Human Rights Can Never Be Taken for Granted

The following post was written by Sterling Pilette, of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Reston, Va. Pilette writes from Guatemala, where he is participating in a UUSC JustJourney.

On Wednesday, February 20, our UUSC group and others traveled to the indigenous Achi community of Plan de Sanchez, the site of one of the massacres in July 1982. About 18 of us packed into two pickup trucks and traveled up a long, dusty mountain road to the top. We walked to the house of Juan Manuel Jeronimo, president of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation.

Juan Manuel immediately showed us his hospitality by serving us a hot oatmeal, cinnamon, and sugar drink. He then told us the story of the Sunday massacre at Plan de Sanchez of 280 men, women, and children. Very few people survived the attack. He said there was a time when no one could speak of the incident. He himself left the area for a number of years. After that he and others tried to get the Guatemalan courts to investigate and lodge criminal changes but to no avail.

It was only after the International Criminal Court investigated and declared that crimes against humanity had been committed did the Guatemalan Court in 2004 finally acknowledge what had happened. Part of the agreement was that the government had to formally apologize and help build a new community. The apology did occur during a visit by the then-vice president who, it was reported, could not himself hold back the tears. The agreement included other promises by the government – much of which has yet to be fulfilled.

The hardest part of the struggle has been addressing the human rights violations, which is necessary to prevent what happened to Manuel's village and 22 others during that period in the 1980s from happening again. He said the struggle continues because the army has been able to walk away from the atrocity with impunity as the Guatemalan courts will not aggressively prosecute those involved. After a question and answer period we walked over to the memorial where several of the massacre survivors told us their story in vivid detail. The brutality that was described left hardly a dry eye in the group. The memorial also is the final burial site for those who perished after they were relocated from their original graves.

Juan Manuel and the survivors thanked us for being there to hear what they had to say. They feel it is important to keep the story alive because the government and army are counting on people forgetting. We expressed our gratitude for their time and for answering our questions. We all left feeling that we have shared in the struggle of these Mayans and that human rights can never be taken for granted.