|
Last Updated:
Apr 21st, 2005 - 21:10:55
Affiliates
Powells.com
Favorite Links
American Friends Service Committee
Friends Committee on National Legislation
National Catholic Reporter
British Broadcasting Company
The Guardian
Christian Science Monitor
LA Times
SF Gate
Oregonian
The Register Guard
Environmental News Network
Sojourners
Orion
Swans Commentary
Federation of American Scientists
Car Free Times
Indy Media
AlterNet.org
Common Dreams
The Nation
Utne Reader
Eugene Weekly
Willamette Week
Portland Tribune
Bitter Lemons.org
The Travels of our First Webmaster
|
|
|
Voices for the World
Political Realities: A Report from Rural Guatemala
Is there no hope in the land haunted by ghosts of innocents, armies and Archbishop Gerardi?
By Jerry Gabay
Posted on Nov 22, 2002 |
Email this article
Printer friendly page
|
11/9/02
On Friday morning, Susanna and I went with a visiting work team to San Miguel Escobar, a village part way up the Volcan de Agua. San Miguel has one of the oldest churches in Central America, with a colorful, porcelain-covered wooden statue of St. Michael over the doorway. It also has a tree reputed to have been planted by the first bishop of Guatemala, Francisco Marroquin, about 400 years ago. The flowers of the tree have curative powers and must be protected by an iron fence.
But we went to see neither church nor tree. We went to visit Don Filiberto, a campesino who lives in a house of cornstalks covered by corrugated metal around the corner from the church. He is unusual for a campesino here in that he is willing to speak openly with a group of people he does not know. Don Filiberto lives with his wife, 11 children, 1 grandchild, one son-in-law and 3-4 mules, a large number of chickens and ducks, and a couple of dogs on a lot his parents left him when they died. He farms a plot of land about 100 by 150 meters, 45 minutes (for him; 90 minutes for us) walk up the volcano. He goes to this plot twice a day during harvest season, leaving his house at 4:00 a.m. to return at 8:00 for breakfast, then back up the mountain until 5:30 p.m. The rest of the year, he leaves at 6:30 a.m. and spends the entire day up there with his older sons and son-in-law. He gets 15 bags of corn meal from his land in a good year; it takes about 8 to feed his family; he sells the rest. He also grows ground and pole beans, carrots, beets and two types of flowers to sell, one used for decorations on All Saints Day, the other for the flower carpets called alfombras during Holy Week.
On a normal day, breakfast is tortillas and beans with coffee (he and his wife eat 5 tortillas, the children 3); dinner is the same. The large mid-day meal might be guisquil or cauliflower fried in an egg batter with tortillas; Sundays and once mid-week they will eat chicken. But for our visit, breakfast was pan and pan dulce with chocolate atol. This was an honor, as atol is made in the home only for major feast days (such as Christmas), birthdays, and to greet special friends. Although a bit bitter and watery at first, the taste grows on you, and the atol was excellent also for dipping the bread.
After breakfast, we made the long trek to his milpa on a path eroded by runoff from the volcano. On the whole, there were few other signs of erosion. The soil appeared very rich and Don Filiberto said its fertility does not seem to have diminished since the time of his parents, who farmed it before him. When we arrived at the milpa, we gathered under a large avocado tree, where his wife began to make tortillas from masa and water she and two daughters had carried up the trail. One son worked on building a fire, while the two sisters made guacamole from fresh avocados and limes. Soon enough, we were eating the best warm tortillas I have had in Guatemala, with beans and a tangy guacamole, all washed down with fresh tamarind juice.
While we ate, Don Filiberto told his tales of the period 1990-1992, when the guerillas came to stay in the mountains. He ran food and water to them just up above his land, because they said they would kill him if he didn't. He would bring the water up in two barrels on his mule, while carrying insecticide concentrate and a sprayer on his back. When the army stopped him and asked why he had so much water, he replied it was to mix with the concentrate to protect his fields. The food he put in a special container he made, surrounded by manure. When asked why he carried manure up the mountain, he replied it was to fertilize his milpa. Once an officer came and stuck a bayonet into the container several times, but then said it was ok to continue. Up at his milpa, the guerillas would sit him down between two armed men and tell him that they were fighting for the poor, and when they took over the government, they would do much for education, health and other needs. But he did not believe them, as he doesn't think anyone ever fights for anyone else's benefit. When they asked him if he had seen the army, he always replied no. Likewise if the army asked him if he had seen any signs of the guerillas. He just wanted them both to leave.
In response to a question, he talked of how the army took young men off buses, on the street, wherever they could be found and forced them into the military; how the recruits were kicked and beaten and went without food, or when fed, were fed rotten meat. He spoke of how no one was safe with the army in the villages.
He spoke highly of Rigoberta Menchu, the Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who apparently came through San Miguel at one point. He talked of how she had struggled to get the army back to their bases and to stop oppressing the people. Eventually both the army and the guerillas did move off, and he spoke well of President Arzu, who signed the peace accords in 1994 and did put a little money into education. He had not much good to say for the current Portillo government, which has redirected substantial sums to the military and which has begun again to repress the people. On the way back down the mountain, I asked Don Filiberto if he thinks the people will be able to improve their lot, to work together for change. He thought for a few moments, then responded no, the repression will just get worse.
11/10/02
Don Filiberto may be right. I returned Thursday afternoon from a trip to Escuintla with Gustavo and Hector more discouraged than I think I have been in years. Gustavo is chief of medicine here at the project; Hector one of the doctors. We visited with Dra. Velia Oliva, Director of the Ministry of Public Health for the Ecuintla area. That would be roughly the equivalent of a state department of health in the U.S. Dra. Oliva is an impressive woman. Her eyes sparkle as she speaks of expanding coverage to more people. She told of this being the only area in Guatemala to reduce its nurses in order to expand its promotoras. Gustavo had told me how she had gotten a court order forcing all the alcaldes (mayors) of the area to chlorinate their water systems.
She tried, but failed, to obtain court orders prohibiting the sugar cane growers from burning the canes before harvest (which endangers both campesinos and the environment, while reducing the cost of labor for the growers). We spoke for almost 3 hours. It is clear she understands that health conditions are the result of social conditions and that she is determined to fight to improve the social conditions. At lunch I asked Gustavo if he did not think her work dangerous. He said it is. In many ways it is a direct attack on the economic interests of the giant fincas (plantations) which dominate the region. The Ministry previously tried to fire her, but recanted under pressure from the local populace.
More recently she has received death threats, in a country in which death squads still operate with impunity. I wanted to tell her to leave; to come back to Oregon with us where she could do great work; but then that is exactly what the establishment wants. Is there truly no hope? It is so sad. And made more gut-wrenchingly real for me as she has a daughter the same age as Susanna.
11/11/02
What is the government capable of in Guatemala? The Archbishop of Guatemala, Juan Gerardi, backed an in-depth inquiry into the activities of the "armed conflict" which lasted almost 40 years. The report came out in 1998, although no one in the US appears to have heard of it. It details over 50,000 rapes, tortures and deaths, 95% at the hands of the government or its agents. Reading it makes Menchu's book seem like a bedtime story in comparison. Gerardi was assassinated within days of its publication.
More directly relevant to my work here, I visited the Behrhorst Clinic in Chimaltenango a few weeks ago. The clinic was started over 40 years ago by a concerned doctor, Carroll Behrhorst. In the 1960's and 70's, it was known for a fine Promotor/a de Salud program. The clinic had over 75 indigenous health promoters working in a large number of indigenous villages around Chimaltenango.
As tends to be the case everywhere, the promotores were natural leaders in their communities, known and respected by all. One day in the early 80's, the government asked for a meeting attended by the board of the clinic and some of the promotores, under the pretext of wanting to support their efforts. After the meeting, many were shot down in the very brick-covered courtyard in which I stood. By the end of the 80's, only about 15 promotores were left alive. In a country such as this, health promotion is a revolutionary act, and should not be entered into lightly.
Jerry Gabay is a member of Eugene Meeting who is in Guatemala.
For another WxNW.org perspective on health care in Central American visit Mary Gallinger's A Limón Journey
© Copyright 2000-2004 by West By Northwest.org
Top of Page
untitled
|
|
|
