Martin Santiago lives in the pueblo Chel and has two jobs there. He is one of 9 masons in this community and one of eight pastors. He is pastor of the church Verbal which is probably the largest evangelical church in Guatemala. For the past two years he has helped me during meetings in Chel. This year he was paid twelve dollars a day to help construct the water tanks in Xesalli. The following is a brief history of his life.
As of March 20 2009 Pa Tin (his name in Ixil) was 38 years old. When he was ten his Father, two sisters and two brothers lived in a small village called Poi. This village was located one hour away from Chel and an hour and a half behind Chajul high on the side of the mountain overlooking the river. They lived with eleven other families totally about 55 to 60 people. His father owned one hundred cuerdas the equivalent of 12acres and raised beans and corn, had a horse, cow and chickens. In April 1982 the Army entered this village and burned all the houses and crops to the ground. They also killed all the livestock and captured and killed nine of the eleven heads of households. His father and one man fled with the nine new widows and children into the mountains. During this time all the villages around Chel were burned to the ground. All refuges spotted in the forest were simply shot without any question. All crops were destroyed and for three years Martin and his family hid in the mountains behind what remained of Poi .
Eating what food the forest could provide and living with little clothes, blankets, food or shelter life was hard. Martin’s father buried his two daughters there. One from a sickness that crept into her weakened body and the other simply refused to eat after a bombing raid on their hide out. At the end of three years Martin’s father was captured and taken to Chajul. Martin found a man who fed him for six months after which at the age of fourteen he entered a rebel group called “10th of January.” This group consisted of 180 soldiers who had left the army in an attempted coup on that date. For six months he trained in the mountains with 85 other new recruits’ men, women, and teenagers. They practiced maneuvers, throwing rocks to mimic grenades and shooting wooden rifles. In total this group expanded and combined with other rebels into three companies. One represents Cortzal, one Chajul and the last being the original soldiers. During his first time in combat they spotted the army, and moved the three companies in front of and on two sides of the route the army was taking. He was placed with thirty other new solders on a ridge to wait for the engagement to begin. They had small arms and grenade launchers but had not fired a live round to this date. The army had mortars and helicopter support.In this attack the rebels were repelled and lost two comrades.
For five years Martin lived and fought with this group. He received six different battle scars from bullets and shrapnel. They ate grass, herbs, a root called Malaga, bananas and wild animals that they shot. Martin did not have shoes and slept with one small blanket. During the 1980's the Guatemalan army stationed 6,000 soldiers in Chajul to control a population of 37,000. That is one soldier for every six local inhabitants. This was a war with full scale battles. The atrocities committed by the army included rape, murder, torture, child abduction and forced conscription. Many of the villages I have visited encountered massacres. In Chel over 154 died in one day. People were forced into the Catholic Church and many women were raped. Later a group was led to the bridge at the entrance to the town and 97 people were butchered with machete and thrown into the river naked. The Army hoped disrobing and throwing them into the river would make it harder to find and identify the bodies. Babies were burned on the pile of cloths that had been gathered. In Estrellar Polar 97 people were locked into the Church and the army then threw hand grenades in the widows killing everyone. In Solztil and Illom over 160 citizens died in a single day. All of these atrocities happened within 10 miles of Martin’s village Poi
While trying to enter Chajul ,Martin was captured and forced to fight for the army. For eighteen months he fought against his former comrades. During this time the general population was forced to participate in civil patrols and if someone was found without papers it could resulted in immediate arrest. It was a very dangerous time After leaving the army in 1991 or 92 he was working with a portable saw mill in Chajul when the rebels surrounded the work crew. They were looking for Manuel Asicona the brother of Higinio my main contact in Chajul. They wanted to kill him because he was in contact with the army but that day he had stayed home sick. The rebels were offered food but suspecting poison they would not eat it. In 1995 a peace accord was signed by all parties. According to Martins account it was in 1997 that the army left Chajul. A little before that the rebels turned in their old arms and hide their good one in the mountains and things started to come down.
This was a full scale war. All the villages in the area I am working were burned to the ground. Everyone has a different story but all the people suffered immensely. Around 1000 men and women were killed in combat here and an estimated 3000 died due to malnutrition in the mountains. Martin can name how many died in each of the surrounding villages and where there are tombs in the mountains and where this widow or that widow relocated to. It is a very personal story and a very common closing remark heard in these interviews is “Gracias a Dios ya hay paz”. Thank God there is peace now.
As I have said this story although unique in specifics is representative in depicting the general suffering. At the end of this article there are a series of photos and brief description of what has happen to many of my friends there. The war was fought for three main reasons.#1- Over land, Guatemala has the most unequal land distributions in central America. #2 cheap labor, the united food company and large plantations have enslaved the population. Today in the villages of Illom, Solzitl, Estrellar Polar and others the surrounding land is controlled by large plantations and the people can only find seasonal work at $2.50 a day. #3Human right abuses. Today in Guatemala 17 people die daily due to violent death, one of the highest per capita rates worldwide. This last month 30,000 youth signed a manifesto demanding political integrity. High level assassinations have been the headline news during my last two visits.
But my work is with the small picture. I love entering a village of 20 to 30 families because with $5 to $15 thousand dollars and two to three years we can bring real change. Mother Theresa said “live simply so other can simply live”. Christ said” to love you neighbor as yourself”. The book of James state faith is shown in our work. If we believe we care, but don’t act’ we only have an emotion. If we believe in a moral way of living’ but don’t walk it, we only have a doctrine. We are this season people. What we do effects our world now and our future.
. I obviously did not ask for the effect or ripple caused by my son’s death and still scream against it at time. Tragic death is tragic. Our world is full of tragedy. It is not as simple as my wife’s nursery line. But we have a choice on how we live and respond. Let us each drop our own pebble and watch the ripples change the world.
Andres was my guide to the village of Illom to by pigs. He know this region becuase at age 7 he sought refuge there with a group from Chel after hiding in the mountains for two years.
Gaspar Santiago is teaching gardening techniques for me in Nueve Puntos and told me how he fled the army into the mountains around Nueve Puntos. By fleeing through and hiding in thorn bushes he escaped with his life.
Elane watched her husband get chopped down by three machete blows in her homes doorway. She fled to the woods and rejoined her daughters Margret and Juana who also lost their husbands that day
Julia and an orphan Marie who lives with her. Her husband went to the fields one day and was never seen again
Marie and her daughter Marie lost both there husbands and there son/brother in one day
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