People and Convolutionists: Early Pentecostalism in Guatemala, 1915–1940,” unpublished paper presented at the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, DC, September 2001. 94. For considerably more detail on this, see Garrard-Burnett, Protestantism in Guatemala. The first Pentecostal mission to Guatemala actually opened in 1916, but its fortune as a missionary church was similar to that of the mainline denominations in that it did not attract a large number of converts. In addition, the Pentecostal mission faced considerable opposition from the non-Pentecostal Protestant missions.

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95. See ibid., chapter 8. 96. See Heinrich Scha¨fer, Entre dos fuegos: una historia de la Iglesia Presbiteriana de Guatemala (Guatemala: CEDEPCA, 2002). For an excellent account of theological and political controversies in the Guatemalan Presbyterian church during this period, see Karla Ann Koll, “Presbyterian Evangelicals in Guatemala: Status Quo or Subversion?,” paper presented at LASA, Dallas, Texas, 2003. See also Karla Ann Koll, “Struggling for Solidarity: Changing Mission Relationships between the Presbyterian Church (USA) and Christian Organizations in Central America during the 1980s,” PhD dissertation, Princeton School of Theology, 2004. 97. Bertha Garcı´a and Juan J. Urrutia, “Damages Caused by an Earthquake in an Indian Village of the Central Highlands of Guatemala” (Santa Marı´a Cauque´, mimeograph, Biblioteca CIRMA, D-1260 [1976]). This was a survey conducted for the Division of Environmental Biology of INCAP. Specifically, the answers to the question of what caused the quake were: “God’s command (26 families); God’s punishment (21); Only God knows (17); God’s Word (13); God’s lesson (2); because of a volcano (10); geological fault (1); no response (11).” Levenson, “Reaction to Trauma,” p. 67, n. 14. 98. In 1978, El Calvario got caught up in an internal power struggle, resulting in a group of members breaking off to form their own church, which they called Fraternidad Cristiana. Fraternidad Cristiana is arguably Guatemala’s largest Protestant church today, claiming 14,000 members in 2006 (http://frater.org/historia.html). 99. This is something of a misstatement, since one of the largest Pentecostal denominations in Guatemala is the Assemblies of God, which has its base in the United States; the same is also true for the Church of God (Cleveland). Nevertheless, both denominations have very decentralized institutional structures and individual churches enjoy a significant amount of local autonomy in leadership, institutional development, and even theology. Moreover, many of the “Iglesias de Dios” that one sees in Guatemala are not associated at all with the Church of God (Cleveland), but have simply appropriated the rather generic name. 100. Servicio Evangelizador para Ame´rica Latina (SEPAL), “Retrato de Guatemala,” report for Amanecer project, December 15, 1988. SEPAL is a Protestant databank based in Guatemala City. 101. “Refuge of the Masses” is the title of one the first major studies of Protestantism in Latin America, by Christian Lalive D’Epinay, who argued that rural migrants to cities sought out Protestant churches in order to “replicate the authoritarianism of the hacienda.” Christian Lalive D’Epinay, Haven of the Masses (London: Lutterworth Press, 1969). 102. Benjamin Feinberg, “Religion and Society in Southern Mexico,” unpublished paper, December 1992, pp. 17–18. 103. For more on Mayan beliefs, ancient and modern, on the significance of the calendar cycles in Mayan cosmovision, see Barbara Tedlock, Time and Highland Maya (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982); and Jean Molesk-Poz, Contemporary Maya Spirituality: The Ancient Ways Are Not Lost (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006).

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104. Max Scheler, On Feeling, Knowing and Valuing, ed. H. Bershady (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 111; Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo, In the Eyes of God: A Study on the Culture of Suffering (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), p. 65. ˜ or Viene: Inminente se regreso, este´ alerta. Sucesos extraordinarios,” 105. “El Sen no. 3, no date, @ 1982. 106. Ibid. 107. Indeed, charismatic Catholicism, the “Pentecostal” form of Catholicism, Catholic Renewal, expanded even during the armed conflict and has continued to grow in Guatemala to the present day. In contrast to liberation theology, charismatic Catholicism emphasizes the experience of the Holy Spirit and does not engage directly with politics. Some parishes that formerly had a strong liberationist thrust have reestablished themselves as Renewal parishes. The church of El Calvario in Coba´n, Alta Verapaz, is a good example of such a parish. 108. Davis and Hodson, Witness to Political Violence, p. 24. 109. Richard Meislin, “Guatemalan Chief Says War Is Over,” New York Times, December 11, 1982. 110. Some of the participants in FUNDAPI included Wycliffe Bible Translators/ Summer Institute of Linguistics, the Church of the Word, Partners in the Americas, and World Vision. 111. Interview with Raymond Elliott and Helen Elliott, Wycliffe Bible Translators/ Summer Institute of Linguistics, Nebaj, headquarters, SIL, Guatemala City, March 18, 1985. 112. Simon, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny, p. 110; interview with William Hamman, March 11, 1984, in Guatemala City; interview with Ray and Helen Elliott. 113. Interview with Ray and Helen Elliott. 114. Juanita Batzibal Tujal, “A Conversation on Maya-Kaqchikel Concepts and Practices of Health,” pp. 23–30, and Michael H. Logan, “The ‘Ahk’ohn Utz’ of Chimaltenango: The Medical Value of Cultural Understanding,” pp. 125–134, both in Richard Luecke, ed., A New Day in Guatemala: Toward a Worldwide Health Vision (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1993). 115. Carroll Behrhorst, “A Report to Former Medical Studies in the Chimaltenango Program: Reflections on Recent Years (March 1986),” in ibid., pp. 95–98. 116. British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, “Bitter and Cruel: An Interim Report of the Parliamentary Human Rights Groups,” November 1984, p. 26. 117. Ibid., pp. 26–27. 118. Letter from Harold Ray to unspecified recipient, April 15, 1983; archives of the Iglesia Nazareno in Guatemala City. 119. “Guatemala,” Plenty International, 1982, pp. 28–29. 120. United Nations, “The Repression of Christians in Guatemala,” Preliminary Report Submitted to the United Nations on the Situtation of Human Rights and Basic Liberties in Guatemala, July–October 1983, p. 39. 121. Rafael Mondrago´n, De indios y cristianos en Guatemala (Mexico: Claves Latinoamericanos, 1983, p. 73). Mondrago´n notes that 200 pastors attended one

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such breakfast, which Rı´os Montt had convened to “convencerlos de su planeamiento polı´tico-militar,” p. 73. 122. Interview with Virgilio Zapata Arceyuz, Alianza Evange´lica, Guatemala City, January 25, 1985; interview with Stephen Sywulka, Seminario Teolo´gico Centroamericano, February 28, 1985; see also “Guatemalan Pastors: Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” Christianity Today, 25, no. 9 (1982): 13; “Guatemala,” Christianity Today, 22, no. 23 (1982): 44–45. 123. Organizacio´n del Pueblo en Armas, “Los que matan en nombre de Dios,” June 1983, mimeographed communique´. 124. Confraternidad Evange´lica de Guatemala, July 1982, cited in Mondrago´n, De indios y cristianos en Guatemala, p. 73. 125. Berryman, Stubborn Hope, p. 121. 126. See Stoll, Between Two Armies, chapters 3 and 4; and Falla, Massacres in the Jungle, chapter 10. 127. “Testimonio de Carmelita Santos,” Pole´mica, 7, no. 8 (1983): 77–78; Falla, Massacres in the Jungle, p. 131. 128. “La iglesia evange´lica en Guatemala,” Pole´mica, 9: 4–5; “An Urgent Communique´ to the LAM Family, San Jose´, Costa Rica,” photocopy (personal collection); Falla, Massacres in the Jungle, p. 135. 129. Iglesia Guatemalteca en el Exilio, “Represio´n de los gobiernos militares de Guatemala al sector protestante,” communique´ from the IGE, no date. 130. Interview with author, anonymous, El Quiche´, August 1984. 131. Mark Jurgensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 23.

CHAPTER

6

1. The marginalization of Guatemala during the Reagan era extends even into the historical analysis. In the prelude to his otherwise comprehensive, nearly 800-page study of the U.S. role in the “Central American crisis,” William LeoGrande apologizes for “giving [Guatemala] short shrift” but justifies the omission on the grounds that “Washington’s role was peripheral,” the “guerrillas never achieved the strength to threaten the survival of the regime,” and that “considerations of space preclude it.” William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States and Central America, 1977–1992 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), p. xiii. 2. Jeane Kirkpatrick, “Dictatorship and Double Standards,” Commentary, November 1979, pp. 35–45. 3. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, p. 5. 4. See Milton H. Jamail and Margo Gutierrez, It’s No Secret: Israel’s Military Involvement in Central America (Belmont, MA: Association of Arab-American University Graduates, 1986). 5. I am referring, of course, to the William Walker filibuster of the 1850s, to the multiple interventions by the U.S. Marines to oversee elections and “protect

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American lives and property” in Nicaragua in the early decades of the twentieth century, and to Augusto Sandino’s struggles to have U.S. troops withdraw from Nicaragua in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Sandino was successful in the sense that the troops did withdraw, but at the price of the rise of Anastasio Somoza to the head of the National Guard (originally a U.S.-trained national constabulary force) and Sandino’s death in 1934. 6. For details of this involvement, see Susanne Jonas, Guatemala! (Berkeley: NACLA, 1974). 7. Jerome Levinson and Juan de Onı´s, The Alliance That Lost Its War: A Critical Report on the Alliance for Progress (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), p. 88. 8. Kate Doyle, “The United States and Guatemala: Counterinsurgency and Genocide, 1954–1999,” in National Security Archive (NSA), Guatemala and the United States, 1954–1999: Death Squads, Guerrilla War, Covert Operations, and Genocide (Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest Information and Learning, 2002), p. 19; NSA, U.S. Embassy, Guatemala, “Fascell, Sub-Committee Hearings on Guatemalan Public Safety Program,” September 2, 1971, document #00454. 9. Guatemalan officers who trained at the School of the Americas typically took courses in combat intelligence, commando tactics, and something called Estado mayor, presumably a course of military government. Although the list is much longer, some of the officers discussed in this book who studied at SOA include Benedicto Lucas (1965 and 1970), minister of defense under his brother, Romeo Lucas Garcı´a, Hector Gramajo (1957), Rı´os Montt’s minister of defense, and all three members of the March 1982 coup, including Rı´os Montt himself (1950). See School of the Americas Watch, http://www.soaw.org. 10. See Doyle, “The United States and Guatemala,” pp. 19–28. 11. Ibid., p. 25. NSA, Viron P. Vaky to Department of State, “Guatemala and Counter-Terror,” secret memorandum, March 29, 1968, #00376. 12. Susanne Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and US Power (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), p. 92. 13. This slightly misstates the break between the two countries. The Carter administration predicated future aid on certifying improvements in human rights, terms that president General Kjell Laugerud categorically rejected. 14. Doyle, “The United States and Guatemala,” p. 33, n. 38. These figures are for the period 1978–1980 and come from the Defense Security Assistance Agency. See House Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Organizations, U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 97th Congress, first session, July 30, 1981, p. 98. 15. NSA, U.S. Embassy Guatemala, “Assassination of Labor Leaders at American Owned Firm,” confidential cable, July 14, 1981, #00662; U.S. Embassy to Department of State, “Embassy Action on Behalf of Abducted CNT Leaders,” confidential cable, July 28, 1980, #0067; U.S. Embassy to Department of State, “Rightwing Abduction Case Involving American Citizens,” confidential airgram, September 12, 1980, #00678.

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16. NSA, U.S. Embassy to State Department, secret cable, April 25, 1979, #002618; and “Human Rights Report,” John Bushell to Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, August 23, 1979, #000597. 17. Doyle, “The United States and Guatemala,” p. 26; NSA, U.S. Embassy, Guatemala, “Annual Human Rights Reports,” March 2, 1981, #00689. 18. NSA, “Confidential Memo from the US Department of State to the members of the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry,” May 8, 1981, #00704. 19. Michael McClintock, The American Connection, Vol. II: State Terror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala (London: Zed Books, 1985), p. 102; Lars Schoultz, “Guatemala: Social Order and Political Conflict,” in Diskin, ed., Trouble in Our Own Backyard, p. 188 (pp. 173–202). 20. Eje´rcito de Guatemala, Polos de Desarrollo: Filosofı´a desarrollista (Guatemala: Impresa en Editorial del Eje´rcito, 1984), p. 62. 21. Quoted in Noam Chomsky, Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace (Boston: South End Press, 1985), p. 30. 22. Doyle, “The United States and Guatemala,” p. 27; NSA, Department of State, “Initiative on Guatemala,” confidential cable, April 8, 1981, #00696. 23. NSA, “Next Steps on Guatemala,” from Department of State to United States Southern Command and U.S. Embassy Guatemala, secret cable, June 11, 1981, #00712. This document set up a three-stage procedure for restoring security assistance to Guatemala without “upsetting” Congress, a word that is used in the actual report. 24. NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, DCI Watch Committee Report, February 5, 1982, #00763. 25. NSA, General (ret.) Vernon A. Walters, “Guatemala and El Salvador,” Department of State memorandum, May 27, 1982. 26. Doyle, “The United States and Guatemala,” p. 27, n. 45; NSA, Department of State, William P. Clark, “Initiative on Guatemala,” confidential cable, April 8, 1981, #00696. 27. NSA, Confidential Memo to Department of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff, March 1982, document #00790. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. NSA, U.S. Embassy to Secretary of State, White House Situation Room, April 6, 1982, document #00791. 31. NSA, U.S. Embassy to Secretary of State, White House Situation Room, May 1982, document #00806. Much of the military’s early displeasure with Rı´os Montt had to do with his preachiness and ideas about personal morality: a U.S. military intelligence memo reported that “there have . . . been complaints about BG Rı´os’ continuing moral critiques at commanders’ meetings. He has allegedly forbidden officers to smoke and/ or drink (alcohol) at these get-togethers and, on more than one occasion, has lectured these officers on the evils of womanizing. Some of the commanders have openly stated that BG Rı´os is beginning to exceed his authority by stepping on [their] personal liberties.” NSA, Memo to Dept. of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff, May 1982, document #00806.

226

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32. NSA, Chapin, “Piedra/Carbaugh Visit: Impressions of President Rı´os Montt,” May 1982, document #00809. 33. NSA, Chapin to Thomas Enders, document #00813. 34. Doyle, “The United States and Guatemala,” p. 27. 35. NSA, diplomatic cable from Frederic Chapin, “Massacres and Refugee Concentrations Reported in the Press,” June 1982, document #00822. 36. NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, DCI Watch Committee Report, February 5, 1982, #00763. 37. NSA, diplomatic cable from Frederic Chapin, “Massacres and Refugee Concentrations Reported in the Press,” June 1982, document #00822. 38. NSA, Charles Fairbanks to Elliott Abrams, November 23, 1982, document #00880. 39. NSA, diplomatic cable from Frederic Chapin, “Massacres and Refugee Concentrations Reported in the Press,” June 1982, document #00822. 40. NSA, #82 Guatemala, #05673. 41. For a sense of how the question of whether or not massacres were a reality was debated at the time, see “Massacres in Guatemala: An Exchange,” between “MSS” (Michael S. Shawcross) and Aryeh Neier, the head of Americas Watch. MSS, a British subject who had lived in Guatemala for fourteen years at the time and had traveled recently through that region, charged: “The ‘Parraxtut Incident’ never took place. The village lies less than twenty kilometers from the town of Sacapulas, and yet no one, it appears, bothered to check the accuracy of the report.” New York Times Review of Books, March 1, 1984, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5930. For the case of El Managal, see REMHI, vol. 4, pp. 1–132; Ruth del Valle Cobar, Violencia polı´tica y poder comunitario en Rabinal, Baja Verapaz (Guatemala: ECAP, Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios y Accio´n Psicosocial, 2004), p. 70; http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5930. 42. Sichar Moreno, Masacres en Guatemala, pp. 46–54. 43. “Analysis of Human Rights Reports on Guatemala by Amnesty International, WOLA/NISGUA, and Guatemalan Human Rights Commission,” October 1982, http:// www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB11/docs/16=01.htm. 44. NSA, Chapin to State Department, cable, October 4, 1982, #00857. 45. NSA, Charles Fairbanks to Elliott Abrams, November 23, 1982, document #00880. 46. NSA, “Memorandum for the President from Secretary of State George P. Shultz: Your Meeting with Guatemalan President Rios Montt on December 4,” document #00876. 47. NSA, “President’s Statement Following Meeting with Guatemalan President Rı´os Montt,” December 4, 1982, document #00878. 48. NSA, “Recall of Ambassador,” Secretary of State George Shultz to Frederic Chapin, confidential cable, March 11, 1983, #00906. 49. NSA, http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/. 50. The liberal, social-oriented, and optimistic approach was not without its theological critics. Prominent theologians such as Karl Barth, S
ren Kirkega˚rd, and especially Reinhold Niebuhr warned against excessive optimism, among other things.

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Niebuhr, arguably the most important American theologian of the twentieth century, in particular criticized a liberal outlook, as it credited too much the Enlightenment notion that man and society were perfectible; Christian action was better assessed with a clearer understanding of the fallible nature of man and the transcendence of God. This, along with the larger body of Niebuhr’s thought, was known as Christian realism. See Russell B. Nye, “The Thirties: The Framework of Belief,” in Martin E. Marty, Modern American Protestantism and Its World: Theological Themes in the American Protestant World (New York: KG Saur, 1992), pp. 267–310. 51. Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (New York: Viking, 2006). 52. For more on the roots of the Religious Right, see Gabriel Fackre, The Religious Right and the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1982). For some of the formative writings of the movements, see Jerry Falwell, Listen America! (Garden City, NY: Doubleday-Galilee, 1980); and Jerry Falwell, Edward Dobson, and Edward Hindson, eds., The Fundamentalist Phenomenon: The Resurgence of Conservative Christianity (Garden City, NY: Doubleday-Galilee, 1981). 53. Jerry Falwell, Edward Hindson, and Woodrow Kroll, eds., Liberty Bible Commentary on the New Testament (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978), pp. iv–v, cited in Jeffery Pulis, “The Theology of Jerry Falwell,” PhD dissertation, Department of Political Science, Texas Christian University, 1989. 54. Noah Feldman notes, “The split between legal secularism and values evangelicalism was not born in a day. Legal secularism arose in the post-World War II era, reflecting a growing concern about the need to protect religious minorities, especially newly visible Jews who were arguably excluded by public displays of Christian religion like cre`ches or recitations of the Lord’s Prayer. But instead of attacking religion directly, as some antireligious secularists did earlier in the century with little success, organizations like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the ACLU argued more narrowly that government ought to be secular in word, deed and intent.” Noah Feldman, “God’s Country? A Church-State Solution,” New York Times Magazine, July 3, 2005, p. 31. 55. This quote is a paraphrase of George Marsden by Michael Lienesch in Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), p. 221. For more on this topic, see George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). 56. Lienesch, Redeeming America, p. 21. For more on Reagan’s long courtship of the Religious Right, see “Reverend Reagan,” New Republic, April 4, 1983. 57. Pat Robertson, Dates with Destiny (Nashville: Nelson Publisher, 1986), p. 232, cited in Lienesch, Redeeming America, p. 217. 58. Cited in Lienesch, Redeeming America, p. 309, n. 64; Falwell, Listen America! 59. “Terrorists Fear ‘New Source of Intelligence’ in Guatemala City: Holy Spirit Reveals Whereabouts of Guerilla [sic] Forces,” The Forerunner (Maranatha Campus Ministries), September 1982, p. 3.

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60. “Christians Reach Out to Help Rebuild Nation of Guatemala,” The Forerunner (Maranatha Campus ministries International), September 1982, p. 3. 61. See Anfuso and Sczepanski, He Gives—He Takes Away. 62. Tom Minnery, “Why We Can’t Always Trust the News Media,” Christianity Today, January 14, 1984, pp. 14–21. 63. Bill Cook, “An Urgent Communique to the LAM Mission Family,” Seminario Bı´blico, San Jose´, Costa Rica, 1982 (typewritten). 64. “Sectas y religiosidad en Ame´rica Latina,” Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Transnationales, October 1984, as cited in Sara Diamond, Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right (Boston: South End Press, 1989), p. 166. 65. The Guatemalan press was not heavily censored per se during this period, but the three main newpapers’ (Prensa Libre, El Imparcial, and Prensa Gra´fico) self-censorship seriously limited coverage of the war in the countryside. 66. Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, p. 46. 67. Ibid., pp. 52–53. 68. See, for example, Eje´rcito Guerrillero de los Pobres, “La junta military continua el genocidio,” Comunicado nacional e internacional, April 1982 (EGP collection). 69. Amnesty International, “Guatemala: Massive Extrajudicial Executions in Rural Areas under the Government of General Efraı´n Rı´os Montt,” July, Special Briefing (London: Amnesty International, 1982); Americas Watch, “Human Rights in Guatemala: No Neutrals Allowed” (New York: Americas Watch, 1982). 70. See Amnesty International, “Guatemala: Massive Extrajudicial”; see also Lars Scho¨ultz, “Guatemala: Social Change and Political Conflict,” in Diskin, ed., Trouble in Our Own Backyard, p. 186. 71. Washington Office on Latin America, Security and Development Conditions in the Guatemalan Highlands (Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, Report on a Mission of Inquiry, 1984), p. v; sources in this report include the Programa de Ayuda para los Vı´ctimas de la Violencia en el Altiplano (PAVVA) and Juvenile Division of the Guatemalan Supreme Court. 72. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), p. 36. 73. By way of illustration, Chomsky and Herman compare the coverage of three similar stories on U.S. television news and newspapers: the murder of a Polish priest named Popieluszko in 1984, the killing of Archbishop Romero in El Salvador in 1980, and the murder of twenty-three religious in Guatemala between 1964 and 1985. The Popieluszko killing received 78 articles, 10 front-page articles, and 46 stories on TV news; the Romero killing received 16 articles, 4 front pages, and 13 TV stories; the 23 dead clergy in Guatemala earned 7 articles, no front pages, and only 2 TV stories, despite the fact that several of the priests killed in Guatemala were Americans. See Chomsky, “Mass-Media Coverage of Worthy and Unworthy Victims (1) A Murdered Polish Priest versus One Hundred Murdered Religious in Latin America, Table 2-1,” Herman and Comsky, Manufacturing Consent, pp. 40–41. 74. For this report, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) analyzed Central American coverage during the ninety-day period following the regional peace accords

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229

in August 1987, which was obviously several years later than the Rı´os Montt era (FAIR, January–February 1988, www.fair.org). 75. This number comes from Asociacio´n de Periodistas Guatemaltecos en el Exilio (Mexico). It appears in an article on press freedom in Guatemala that was written by John F. Burnett for the San Jose (California) Mercury News in 1984, but was never published due to a “small news hole” for Central American news that was already filled by articles on Nicaragua and El Salvador. The URNG claimed that forty-nine “democratic” journalists were killed from 1981 to April 1982, while the CIIDH records forty-six. Ball et al., State Violence in Guatemala, p. 47. 76. Americas Watch, Human Rights in Guatemala: No Neutrals Allowed (New York: Americas Watch, 1982), p. 34. 77. John F. Burnett, unpublished, San Jose Mercury News, 1984, p. 2. 78. See Jose´ Ignacio Lo´pez Vigil, Rebel Radio: The Story of El Salvador’s Radio Venceremos (Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 1994). 79. “Standing Orders for the Development of Anti-Subversive Operations to the Victoria 82 Plan of Campaign: Tactics to Be Employed,” LEMG-1800 160800JUL82, Army General Staff, cited in Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project, p. 58. 80. Ibid., p. 58. 81. Amario De Leon, press officer, Embassy of Guatemala, Washington, DC, letter to John F. Burnett, then working for the San Antonio Express News, November 17, 1982. 82. Jean-Franc¸ois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), p. 5, cited in Franco, The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City, p. 12.

EPILOGUE

1. Ina Jaffee, “Los Angeles Police Criticized for Skid Row Work,” Morning Edition, National Public Radio, December 18, 2006. 2. See Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 1944), p. 79. 3. Steven L. Katz, The Holocaust in Historical Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 24; and Israel W. Charny, “Toward a Generic Definition of Genocide,” in George J. Andreopoulos, ed., Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), p. 91, both cited by Matthais Bj
rlund, Eric Markusen, and Martin Mennecke, “¿Que´ es el genocidio? En la bu´squeda de un denominador comu´n entre definiciones jurı´dicas y no jurı´dicas,” in Daniel Feierstein, ed., Genocidio: la administracio´n de la muerte en la modernidad (Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, 2005), p. 17. 4. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Among other criteria, this includes (a) killing members of the group, (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” (emphasis mine).

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These last conditions are, in fact, largely congruent with the effects of the Guatemalan situation, although there are those who might still debate the level of intentionality behind its cause. More than a half-century after the 1948 Convention on Genocide, in the 2002 Rome Statute, the United Nations refined and limited the legal definition of genocide, specifically prescribing the use of the word to describe “mass killings based on political criteria.” This too would describe the Guatemalan situation, where the raison d’eˆtre of the counterinsurgency war was, specifically stated, a political effort to eliminate an armed Marxist movement that sought to violently overthrow the government. In this light, the Guatemalan government’s disproportionate reaction, targeting as it did a specific ethnic group, would fall into the legal category of a “crime against humanity,” a deadly serious but lesser charge defined as “acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” See Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, U.N. Doc. 2187 U.N.T.S. 90, entered into force July 1, 2002; and United Nations, “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, New York, 9 December 1948,” http://www.un.org/millennium/law/iv-1.htm. 5. Steve J. Stern, Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London 1998; Book 1 of trilogy, The Memory Box of Pinochet’s Chile (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), p. xxi. 6. Ibid., p. xx. 7. Carla Villagra´n, interview with John F. Burnett, “Guatemalan Police Archives Yields Clues to ‘Dirty War,’” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, August 28, 2006. 8. Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich, Bavaria 1933–45 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). 9. Susana Kaiser, Postmemories of Terror: A New Generation Copes with the Legacy of the “Dirty War” (New York: Palgrave, 2005), p. 25. 10. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, pp. 290–291. 11. Prudencio Garcı´a, El genocido de Guatemala a la luz de la sociologı´a militar (Madrid: SEPHA Edicio´n, 2005), pp. 64–65. 12. Simon, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny, p. 14. 13. Franco, Decline and Fall of the Lettered City, p. 11. 14. Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), p. 97. 15. Sheldon H. Davis, “Introduction: Sowing the Seeds of Violence,” in Carmack, ed., Harvest of Violence, pp. 3–38. 16. Menegazzo Amado and Alvarez, “Violencia institucional y concepciones polı´ticas,” p. 81. 17. Gramsci, cited in Scott, Weapons of the Weak, p. 39. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Paul Preston, The Politics of Revenge: Fascism and the Military in Twentieth Century Spain (London: Unwin Press, 1990), p. 165.

NOTES TO PAGES

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21. Richard Lee Turits, Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in the Dominican Republic (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). 22. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973 [1951]); Carl J. Freidrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorships and Autocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956). 23. For a reassessment of these matters in Germany, see Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Eric A. Johnson, Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans (New York: Basic Books, 1999); Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria, 1933–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983); Ian Kershaw, The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). 24. Eric A. Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband, What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany. An Oral History (New York: Basic Books, 2005), p. xv. 25. Johnson, Nazi Terror, p. 385. 26. Ibid., p. 386. 27. William Shulz, retiring director of Amnesty International, interview with Scott Simon, Weekend Edition Saturday, National Public Radio, April 5, 2006.

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Index

Abrams, Elliott, 226n38, 226n45 AC (Accio´n Cato´lica), 119–25 ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), 227n54 acompan˜imiento, 130, 131 Acu´l, 138, 204n68 ads, political, 61–64 agriculture, 31, 38, 106, 107, 114 business, 32, 117–18, 148 reform, 47, 117, 120, 121, 129 Aguacata´n, 103 aid, 20, 32 alcaldes, 30 aldeas, 37, 204n68 Alecio, Rolando, 104 Alianza, Evange´lica, 140 Allende, Salvador, 51 Alliance for Progress, 148, 189 Alta Verapaz, 22, 32, 38, 73, 121, 186n67, 204n68, 217n42, 222n107 altiplano, 124, 127, 163, 187n4 western, 33, 36, 39, 87, 117, 120, 122 Alto Mando del Ejercito, 19, 43, 56, 86 Alvarado, Pedro de, 199n133 Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, 227n54 Americas Watch, 74, 163 amnesty, 66, 69, 70, 89, 204n53 1982 law, 11, 19, 58, 59, 70 Amnesty International, x, 74, 163, 178 Anfuso, Joseph, 76

anthropologists, 8, 11, 14, 15, 16, 91, 92, 98, 102, 104, 134, 185n53 forensic, 198n120 anticommunism, 15 16, 27, 28, 35, 52, 73, 76, 143, 147, 159, 193n62 and communism, 114 and Luis Arenas, 45 and MLN, 36 radical, 139 and Reagan, 146, 160 in Sunday sermons, 111, 128 U.S. role in, 148 Antigua, 21 anti-Soviet strategy, 188–89n19 apocalypse, 135 Arana Osorio, Carlos Manuel, 17, 28–29, 33, 55, 122 Arbencistas, 27, 35 anti-, 193n62 ´ rbenz Guzma´n, Jacobo, viii, 24, 26, 27, A 178, 201n7 and agrarian reforms, 120 and communist workers’ party, 35 and Left, 46 1954 overthrow of, 36, 43; U.S. role in, 30, 147, 148 and PGT, 191n53 reforma, 37 and university groups, 35 Arenas, Luis, 45 Arenas Barrera, Jose´ Luis, 45–46

256

INDEX

Arendt, Hannah, 169, 177 Are´valo Bermejo, Juan Jose´, 120, 191n53, 197n110, 201n7 Argentina, 170 armed conflict, 6, 7, 8, 12, 16, 89, 154. See also Guatemalan army; guerrillas propaganda, 98 resistance, 49, 104, 215n19 Armenians, 168 army, Guatemalan. See Guatemalan army Arriola, Aura Marina, 193n62 assassinations. See also Guatemalan army; guerrillas of Catholics, 126–29 of foreign religious workers, 219n72, 219n74 as genocide, 168 government stance on, 29, 48, 169 of journalists, 89 under Lucas, 50, 128, 197n103 of politicians, 29, 30, 43, 149; rightwing, 36, 207n18 of Romero, 130 targeted, 6, 30, 35, 45, 102, 105, 122 of USAID contractors, 158 Assemblies of God, 221n99 assimilation, ix Asturias, Miguel Angel, 13, 71, 184n45, 193n62, 200n145, 204n61 Asturias, Rodrigo (Gaspar Ilom), 193n62 Atitla´n, Lake, 34 Auschwitz, 170 authoritarian governments, 147, 154, 176, 221n101 as regimes, 30, 146, 171 authority, 12, 109–10 autogenocide, 104, 110 Azusa Street revival, 202n16 Baja Verapaz, 10, 11, 34, 49, 92, 104, 128, 182n15 banality of evil, 169 Baptists, Southern, 159, 160 Barrillas, 128 Barth, Karl, 226n50 Bastos, Santiago, viii. See also CIRMA Batres Jauregui, Antonio, 200n145 Bay of Pigs, 26 Behrhorst, Carroll, 137–38, 139 Belgium, 116, 120 Belize, 97, 146 Bennett, John T., 46, 198n122 Bentham, Jeremy, 184n39

Berk, Charles, 157 Berlin Wall, 146 Bible, and Rı´os Montt, 68 blame, 17, 98, 110, 126, 154, 178 culpability, 6, 165, 178, 199n132 bombings, 31, 36, 46 Brazil, 28, 31, 188–89n19 Brecht, Bertolt, 52 Breen, John, 117 British Parliament task force, 138 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 177 Burnett, John, 229n75, 229n77. See also journalists; news Bush, George W., 157 Bushell, John, 150, 225n16 Cabrera, Julio, 127 Cajaly Lo´pez, Ma´ximo, 47, 199n127 California, and Verbo, 56 Calvario Coba´n, El, 127 Cambodia, 9, 104, 110 campesinos, viii, 7, 12, 17, 19, 26, 32, 34, 73, 199n127, 201n9 and Arenas assassination, 45 and catequistas, 125, 127 and CUC, 38, 124–25 haven for, 86 and Left, 66 massacres of, 38, 55, 85 Campo Martı´, 75, 131 Canada, 139 Canal Zone, 55 Cantabal, 204n68 capitalism, 13, 32, 143, 172, 173, 174, 178, 192n60 capital punishment, 20 Cardenal, Ernesto, 130 Cardoza y Arago´n, Luis, 200n145 Carpio Nicolle, Jorge, 89, 207n18 Carter, James Earl (Jimmy), 48, 145, 147, 150, 159, 177, 224n13 Casariego, Mario, 114–16, 124, 218n54 Castillo, Rene´ Otto, 200n145 Castillo Armas, Carlos, 35, 201n7 Castro, Fidel, 27, 59, 148, 188n13 Catholic Action, 21, 22, 38, 44, 46, 87, 119, 120, 121, 122–23, 125, 129, 208n28 Catholic Church, 32, 115, 117, 131, 217n42 Guatemalan, 129, 215n14 REMHI, xiii, 4, 5, 126 Catholicism, 81, 222n107 and Rı´os Montt, 56 Catholic Renewal, 222n107

INDEX

Catholics activists, 36, 39, 119, 129, 131, 143, 216n37 beliefs, 135, 177 as counterinsurgency enemies, 126, 127, 132, 136 liberationist formation, 37, 133 politically active, 33, 114 priests, 31, 138 and Protestants, 111, 130 radicals, 17, 37, 114, 125, 140–41 relief workers, 137 and Religious Right, 160 CEG (Conferencia Episcopal de Guatemala), 116, 139 CEH (Comisio´n de Esclarecimiento Histo´rico), 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 71, 72, 87, 92, 98, 105, 108, 126, 181n12 CELAM (Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano), 116, 130 Central American Common Market, 35 Central American Mission, 132 Centro Ak’Kutan, 22 Cerezo Are´valo, Marco Vinicio, 14 Ceto, Pablo, 121 CEUA (Comite´ de Estudiantes Universitarias Anticomunistas), 35, 36 Chacaj, 204n68 Chajul, 73, 87 Chapin, Frederic L., 153, 154, 156, 226nn32– 33, 226n35, 226n37, 226n39, 226n44, 226n48 Chez, 103 Chiapas, 92 Chicama´n El Quiche´, 103 Chichicastenango, 73, 207n18 children, 18, 93–94, 105–6, 111, 210–11n70 Chile, xiv, 31, 51, 168 Chimaltenango, 43, 49, 87, 137–38, 182n15, 216n37 China, 174 Chisec, 127, 204n68 Chomsky, Noam, 104, 214n134, 225n21, 228n73 Christian Democrats (DC), 24, 42, 43, 55, 197n104 and MLN, 200–201n1 Christians, 26, 51, 55, 57, 67, 226–27n50 Christopher, Warren, 150, 225n16 Chupina Barahona, Herma´n, 198n124 Church and state, separation of, 21 Church of God, 221n99 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), viii, 26, 35, 43, 88, 148, 150, 152

257

CIIDH (Centro Internacional para la Investigacio´n de Derechos Humanos), 7, 8, 11, 12, 182n14, 182n19, 229n75 CIRMA (Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamerica), vii, 21, 22 civil patrols, x, xi, 6, 16, 20, 71, 89, 93, 99–104, 105, 111, 139 community division by, 110–11 and EGP, 216n26 evangelicals as leaders, 140 in Huehuetenango, 213n126 participation in, 109, 211n76 and violence, 106 civil rights, 20, 27, 159, 176 civil war, xiv, 4, 66, 147 Clark, William P., 225n26 class, ix, 14, 16, 18, 192n60 struggle, 37, 41 clemency, 20 Clinica Behrhorst, 137–38 Coba´n, 22, 127, 155, 156, 186n67 Coca-Cola, xii coercion, 110 coffee, 81, 172, 194n72 Cofradia de Santa Marı´a, 122 Cold War, vii, 14, 15, 29, 52, 54, 66, 82, 83, 146, 147, 158, 160, 173, 174, 187n5 Colegio Monte Marı´a, 117, 118 Colom, Yolanda, 21 Colombia, 31 colonies, 33, 82, 99 Comalapa, 103 Comita´n, Mexico, 92, 96 Comite´ Pro Justicia y Paz, 124 communism, xii, 32, 66, 67, 117, 142 red, 26, 177, 187n5 war on, viii, 28, 29, 30, 51, 149, 151, 174, 175 communists, 28, 31, 90, 117, 119 anti-, 114, 146 in Arbenz era, 35, 36 and Catholic Action, 122 and Indians, 38, 78 insurgents, xi, 152, 156 lists of, 198n114 and PGP, 46 and scorched earth, 14, 158 Confraternidad Evange´lica de Guatemala, 141 conscripts, 108, 111 conservatives, 55, 137, 161, 159 Constitution, Guatemalan of 1955, 27–28

258

INDEX

Constitution, Guatemalan (continued) of 1985, 10 Contra war, 25, 146, 147, 164 cooperatives, 33 corn, 14, 103, 106, 107, 108 corpses, 29, 95, 141 costa cuca, 34 Costa Rica, 113, 146 Cotzal, 73, 87, 118 Council of State, 72 counterinsurgency, ix, xii, 6, 7, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 70, 88, 89, 90, 97, 98, 101 and Anibal Guevara, 200n1 anti-Marxist, 114, 142, 230n4 church view of, 136 in Cold War, vii death squads, 29, 30, 198n114 effects of, 107 framing of, viii, xiv legitimacy of, 170 of Lucas Garcia, 87 military force, 27, 92 (see also Kaibiles) moral basis for, 86, 175 and religious sects, 113, 122 shield, 14 strategy of, 46, 71, 83, 84, 90, 100, 125, 126, 132 and United States, 30, 31, 147, 148, 149, 158 counterintelligence, 100 coup d’e´tat, 10, 11, 19, 21, 25, 27, 153, 183n25 Allende (Chile), 51 Arbenz, 26 of 1960, 187n7 of 1982, 50, 53–54, 57, 58, 76, 88, 152, 161, 187n4, 204n53, 224n9 of 1983, 57, 59, 64, 80–81, 101, 158 Rı´os Montt, 35, 56, 82 covenantal relationship, 203n45 covert operations, 29, 30, 31 CPR (Comunidades de Poblacio´n en Resistencia), 98–99 CRATER, 119 CRN (Comite´ de Reconstrucio´n Nacional), 136, 137 crops, 33, 86, 97, 106, 107. See also coffee; corn export, 32 nontraditional, 117–18 staple, 32 Cuarto Pueblo, 49 Cuba, 26, 30, 36 as inspiration, xii, 24, 26–27, 34, 35, 42, 172 and insurgency, xi, 173, 174

revolution, 55, 145, 148 training and support, 40, 188n13 CUC (Comite´ de Unidad Campesino), 21, 37–38, 39, 47, 48, 49, 121, 124, 125, 132, 172, 193–94n70, 194n72, 199n131, 216–17n37 culture, 13, 85, 110, 200n135, 206n1 loss of, 7, 14, 86, 105, 111 cursillos, 119 DC (see Christian Democrats) death squads, 29, 30, 45, 50, 61, 88, 115, 149. See also Guatemalan army in media, 29 origin of, 198n114 Declaration of Iximche´, 48, 49, 200n135 defleshment, 7, 182n17 Delegates of the Word, 127, 129 democracy, 84, 172, 173 Democratic Party (U.S.), 159 denial, by government, 45, 155 desaparecido. See disappeared De Sol a Sol, 124, 126 Dı´a de la Bandera, 79 Dı´a de la Raza, 72 dictatorships, 169, 177 diplomacy, 158 dirty war, 151, 170, 174 disappearances, 8, 29, 50, 59, 60, 72, 88, 163, 164, 181n12, 182n19. See also Guatemalan army of U.S. citizens, 150 disappeared, 6, 11, 35, 169, 182n12 discrimination, 49 disinformation, 45, 219n74 as campaign, xiii, 90, 155, 156, 165 Dispensationalists, 205n80 dissident groups, 14, 113 DNS (Doctrine of National Security), 28, 29, 31, 149, 188–89nn18–19 Documento de Marzo 1967, 37 Dominican Republic, 176 dominion theology, 75 domino theory, 148 earthquake (1976), 43–44, 51, 56, 119, 122, 123–24, 131, 132, 133, 136, 197n108, 218n54 as biblical prophecy, 134, 135 causes of, 221n97 and Verbo, 202n16 Echeveria Vielman, Guillermo, 100 economic issues, 13, 24, 31, 41, 52, 64, 105, 107, 143, 148, 159, 174

INDEX

crisis (1930s), 54 and CUC, 38 declining, 21, 50, 68, 81 development programs, 120, 188–89n19, 190n31 inequality, 216n20 U.S. assistance, 30, 153 and widows, 106 education, 33, 114, 119 EGP (Ejercito Guerillero de los Pobres), 11, 14, 17, 21, 34, 36, 37, 87, 88, 97, 99, 103, 142 ethnic strategy of, 38, 195n78 leadership, 193n62, 216n26 and Lucas overthrow, 40 and Mario Payeras, 41 Mayan support for, 39, 93 and violence, 45, 123, 125, 126, 163 women in, 196–97n98 El Calvario, 133, 221n98, 222n107 el cupo (the grab), 108 elections, 10, 13, 42, 43, 81, 183n25, 197n104 democratic, 74, 146 of 1961, 193n63 of 1974, 55 of 1982, 200n1 Serrano Elı´as, Jorge, 206n106 El Gra´fico, 89 Elim Church, 206n106 elites, 61, 117 El Managal, 156 El Pajarito, 156 El Pete´n, 204n68 El Progreso, 55, 201n9 El Quiche´, 10, 34, 39, 46, 47, 49, 73, 87, 88, 120, 121, 128, 129, 138, 139, 156, 182n15, 199n132, 204n68, 220n83 campesinos in, 216n37 Diocese of, 126, 127, 219n75 El Salvador, xii, 25, 40, 130, 145, 146–47, 151, 163, 164, 165, 228n73, 229n75 death squads in, 198n114 Enders, Thomas, 153, 226n33 enemies, 13, 19, 71, 106, 108 internal, 12, 28, 71, 136, 168, 188–89n19 energy crisis, 159 escorpiones, los, 26 Escuela Polite´cnica, 54, 197n103, 201n7 Esquipulas, Black Christ of, 115 ethnic issues, viii, 78, 125, 182n16, 186n63 cleansing, 16, 42 common ethnicity, 71, 109, 168 and EGP, 38

259

groups, ix, 13, 14, 15, 41, 104, 229–30n4 hatred, 96 Europe, x, 42, 78, 115, 164, 165, 168 evangelical issues, 18, 83, 131, 138, 140, 142, 227n54 Protestants and Rı´os Montt, 24, 64, 68, 75, 76, 77, 81, 90, 114, 139, 140, 159, 165 Serrano Elı´as, Jorge, 206n106 executions, 31, 72, 110, 142 Executive Decrees, 58 (9–82), 86 (44–82) exile, x, 97, 164, 197n110, 208n28 FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), 228n74 Fairbanks, Charles, 157 faith-based groups, 44, 56, 159 Falla, Ricardo, 46, 91, 92, 96, 127, 208n28, 209n41, 216n32 Falwell, Jerry, 160, 161 famine, 131 FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes), 27, 28, 34, 37, 104, 115, 191n53, 198n114 Far Right, 25, 43, 57 fascism, 66, 67 fear, ix, 10, 12, 29, 52, 83, 177, 178 culture of, 104, 109, 206n1 FILs (Fuerzas Irregulares), 41 final solution, 13, 24 fincas, 45, 91–97, 188n13, 191n144, 208n29. See also plantation owners as Cuban training base, 188n13 Finca La Perla, 45 Finca San Francisco Nento´n (see San Francisco Nento´n, finca) of Lucas Garcı´a, Romeo, 191n44 flags, xi, 101. See also Dı´a de la Bandera Flores, Gerardo, 127 FMLN (Frente Farabundo Martı´ para la Liberacio´n Nacional), 25, 40, 145, 165 food scarcity, 99, 103, 106, 107, 133 foot soldiers, 7, 86 forensic reports, 7, 13, 14 Fort Bragg, 55 Fort Gulick, 55, 201n7 Foucault, Michel, 12 France, 54 Franco, Francisco, 158, 176 Franco, Jean, 51 Franja Transversal del Norte, 32, 50, 121 Fraternidad Cristiana, 221n98 freedom fighters, 161 FRG (Frente Republicano Guatemalteco), 10, 183n25

260

INDEX

Fuentes Mohr, Alberto, 43, 197n103 fueros especiales. See secret courts (tribunals) fundamentalism, 160 FUNDAPI (Fundacio´n de Ayuda al Pueblo Indı´gena), 136–37, 138, 140, 222n100 FUR (Frente Unida Revolucionaria), 202n11 Fusiles y Frijoles (rifles and beans), 19, 20, 70, 80, 83, 85, 87, 88, 89, 91, 99, 106, 126, 136, 155, 163, 195n75, 207n2 gender, 42, 105–7, 196–97n98 genocide, ix, 4, 7, 13–18, 84, 90, 91, 167, 176–77 categorization of, 104, 114, 155 definition of, 13, 110, 167–68, 172, 229–30n4 intent, 229–30n4 and Khmer Rouge, 110 and Maya, viii, 42 political, xiii, 109 Gerardi, Juan, 127, 219n74 Germany, 4, 21. See also Nazi Germany Ghandi, Mohandas Karamchand, 159 God’s hour for Guatemala, 75 golpe. See coup d’e´tat Gorbachev, Mikhail, 146 Gordillo Martı´nez, Francisco Luis, 19 Gospel Outreach. See Verbo Gramajo, Hector, 38, 41, 86, 194–95n75, 224n9 grassroots movements, 51 graves, mass, 6, 9, 182n15 Great Tribulation, 134, 135 Green, Linda, xiii, 102 Green Revolution, 31, 117 G-2, 195n75 Guatemala City, x, 19, 27, 32, 45, 47, 54, 56, 63, 71, 75, 117, 118, 124, 131, 133, 157, 176, 190n37, 197n103, 216n37, 218n58, 219n74 and earthquake, 43–44 Guatemalan Church in Exile, 14, 113, 128 Guatemalan army, ix, 89, 96. See also armed conflict; assassinations; counterinsurgency; coup d’e´tat; death squads; disappearances; disappeared; genocide; guerrillas; highlands; holocaust (Mayan); indigenous; kidnappings; massacres; Maya; military, Guatemalan; repression; scorched earth; soldiers, makeup

of; state terror; terror; torture; United States; victims; violence; zones Guerrilla Army of the Poor, 11, 87. See also EGP guerrillas, ix, 28, 38, 41, 49, 97, 174, 191n53 and Arenas assassination, 46 army conflict with, 12, 16, 17, 18, 20, 25 and blame, 98, 156, 157 and civil patrols, 101, 103, 110–11 clergy support of, 117, 126, 127 defeat of, 76, 86, 109, 151 documents of, 22 as enemies of state, 19, 66, 90, 187n4, 223n1 and gender equality, 42 government violence against, 45, 58, 59, 72, 79, 89, 91 indigenous: as front for, 38, 93, 180n9, 201n9; support for, 195n82 intellectual support for, 36 leadership of, 37, 42, 114, 125, 193n62 and Marxism, 6 in media, 162–63 and Melville affair, 116–17 movement, 27, 35, 40, 71, 108, 148 and PACs, 100, 104 propaganda in highlands, 140 recruitment, 26, 110 and scorched earth, 105, 175 second-generation, 192n60 and Segundo momento guerrillero, 34 strategy of, 37, 42, 51, 155, 166, 170, 186–87n67 and students, 215n19 survivor distrust of, 99 tactics, 29, 30, 39, 199n132 violence to babies, 210–11n70 wives of, 106 Guevara, Ernesto (Che), 55 Guevara Rodrı´guez, A´ngel Anı´bal, 19, 25, 53, 200n1 guilt, xiii, 4, 8, 11, 46, 86, 98 Guzma´n, Sebastia´n, 122 Haig, Alexander, 152 hand as image, 61–62 hate, 102, 104, 110, 169 Havana, 165 health care, 32, 107, 114, 137 workers, x, 17, 32, 39, 119, 129, 138 hearts and minds, 101, 142, 169, 176

INDEX

Hennessey, Ronald, 156 highlands, 69, 71, 74, 80, 86, 88, 89, 107, 133, 134 civil patrols in, 101, 102 civil violence in, xii, 106, 108 evangelicals and military in, 140, 141 liberation theology in, 116 reclamation of, xi, 72 refugee camps in, 99 Hitler, Adolf, 177 Holocaust (Nazi), 167, 169 holocaust (Mayan), 7, 15, 108 Spanish Embassy as, 48 holy war, 114, 128, 130–31, 142 Honduras, 146, 164 Hoyos, Fernando, 118, 216n26 Huehuetenango, 10, 11, 33, 49, 54, 87, 88, 93, 96, 108, 121, 128, 204n68, 209n33 civil patrols in, 213n126 Diocese of, 32, 73 PACs, 214n129 humanitarian groups, 138 human rights, 96, 157, 163 abuses, 6, 82, 90, 131, 155, 156, 158, 177, 178 concerns, 25, 39, 47, 48, 83, 116, 138, 150, 151, 152, 154, 159 record, 20, 22, 90, 147, 182n14, 224n13 violations, xii, 6, 7, 8, 11, 22, 59, 74, 162, 165, 181n12 workers, 11, 99, 136 Huxley, Aldous, 107 ideas, manipulation of, 12 identity, 109, 175 indigenous, xiv, 7, 73, 102, 125, 182n16, 192n60 of Maya, 194n73 religious, 33 iglecrecimiento, 76, 76 images, manipulation of, ix, 12, 61, 82, 84, 128, 169, 175 imaginaire, xiii, 18, 51, 64, 80, 203n31 immigration courts, U.S., 7 INCAP (Institucio´n de Nutritio´n de Centro Ame´rica y Panama), 221n97 inculturation theology, 131, 217n42 Indians, xi, 14, 36, 38, 48, 72, 78, 82, 87, 89, 158, 184n45 arming of, 101, 108 and communists, xii, 38 dialect, 96 elite treatment of, 117, 121

261

and guerrillas, 90 identity of, 125, 132, 192n60 massacre of, 162, 171, 172 starvation of, 107 indigenista, 72, 194n73 indigenous, 9, 17, 18, 19, 20, 96, 98 domestication of, 72 and Catholic Action, 120–21, 122 as combatants, 98, 107 as conscripts, 111 (see also Guatemalan army) and CUC, 38, 47, 49 culture, 131, 217n42; destruction of, 103, 104, 121, 133 as exploited class, 192n60 evangelicals, 138, 139 and FAR, 191 forced conscription of, 108; integration of, 73 and guerrillas, xii, 38, 180n9, 194n70, 199n132, 201n9 health care of, 137–38 highlands, 37 history of oppression, 36, 102 identity of, 7, 182n16 informants, 11 and information access, 186–87n67 and ladinos, 38–39, 41, 110 languages, 70 leaders, 15 and Marxism, 196n93 and Maryknoll, 120 and PACs, 100 as parcelarios, 33 as political organizers, 48 and Pope John Paul II, 131 population, 12, 15, 16, 32, 36, 51, 172 self-policing, 99 support for revolutionary forces, 40, 101 as survivors, 11 as teachers, 120 voices, 9, 186n63 Indra, xv, 180n18 informants, 8, 11 information manipulation of, 12, 166, 169 as power, 33, 187n67 ingobernabilidad, 51 innocence, 4, 46, 86, 90, 91, 98 insurgency, 25, 28, 42, 88, 111, 154, 158 armed, 27 Marxist, 27 INTA (Institute of Agrarian Transformation), 32, 121

262

INDEX

intellectuals, x, xiii, xiv, 35, 36, 51, 193n62 intelligence, 100, 224n9 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 91 International Love Lift, 136–37 Iran hostage crisis, 159 Israel, 33, 147, 151, 160 Italian War College, 55 Ixca´n, 32, 39, 40, 45, 49, 73, 87, 118, 121, 127, 128, 209n41, 210n70, 219n72 Ixca´n Grande, 32, 49, 121 Ixca´n River, 32 Ixil, 11, 29, 44, 63, 122, 126, 137, 165–66 Ixil Triangle, 73, 87, 88, 126, 137, 204n68 Ixim, 220n83 Iximche´, 48, 49, 199n133, 200n135 Izabal, 28, 190n3 Jacaltenango, 96 Japan, 171 Jesuits, 46, 92, 117, 118, 119, 120, 127, 208n28, 209n41, 216n26, 216n32 and Maryknolls, 216n37 Jesus freak movement, 56 Jews, 160, 177, 227n54 John Paul II, Pope, xi, 20, 129, 130, 131 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 148 journalists, x, 163, 164–65, 177. See also news Juil-Chacalte´, 204n68 junta, 53, 57, 153 Kaibil Balam, 141 Kaibiles, xii, 27, 46 Kakchikel, 48, 137, 199n133 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 30 Khmer Rouge, 104, 110 kibbutz, 190–91n42 Ki’che’, 131, 199n131 kidnappings, 30, 31, 36, 67, 88, 99, 115, 122, 126, 138 Kierkegaard, Søren, 226n50 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 159 Kirkpatrick, Jeanne, 146–47, 174 Kobrak, Paul, 92 Korea, 75 labor, viii, 30, 34, 35, 120, 174, 194n70 La Comodidad, 54 ladinos, xii, 7, 13, 15, 16, 17, 32, 34, 37, 71, 73, 84, 108, 178 and CUC, 49

definition of, 182n16 exploitation of Maya, ix, 121 and national identity, 143 as planter class, viii as revolutionary leaders, 37, 40, 42, 119, 174 as victims, 181n12 views of indigenous, 38–39, 41, 192n60, 195n79 La Estancia, 37–38 La Limonada, 118 La Moneda Palace (Chile), 51 land, 121, 122 ownership, viii, 39, 102, 103, 105, 117 rights activists, 46, 48, 119, 194n70 language, 83, 109, 209n35 as boundary, 34, 71, 73, 101 indigenous, 33, 70, 120, 165, 217n42 manipulation of, 73, 82, 84, 90, 100, 102, 175 political, 110, 128–29, 173 semantics of, 208n22 Spanish, xiii, 14, 33, 34, 73, 75, 100, 120 of struggle, 64, 142, 163, 168, 169 in Sunday Sermons, 154, 178 La Nueva Guatemala, x, xii, 57–59, 63–66, 72–74, 77, 81–84, 111, 131, 175, 178 Las Palmas, 204n68 Laugerud Garcia, Kjell, 43, 46, 55, 126, 197n104, 224n13 La Verapaz, Diocese of, 127, 128 la violencia, xii, 3, 14, 16, 17, 24, 88, 114. See also violence law, due process of, 20 Le Bot, Yvon, 16, 180n9, 186n61 Left, 26, 30, 35, 36, 43, 46, 66, 146 and clergy, 117, 126, 130, 208n289 groups, 36, 39, 66, 115, 165 radical, 24, 51, 66, 122 repression of, 28, 33, 45 and Right, vii, 85, 92, 98, 101, 161, 174 legal representation, 20 Lemkin, Rafael, 110 Leninist groups, 34, 76, 125 liberalism, 83, 84, 160, 226n50 liberation theology, 92, 115–16, 118–19, 123–26, 130, 133, 136, 215n16, 215n19, 217n42 and Catholic Renewal, 222n107 Liceo Xavier, 118 literacy, 119, 120, 134 Los Encuentros, 92

INDEX

Lucas Garcı´a, Benedicto, 45, 49, 50, 224n9 Lucas Garcı´a, Fernando Romeo, 11–12, 19–20, 24–26, 40, 45–46, 50, 53, 86–87, 90, 152, 191n44, 200n1, 224n9 and Spanish Embassy burning, 47, 48, 49, 125 Lucas-Guevara regime, x, xii, 57, 60, 88, 91, 126, 128–29, 150, 154, 158, 163–64, 175, 178, 197n103, 197n110, 207n2 National Police, 198n124 Lutheran Church, 137, 141 Maldonado Schaad, Horacio Egberto, 19 manipulation of differences, 111 of information, 166, 169, 175 of public opinion, 214n134 Mann, Thomas C., 148 Mano Blanca, 30, 115, 198n114 mano dura, 21, 125 manufactured difference, 104 manufacturing consent, 214n134 Mao. See Zedong, Mao Marista Liceo, 118 Marx, Karl, 174 Marxist issues, 6, 13, 18, 102, 146, 177 armed movement, 230n4 guerrillas (FMLN), 145 ideology, viii, 42, 125, 196n93 insurgency, 27, 28, 49, 147, 149 and Leninist groups, 34, 76, 125 neo, 25, 192n60 revolution, xii, 172, 173 tenets, 41, 176 Maryknoll Order, 32, 116–18, 120–21, 123, 156, 215n19 and Jesuits, 216n37 massacres, 5, 10–11, 16, 49, 59–60, 70, 72, 83, 87–97, 103–4, 128, 162 as alleged, xii, 155–56, 226n41 of campesinos, 38, 55 charges against Rı´os Montt, 207n20 classification as, 203n26 era of, 147 health care workers in, 138 knowledge of, 5, 209n35 lists of, 182n13, 201n9 as mass killing, 8, 48, 88, 129, 168–69, 230n5 by own kind, 108, 109 Panzo´s, 46–47, 48 reports of, 5–6, 208n29

263

and scorched earth, 98 as strategy, 90, 111, 129 Tlatelolco (Mexico), 51 witnessing of, 110, 209n33 Maya, 7, 13–17, 41, 85, 101, 103–4, 163 and Catholic Action, 119, 121 conscripts, 108, 174 and CUC, 38 and counterinsurgency, 72, 122 destruction of culture, 83, 108, 194n73 divided communities, 111 and EGP, 39 and evangelicals, 140 and FAR, 37 genocide of, viii, 86–87, 126, 168 and guerrillas, 51, 98 intellectuals, 185n54 language, 34, 46, 71 movement, xiv, 42, 185n54, 200n135 Pentecostal converts, 134 and Presbyterian Church, 133 and Protestants, 131–32, 136 and racism, 172 society, 105–7 as term, 194n73 as victims, ix, 17, 18, 92, 181n12 and violence, 182n17; by Maya, 110 widows, xiii Mayala´n, 128 McNamara, Robert, 18 Medellı´n, 116, 217n42 media, xi, 18, 161–63, 164, 166, 170 portrayal of death squads, 29, 58 and public opinion, 214n134 medicine, 32, 106 Mejia Victores, Oscar Humberto, 21, 73, 80–81, 171 Melotto, Ange´lico, 127 Melville, Arthur and Thomas, 116–17, 215n19, 216n20 memory, 4, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15 historical, ix, xiii, xiv, xv, 5 Menchu´, Vicente, 125, 142, 199n131 Menchu´ Tum, Rigoberta, viii, ix, 48, 125, 138, 186n54, 186n63, 199n131 Me´ndez Montenego, Julio Ce´sar, 31, 115, 188n16, 189n31 mestizaje, 37 metaphors, social, ix, xiv–xv Methodists, Primitive, 141 Mexico, 31, 32, 42, 51, 95–96, 113, 130 refuge in, 7, 164, 208n28 microcongregations, 134

264

INDEX

migration, 32, 107, 121, 221n101 Milgram, Stanley, 109–10 military, viii, 10, 12, 86, 224n9 Guatemalan, ix, 89 (see also armed conflict) Milla y Vidaurre, Jose´, 200n145 missionaries, 132, 133, 220n94 foreign clergy, 115, 117, 126 MLN (Movimiento de Liberacio´n Nacional), 25, 35–36, 43, 57, 126, 152, 197n104, 200–201n1 model villages, 72–74, 204n68 Montu´far, Lorenzo, 200n145 Moral Majority, 160, 161, 166 Mora´n, Rolando (Ricardo Arroldo Ramı´rez de Leon), 37, 193n62 Mormons, 160 Moscow, 67, 74, 165 moshavim, 190–91n42 MR-13 (Movimiento Revolucionario 13 de noviembre), 27, 28 Nahuala´, 99 narrative new historical, 5, 6, 13, 15 new national, 4 Natiliabaj, 156 National Council of Churches, 129 National Development Plan (1965–1969), 190n39 National Growth and Security Plan, 19 national identity, ix, 70, 72, 74, 79, 125, 143, 175, 178 construction of nationality, 4, 58, 62, 71 (see also CRN) nationalism, ix, 13, 51, 84 secular, ix, 142–43, 169, 175 unity, 78; unidad nacional, 71, 102, 162 National Palace, 82 Nazarene, Church of, 139, 141 Nazi Germany, 9, 109, 110, 130, 167, 169, 177 Nebaj, 11, 73, 87, 103, 122, 137, 211n74 New Guatemala. See La Nueva Guatemala New Orleans, 138 news, 58, 59, 69, 163, 164–65. See also journalists newsworthiness, 163–64 papers, 7, 22, 59, 61, 89, 91, 177, 228n73; Pentecostal, 135; photos in, 63 new society, 110 NGOs, 32, 136

Nicaragua, xii, 25, 34, 42, 125, 130, 145–47, 163–64, 199n132, 223–24n5, 229n75 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 159, 226n50 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 103, 212n97 Nixon, Richard Milhous, 148, 159 noncombatants, 4, 18, 40, 71, 87 North America, 78 North Carolina. See Fort Bragg Norway, 43 NSA (National Security Archive), 189nn22–23, 196n90, 198n122, 202nn20–21, 210n64, 224n16, 224n18, 224nn22–31, 226nn32–40, 226nn44–49. See also Bennett, John T.; secret U.S. cables; United States, State Department nuclear war, 188–89n19 ˜ ez, Emilio, 76 Nun Nuremberg trials, 109 obedience to authority, 109–10 oil, 121 Ojo de Agua, 204n68 Ojo por Ojo, 29 Operacio´n Ceniza (Operation Ash), 87 Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 120 Organization of American States, 91 oriente, 27, 28, 33, 36, 39 ORPA (Organizaciones del Pueblo en Armas), 34, 37, 63, 191n53, 193n62, 220n83 orphans, 127 Orwell, George, 100, 102 Oxfam, 155 PAAC. See Fusiles y Frijoles PAC (Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil), 99–104, 214n129 pacification program, 87, 99. See also peace Paiz Novales, Eenesto, 197n 104 Palau, Luis, 75 Palay, 204n68 Panajachel, xi pan-Mayan movement, 15, 49, 185nn53–54 Panopticon, 12, 184n39 Panzo´s, viii, 38, 46–47, 48, 198n120 paramilitary groups, 45, 99 parcelarios. See indigenous Parraxtut, 156, 226n41 Partido Revolucionario, 197n104 Partners in the Americas, 137 patriarchal society, 105 Paul VI, Pope, 115

INDEX

PAVVA (Programa de Ayuda al Vı´ctimas de la Violencia en el Altiplano), 106, 213n115 Payeras, Mario, 21, 41, 196n97 peace, 4, 62–63, 83, 89, 136, 161, 220n88 in 1982, viii, 79, 88 in 1987, 228–29n74 in 1996, 4, 5, 171, 186n54, 200n135 in Rı´os Montt speeches, 65, 68, 70, 74, 77, 78 Peace Corps, 150, 213n115 Penados del Barrio, Pro´spero, 139–40 Pentecostalism, 19, 57, 132, 135, 140, 141, 202n14 neo, 202n16 and poor, 114, 131–33, 136, 220n94 and Rı´os Montt, 24, 54, 55–56, 75, 83, 134, 178 Peralta Azurdia, Enrique, 27, 197n110 perception management, 151, 166, 169 perestroika, 146 Pete´n, 32, 73, 121, 190n39, 191n44 Peter, Marian, 117, 118, 119, 215n19 PGT (Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo), 26, 28, 35, 36, 46, 191n53, 198n114 Philippines, 75, 116 Pichiquil, 156 PID (Partido Independiente Democra´tico), 43, 200n1 Pinochet, Augusto, xiv ˜ a. See Victoria 82 Plan de Campan Plan de Sa´nchez, 92, 128 Plan Nacional de Seguridad y Desarrollo, 86 plantation owners, 30. See also fincas planter class, 15, 21, 45, 50, 54 plausible deniability, 149, 151, 154 Playa Grande. See El Quiche´ Playa Grande (Alta Verapaz), 204n68 Playa Grande Uspanta´n, 204n68 Poland, 130 political issues, 20, 110, 208n28, 230n4 polls, 10, 11, 177, 197n104, 205n81, 221n97 polos de desarrollo, 72, 83 Popieluszko murder, 228n73 Poptu´n, 190n39 popularity, Rı´os Montt, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 population growth, 32 poverty, 119, 122, 172, 173 power, and self-identity, 109 premillennialism, 134 Prensa Libra, 141 Presbyterian Church, 132, 133, 141 press, 57, 81, 100, 128, 155, 229n75

265

priests, foreign activist, 116 prisoners, 110, 130 professors. See teachers and professors proletarians, 32, 37 propaganda, 22, 98, 100, 140, 150, 155, 163 property seizures, 123 Protestants, 56, 65, 73, 75, 131, 139, 159 and Catholics, 111, 114, 129, 130 conservative, 14 and counterinsurgency, 136, 153 evangelical, 160 and evangelicals, 76, 114, 141 Guatemalan, 202n14 organizations, 44 and presidential breakfasts, 140, 222–23n121 as protection, 136 under Rı´os Montt, 132, 140 and suffering, 135 protests, 47, 48 psychological operations (psy ops), 12, 87, 165 psychology, 108, 109–10 publications. See also ads, political; media; news; specific titles army, 98, 102 street literature, 124 public opinion, 214n134. See also polls Puebla conference, 130 Puerto Barrios, 193n63 purges, 110 Q’eqchi’, viii, 46 Quanjobal, 141 Quetzaltenango, 34, 131, 138, 188n13 Rabinal, 11, 34, 92, 104, 127, 128, 156 race, viii, ix, 14, 98, 229–30n4 racism, viii, ix, xiii, 13, 15, 17–18, 38–39, 172 stereotypes, 38, 175 radio, 99, 156, 165, 218n54 raison d’etat, 170–71 Ramı´rez de Leon, Ricardo Arnoldo. See Mora´n, Rolando rape, 9, 49, 93–94, 209n41 Rauschenbusch, Walter, 159 Raxruha, 127 Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 14, 20, 66, 78, 150, 157–61 administration, 113–14, 150–51, 152, 154, 163, 223n1 Doctrine, 145–47 Plan, 20

266

INDEX

reconciliation, national, 5 reconstruction, 153 recruiters, 108 recuperation, xiii, 4, 9. See also memory Reforma, Liberal (1870s), 78 Reformation, wars of, 174 reforms, desarrolllista, 33 refugees, 7, 73, 98–100, 111 camps, 71, 95–96, 97, 129, 208n28 (see also model villages) and microcongregations, 134 regnancy, assumption of, 27, 188n13 Reich, Otto, 157 religion, 18, 24, 158, 205n81, 229–30n4 convictions of Rı´os Montt, 153 differences, 102 extremism, 142 Religious Right, 160, 161 REMHI, 5–6, 8, 87, 91–92, 97, 126–27, 156, 190n42, 201n9, 203n26, 219n74 repression, 24, 49, 116 Republican Party (U.S.), 159 republicans (Guatemala), 200n145 resettlement camps. See refugees revolution, vii, 47, 173, 187n67 rifles and beans. See Fusiles y Frijoles Right, vii, 30, 36, 43, 52, 85, 159, ultra, 24, 30, 152 Rio Blanco, 92 Rio Negro, 128, 156 Rı´os Montt, Jose´ Efraı´n Catholic repression by, 126–29, 142–43 childhood and education, 54–55 differing views of, xii, 3, 9–16, 24, 82–84, 152–54, 162 election loss (1974), 42–43 and enforced calm, x, 72–74, 78–80, 86–89 and ethnic unity, 70–72 evaluation of, 171 family, 201n5 media use by, 61–65 military background, 55 moral underpinnings, 66–70, 175–76 and 1982 camp, 53–54, 57–58 and 1983 camp, 80–82 presidential programs, 58–61 and religion, 55–57, 66, 132, 136–38 responsibility, 6, 8, 16–18, 22, 24, 90–91, 96–97 Rı´osmonttistas, 10 rise to power, 24–25 salvation narrative, 76–77 U.S. view of, 152–54

Rı´os Montt, Mario Enrique, 55, 128, 201n6 Robertson, Pat, 76, 161 Romero, Oscar Arnulfo, 130, 228n73 Roof, Work, and Tortillas. See Techo, Trabajo y Tortillas Rossell y Arellano, Mariano, 114–15 ruling class, 85 Russia, 78, 174 Rwanda, 9, 168 Sacapulas, 92, 156, 226n41 Sacred Heart, 116, 120, 121 Saguachil, 204n68 Salacuı´n, 204n68 Salama´, 127 Salesians, 120 San Carlos, University of, 35, 47, 48, 118–19, 192n60 San Cristo´bal, 127 Sandinistas, 25, 26, 34, 125, 130, 145, 147 Sandino, Augusto, 223–24n5 Sandoval Alarco´n, Mario, 36, 126 San Francisco Nento´n, finca, 91–97 San Jose´ “La 20,” 204n68 San Juan Chajul. See Chajul San Juan Cotzal. See Cotzal San Marcos, 10, 16, 155 San Mateo Ixtatu´n, 93 San Miguel, 96 San Miguel Acata´n, 155, 156 San Pablo, 204n68 San Pedro la Laguna, 104 San Salvador, 145 Sansirisay, 55, 201n9 Santa Cruz del Quiche´, 37, 120 Santa Eulalia, 108 Santa Maria, 204n68. See also Nebaj Santos Chaco´n, Lidia Amparo, 62–63 Santo Toma´s, 73 Saquil, 103 School of the Americas, 55, 149, 201n7, 224n9 Schultz, George P., 226n46, 226n48 scorched earth, xi, 3, 6, 10, 14, 19, 40, 49, 58, 60, 72, 85, 87, 89–90, 98, 103, 128, 152, 162, 171, 175, 195n82 agricultural effects, 106 as biblical prophecy, 134–35 definition of, 97 deniability of, 154 gendered effects, 105–7 health care after, 138 terror in, 111

INDEX

secret cemeteries, 91. See also graves, mass secret courts (tribunals), 20, 21, 141–42 secret police, 177 secret U.S. cables, 29, 46, 155, 198n122, 210n64, 224n11, 224n15, 225n16, 225n18, 225nn22–31, 226nn32–40, 226nn44–49. See also Bennett, John T.; CIA; NSA; United States: embassy, intelligence, State Department secularism, legal, 227n54 security forces, x, 6 segregation, 14 self-defense patrols, 99 Semococh, 204n68 Senahu´, 204n68 separation of Church and state, 81 Serrano Elı´as, Jorge, 57, 206n106 Sesajal, 204n68 Setzı´, 204n68 700 Club, 76, 161 Sierra de las Minas, 28 SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), 137 silence, xiii, xv, 13 Simon, Jean-Marie, 80 Sobrino, Jon, 4 social activists, 31, 117, 120, 121, 216n37 social change, 117, 119, 124, 190n31 social justice, 116, 118, 141, 142, 143, 159 Social Democratic Party, 43, 197n103 socialists, 148, 174, 177 society, disintegration of, 216n20 soldiers, makeup of, 107 solidarity groups, 14, 15 Solola´, 127 Somoza Debayle, Anastasio, 25, 145, 223–24n5 south coast, 107, 188n13, 193n63 liberation theology in, 116, 122, 124, 216n37 Southeast Asia, 173 Soviets, 177 Soviet Union, and Reagan Doctrine, 146, 161, 173 Spain, 7, 55, 99, 116, 118, 158, 176. See also language, Spanish Spanish Embassy, burning of, ix, 47–49, 51, 125, 142, 199n127, 199nn131–32 speeches, Rı´os Montt, 62, 64, 68, 74, 77, 79, 80, 83 Stalin, Joseph, 177 state terror, 4, 5, 11, 46, 169 authority, 12 formation, 71, 78

267

killings, 6 of siege, 20, 86, 164, 187n10 sponsored political violence, xiii, 6, 59, 85, 87, 89, 90, 171, 209n41 of war, 60 stereotypes, 17, 18, 38. See also race: racism, stereotypes Stern, Steve J., xiv–xv, 168–69 stigmatization, xiv, 104, 110 Stoll, David, ix, 16–17, 180n9, 181n10, 186nn62–63, 199nn126–27, 199n131, 216n25, 223n126 students, 7, 17, 35, 36, 47, 62, 121, 174, 192n60, 193n63, 215n19 subaltern studies, 8, 9, 13, 183n21 population, 98, 172 (see also stigmatization) subversive activities, 17 Sunday sermons, 19, 22, 59, 64–65, 70–72, 79, 82, 84, 111, 175, 127 evangelical imagery in, 128 language of, 154 Supreme Court. See United States, Supreme Court survey, election, 10, 183n27. See also polls survivors, 10, 97, 99, 106, 209n33 eyewitness, 92 indigenous, 11, 98 testimony of, 7, 8, 93, 95, 97, 209n35 symbols. See images, manipulation of Taiwan, 147 Taracena Arriola, Arturo, viii, 185n48, 193n62. See also CIRMA Taracena Arriola, Eduardo, 193n62 Taracena Arriola, Luis, 193n62 teachers and professors, x, 17, 30, 35, 39, 44, 121, 129 technology, new, 34 Techo, Trabajo y Tortillas, 20, 80, 136 Tecpa´n, 199n133 Tegucigalpa, 158 television, 19, 47, 59, 61, 76, 228n73 terror, 29, 30, 62–63, 104 mass, 49, 109, 170, 177 rape as, 209n41 state, 4, 5, 11, 12, 31, 60, 163, 176 terrorists, lists of, 198n114 testimony, 7, 8, 9, 93, 109 third-world nations, 146 tierra arrasada. See scorched earth Tierra Nueva, 124 Tiger of Ixca´n. See Arenas Barrera, Jose´ Luis

268

INDEX

timeline, 19–21 Tlatelolco, 51 torture, 31, 102, 109, 131, 169 totalitarian regimes, 146, 171 Totonicapa´n, 16 tourism, 21, 50, 81, 172 Transversal del Norte, 34, 92, 191n44 Trujillo, Rafael, 176 truth commissions, vii, xiii, 4–6, 8–9, 13, 15, 71 Turkey, 168 Tzalbal, 204n68 Ubico, Jorge, 101, 107–8 Union de Cambio Nacionalista, 207n18 unions, 17, 35 United Fruit Company, 117 United Nations, 71, 146, 230n4 United States anti-Arbenz policies, 26, 148 anticommunist strategy, viii, 28, 188n13; and death squads, 198n114 anti-Soviet strategy, 28, 188–89n19 and atomic bomb, 171 conservative Christian groups in, 137; evangelicals, 114, 140 and Contras, 147 embassy, 19, 42, 89, 96, 101, 128, 149, 153–57, 165, 225n23 and Gospel Outreach, 56 government, 18, 31 intelligence, 22, 29–31, 40, 57, 152–53, 155, 157, 196n90, 225n31 military advisors, 25, 26, 30, 90–91, 150, 223–24n5; to Brazil, 28 military aid, 20, 30, 40, 66–67, 74, 147, 151–52, 154, 158, 161, 189–90n31; withdrawal of, 150 policies of, 18, 30–31, 145, 149, 156, 170 priests, 115, 116 Protestant organizations, 44, 136; missions of, 132, 133 refuge in, 7 Rı´os Montt and, xii, 74 role in Central American crisis, 223n1 State Department, 22, 25, 30, 42, 46, 87, 152–55, 158 Supreme Court, 159, 160 USSR and, 155, 173 URNG (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca), 17, 20, 40, 66, 87, 130, 165, 171, 172, 191n53, 196n73, 229n75

USAID (United States Agency for International Development), 31, 32, 148, 150, 158, 190n40 Uspanta´n, 11 Usumacinta River, 121 Vaky, Viron P., 149, 224n11 Va´ldez, Rafael Castillo, 151 values, 69, 154 Vatican, 130 Vatican II, 115, 16, 120 vengeance, 4 Verbo, 56, 57, 75, 137, 162, 201n5 Iglesia Evange´lical El, 202n16 victims, 8, 17, 97, 109, 110, 126, 129, 176 aid for, 20 and soldiers, 111 victimizers, 8 Victoria 82, 19, 20, 60, 70, 80, 83, 86–88, 90–91, 136, 165 Viet Cong, 124 Vietnam war, 18, 28, 30, 40, 124, 126, 148 Villagra´n Kramer, Francisco, 197n110 villains, 6 violence, 7–13, 15, 18, 30, 85, 102, 131, 174–75, 176, 178 accounts of, 155 in ads, 62–63 awareness of, 164 as biblical ordeal, 134–35 call to end (1982), 61 against children, 210–11n70 colonial, 82 against communism, 51 condemnation of, 116 counter, 26, 70 culture of, 170, 72 documentation of, 181n12 after earthquake, 133 effect on widows, 106 and EGP, 45 explanation for, 135 in Fusiles y Frijoles, 88 genocidal, 17 in government overthrow, 230n4 guerrilla-directed, 6, 180n9 in highlands, xi implications of, 182n17 instruments of, 171 Mayan-on-Mayan, 110 in media, 58, 89, 63 military, 14, 16, 129 in new society creation, 110

INDEX

peak of, 54, 155 political, x, xiv, 8, 14, 25–26, 90, 104, 107, 128, 181n12 pornography of, 91 and Protestant Churches, 34, 136 against religious, 118; by religious, 124 right-wing, 131 as rule, 169 and scorched earth, 105, 106 and secret burials, 91 and social metaphors, ix state-sponsored, 6, 18, 24, 49, 51, 85, 87, 89–90, 127, 155, 163, 168 urban, 154 against women, 105, 209n41 Voz de Atitla´n, 165 Waco, 199n127 Walker, William, 223–24n5 Walters, Vernon, 152, 225n25 war, 4, 5, 69, 126, 134, 188–89n19 college (U.S.), 54 Whitbeck, Harris, 97, 102 widows, 105, 106, 127 will to power, 103, 212n97 witness, 7–8, 10, 110, 118, 130, 135 WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America), 155

269

women, 42, 102–3, 105–6, 196–97n98 violence against, 18, 91, 93–94, 111, 209n41 Woods, William (Guillermo), 118, 219n72 Word, Church of, 55, 56, 81, 206n106. See also Verbo Wycliffe Bible Translators. See SIL Xacataltej Chajul, 103 Xalbal, 141 Xalbal River, 32 Xillaj, 155 Yalihux, 204n68 Yanahı´, 204n68 Ydı´goras Fuentes, Miguel, 26, 27, 187n7, 188n13 Yuja´ Xona´, Gregorio, 47–48 Zacapa, 17, 28, 190n31 Zedong, Mao, 55 Zone Five Jesuits, 118 zones. See also Guatemalan army of conflict, x, 12, 15, 87, 97, 101, 132, 136, 139–40, 170, 177 of the generals, 121–22 military, 86