The parish compound was a shambles: all the furniture, silverware, plates, bedding, etc., had been stolen. The soldiers had left great gaping holes in the rooms and walls and had broken all the windows and water pipes. The low ceiling had sets of what appeared to be cabinet handles, from which the victims were suspended. A pall of evil hung in the air. I was overcome with a desire to pause and remember the unsung simple campesinos who had been tortured and killed in that room. On June 6 of this year I left my home in Guatemala City at 3 a.m. to drive with some friends from the Mutual Support Group to the small town of Zacualpa in eastern Quiche province, a journey of some five hours. The Mutual Support Group (its initials are GAM in Spanish) is the organization of families of the disappeared. We went to witness the very first exhumation of bodies buried in one of the countless clandestine cemeteries throughout the length and breadth of Guatemala. For months GAM members had been going through a series of bureaucratic processes to get the authorities to perform the exhumations, which require a court order, permission from the landowner and the presence at the time the bodies are uncovered of a forensic doctor and a judge. On previous occasions, the landowner had not given permission, the judge had been “ unable” to go, the doctor had simply not shown up, or some piece of paperwork had been lacking. I had been in Zacualpa previously. It is one of the towns where the military took over the parish church and priest’s house in the early ‘80s. Only last year did a new priest go to Zacualpa and try to begin some semblance of pastoral work in a parish where at least 2,000 people had been murdered by the army. The parish compound was a shambles: all the furniture, silverware, plates, bedding, etc., „ had been stolen. The buildings them -& selves were not only in disrepair: the so l-■ diers had left great gaping holes in the f l rooms and walls and had broken all the * windows and water pipes. The priest showed me the room which his parishioner tell him was used as a | torture chamber. Blood and human excrement remain on the walls. The low ceiling had sets of what appeared to be like cabinet handles, from which the victims were suspended. A pall of evil hung in the air and I was overcome with a desire to pause and remember the unsung ' simple campesinos who had been tortured and killed in that room. Digging a drainage ditch on the parish grounds a couple of months ago, parishioners found parts of many human bodies. The cornfield that abuts the parish house is also known to be a clandestine cemetery. Of the 18 secret graveyards that GAM is trying to uncover in the Quiche region, we’d not obtained permission to exhume bodies in the adjacent cornfield. That site’s owner seems unlikely to give his permission. We had to drive about 45 minutes from Zacualpa and then walk three hours through the mountains to reach the location for which we had a permit. After walking about two hours, a group of about 25-30 women suddenly emerged from out of the woods, all barefoot and dressed in nearly identical huipiles and cartes, the native dress that distinguishes them as being from Zacualpa. Widows all, they are victims of the violence that continues to wrack this nation’s poor, which reached barbaric proportions in the early part of this decade. Because most speak no Spanish, I was only able to speak with a very few of them. I did learn that each had come to give moral support to the women whose husbands’ bodies were to be dug up that day. Most of these widows also know where their husbands are buried and who killed them. They also know that to attempt to bring anyone to justice, evidence must first be provided that a killing took place. Thus the exhumations. Juana Calachij, the woman who with A widow, unable to afford a pine box, prepares to carry the gunny sack with her husband’s remains back to the village for burial. GAM’s help almost singlehandedly saw to it that the exhumation took place, is in her mid-30s. She has six children, two of whom, ages 15 and 16, were working the day we arrived on one of the coastal plantations to support the family. The agriculturally rich Pacific Coast area, was once home to the United Fruit Company’s banana farms. Now enormous plantations produce export crops like cotton, bananas and cattle. The Coast has traditionally served as the principal source of income for land poor peasants who migrate each year from the highlands to do backbreaking and miserably paid plantation work. During the several-hour hike, I talked with a man who reiterated what I already knew: the people are dirt poor. They are lucky, he said, to have black beans to eat once every two weeks. The rest of the time they subsist on corn tortillas and salt. Their homes reflect that sad reality: dirt floors, no running water, no electricity, woven mats to sleep on, a “campfire" in the corner with two or three clay pots, maybe a cup or two. These people have nothing in the way of comforts, little in the way of possessions. For many, Guatemala conjures up notions of democracy, the Arias Plan, and active neutrality. Unfortunately, like its tiny neighbor El Salvador, Guatemala has a democracy designed 16 Clinton St. Quarterly—Fall/Winter 1988
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