Resistance and Justice

I am Marj Johnson, a member of Concord Presbyterian Church.  This was my first immersion experience trip to Guatemala, but I was there before with a work group with my church in 2012 to build stoves.  I learned so much this week about all the programs of CEDEPCA and the Association of Mam Christian Women.

On our last day in Guatemala, we were at Lake Atitlán, a volcanic caldera lake.  The town of Panajachel, where we stayed, was a typical resort town with a nice beach, boating, seaside attractions, and people relaxing, enjoying themselves, buying souvenirs and eating ice cream.  

We took a boat to the other side of the lake in the morning.  It was a beautiful day, the sun was out and the sky was blue.  We were in a safe boat and we each had enough space and a life preserver.  But I couldn’t help thinking about all the migrants who travel by boat around the world at huge cost in unsafe boats, no life preservers, and crowded beyond capacity—what it must be like for them as they travel to the unknown.

We landed on the other side of the lake in Santiago Atitlán where we took Tuk-Tuks to a spot overlooking the lake, where women were washing clothes at the shore next to a tilapia farm.  In 900 BC the Mayans migrated to this area from Mexico and there are 3 languages spoken around the lake.  Again I was reminded that migration has been going on since animals and humans were created! 

We then went to Peace Park which commemorates the massacre in Santiago Atitlán Dec 2, 1990.  Phillipe, a survivor of that massacre when he was 11 years old, told us his story.  We were reminded of the Guatemalan Civil War which lasted for 36 years from 1960-1996, instigated by the US overthrow of the government because of fear of communism.  As part of this war the government had started persecuting leaders of churches, and indigenous groups, kidnapping,  raping, torturing and killing them.  In 1979 resistance groups from other areas of Guatemala came to Santiago Atitlán to get locals to join in the resistance.

Between 1980-1990, the government killed between 50,000-100,000 indigenous people and they took their land for their military base. In Dec. 1990, a large crowd tried talking to the military, but they shot into the air and told everyone to get on the ground.  When the people tried to run away, they were shot and thirteen people died and 20 were injured.  This 11-year-old boy was crushed by others trying to escape but was able to crawl away into the mountains and finally to home.   The government issued statements that the villagers had attacked them, but later they retracted that when it was found to be not true and Santiago Atitlán became the first town to force the army to leave the area and they have never allowed them back. 

A Catholic church from Tulsa, OK gave money to buy land for a memorial.  In the park, there are monuments where the dead bodies were, a well where they kept prisoners, and some grave markers of people from ages 5 to 55 years.  Today it is a peaceful garden, the military base across the street is a housing development and parking lot with the Ten Commandments on a menorah on the wall, and every year on 12/2 there is a special mass in memory of those who lost their lives or were injured.  

We then went to the Catholic Church.  It was Sunday morning and mass was in session, the church was filled to overflowing with people standing outside listening.  This is the church where Father Stanley was killed in July 1981.  He was a priest from a farming family in OK who served this community for 13 years.  He was responsible for health care, agricultural advice and assistance, schools, a radio station to spread the truth, a sanctuary for those being conscripted, and translation of the New Testament into the local language.  He protected the faith, truth, and the indigenous people.   He came home to OK in May 1981 and was advised not to go back, but he felt he had to go.   He was assassinated in the room where we met, where he had been sleeping.  The people are 95% sure it was the army that sent the three assassins. The US asked for an investigation but it was just a façade and no one was ever brought to justice.  Father Stanley, or Father Aplas as he was known to the people, was the first priest from the US to be beatified.  It wasn’t lost on us the connection of both of these events with OK and their massacre that was hidden for so many years. 

When we left the church we walked through the town’s outdoor market with stall after stall of people selling everything—souvenirs, clothing, produce, fish.  It was crowded, shoulder to shoulder to get through.  It was such a contrast to what we had just learned, it was hard for me to appreciate any of the goods.    

It made me wonder if humankind will ever learn from any of life’s lessons.  Over and over again, unlike Father Stanley, we seem to put ourselves first, fearful of the “other”, and reacting to that fear with cataclysmic effects. And so it goes on today. As we drove back into Guatemala City in the afternoon, I saw the countryside with new eyes—the beauty of the hills and mountains, the challenges the people face, and their perseverance, and determination.  I thought of the women we had met in the mountain villages and how determined they were to make a better life for their children.  As we reflected that evening in the garden of the Villa Toscana Hotel, we were reminded that while the world’s problems are huge, each of us has gifts to bring in the place that we are, at the moment that we are and we are here in this place and moment for a reason. As we look around the world, the partnership of New Castle Presbytery and CEDEPCA and the Association of Mam Christian Women could never be more important than today.  

Allow me to sum up with the words of a grace shared by Joseph, a PC(USA) worker from El Salvador who traveled with us: “Dear God, give bread to those who hunger and hunger for justice to those who have bread”.  May we each be a part of that.