Lindsey Reed, staff member of the Unitarian Universalist Association, is part of the UUSC JustJourney delegation visiting Guatemala. In the blog post below, written Sunday, July 18, she reflects on the group discussion that followed a day in Plan de Sanchez commemorating the anniversary of a brutal 1982 massacre there.

After our day in Plan de Sanchez, we enjoyed a good meal at our hotel and then traveled to the offices of the Maya Achi Association for the Integral Development of Victims of Violence (ADIVIMA) to share some reflections. Fellow JustJourneyer Charlie Clements asked us all to employ the "talking stick" method (which took me back to my days in religious education and still proved highly effective) to share some of our thoughts from the day. He began by saying that this was likely to be the most difficult day of our JustJourney and that we should feel free to discuss the things that bothered us, the questions we had, and what we appreciated from the day.

Our conversation began on the topic of privilege, and we sought counsel from those in the group who have traveled and experienced the sensations of privilege and its accompanying guilt before. The advice was this: continue to support one another, continue to talk about it, and stay connected and engaged. Charlie cautioned that to jump ahead and grapple with "what can I do" might detract from our presence here. It's important, he said, to stay engaged in what is happening around us and allow ourselves to focus on the internal work of this experience (for now).

As we continued talking, people shared the stories from our day that made them worry, gave them hope, and made them feel both close and distant from the community we visited. Some pointed out the commonalities of all people: We want contact, touch, love, and community. We want better for the generation to come. We want to keep our history alive even as our cultures adapt and evolve. Others were struck by the differences: An American child today will consume 18 times as many resources as a child in the Global South. The Mayans we observed today seem to value the "we" over the "I." The lives they live are brutally hard and strenuous. The average person here has a life expectancy of 47 years, whereas that number is fully 40 years greater for U.S. residents. 

But one resounding feeling expressed was that of gratitude. An entire community that had never met us welcomed us into an incredibly intense, intimate, and emotional commemoration of events that forever changed their lives. They told their stories, showed us their village, and made room for us in a crowded church. In exchange, we were able to stand beside them and bear witness. We honored their dignity by listening, and learned that they are survivors, not victims.

We also expressed gratitude for each other and the sense of community we have on this journey together. In this evening's meeting, we thanked both the elders and youth in our delegation for sharing their perspectives. As one younger member of the group pointed out, "This trip is an opportunity to throw out everything you thought you knew about life five minutes ago." It is clear that the work of social justice has begun in each of us, if it wasn't happening already.

Bob Brayden, a member of the Jefferson Unitarian Church in Golden, Colo., is traveling with his wife, Dea, and their son, Eric, as part of the JustJourney delegation to Guatemala. In the blog post below, written Sunday, July 18, he shares his impressions of the trip so far, including a visit to Plan de Sanchez on the 28th anniversary of the brutal massacre that took place there in 1982.  

Our first experiences in Guatemala were of Antigua. This beautiful old city had a lively central plaza, a walk above the city (we hired and were glad to have a guide), and several jewelry stores with a focus on jade. 

The JustJourney in many ways had its true start as we traveled to Rabinal. This small city in the Guatemalan interior is home to Juan de Dios Garcia, executive director of the Maya Achi Association for the Integral Development of Victims of Violence (ADIVIMA). He and his staff help numerous communities seek truth and justice in the aftermath of the atrocities committed by the Guatemalan government against the Guatemalan people in the early 1980s.

Today we took an exciting ride in a small, open-air flatbed truck. After navigating up steep, winding roads, we arrived at Plan de Sanchez, a small community that lost almost 200 people on July 18, 1982. Today's 28th anniversary of the massacre demonstrated that the years have done little to lessen the pain of losing loved ones. Several hundred people attended church services in a very small church, which was absolutely packed with residents of the Plan de Sanchez region. Some had walked long hours to attend the two-hour service, which was led by Father Timothy.

I was moved to see an elderly Mayan woman make her way to the altar, moving slowly past the hundreds of others in the crowded church. She laid the flowers she had brought on the altar, kneeled, and prayed briefly, after which she rose and left again, moving slowly through the gathering crowd. Speeches by local and Guatemalan national politicians followed. The politicians condemned the atrocities and urged unity to prevent another such event. 

Another exciting, if not harrowing, ride down the mountain in the panel truck plus a lunch of avocados, lime, cashews, and peach juice rounded out our trip to Plan de Sanchez.

The following blog post was written Saturday, July 17, by Kelley Ready, UUSC's experiential learning coordinator, who has just embarked on a JustJourney to Guatemala with a delegation of 20 people dedicated to human rights.  

UUSC's JustJourney to Guatemala to commemorate the infamous 1982 Plan de Sanchez massacre and honor its survivors began on Thursday, July 15, when our delegation traveled to Antigua, Guatemala, where the rest of our group joined us on Friday. That night, we enjoyed a wonderful group dinner in the beautiful hotel where we are staying.

After the dinner, Charlie Clements talked about the Rio Negro massacre, discussing the relationship between the construction of the Chixoy dam, the international financial institutions that funded it, and the genocidal war against the indigenous Guatemalans in Baja Verapaz. We saw an excerpt of a powerful film, Discovering Dominga, which documents the struggle of a young woman who was adopted by an Iowan couple to find her identity. As the film begins, she has just begun to investigate what happened to her 18 years before when, as an 11-year-old Mayan, she survived the massacre at Rio Negro, in which her parents and many others were brutally murdered.

We headed out this morning [Saturday] for Rabinal, a small city in Baja Verapaz. The 20 of us, along with our driver, Rafael, traveled through early morning traffic in Guatemala City and then headed out through breathtaking mountains. Increasingly the women were dressed in colorful huipils and had beautiful woven clothes wrapped around them.

But I was also surprised to see many women on motorcycles, something I had never seen before in Central America. We got caught behind a funeral as we left Salama, the last town before Rabinal, and proceeded slowly as the crowd filled the streets on the way to the burial. After they turned into the cemetery, we began to climb the last mountain before we reached Rabinal. We stopped so the videographers who are with us, Chris and Steve Sealy, could film the cemetery and the valley. The cloud formations painted the sky behind us as we went slowly up the winding narrow road.

Nathan Woodcliff-Stanley, the assistant minister of the Jefferson Unitarian Church, the congregation from which most of our JustJourney delegation comes, had read that the road we were on had been closed the week before because of rock slides. We could see many piles of boulders and stones where the road had been cleared and, for someone coming from the frost-heaved roads of Boston, I found the road to be amazingly clean and smooth. As we slowly crept up the mountain, we could look back and see the rain pouring into the valley, wondering if we would make it before it caught up to us. 

But it didn't. We made it to Rabinal, found the hotel, and got settled. Meanwhile, Kelsey Alford-Jones, who is from the Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA and has been helping us with logistics and translation, told me that our driver had informed her that the Toyota Coaster that we had would not make it up the road to Plan de Sanchez. So she called some contacts, and while we were waiting for them to show up, the manager of the hotel also contacted some drivers. They got to us first, so we will leave tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. in the back of a cattle truck for Plan de Sanchez to join in the commemoration of the massacre that took place there on July 18, 1982.

We had the honor of being joined for dinner Saturday night by Juan de Dios Garcia and his wife, Maria, both of whom are survivors of massacres and fighters for human rights. We will meet again with Juan de Dios on Monday, July 19, when he will tell us more about the work of the Maya Achi Association for the Integral Development of Victims of Violence (ADIVIMA), one of UUSC's partners, and have a chance to meet with some of the students for whom the Jefferson congregation has provided scholarships. 

For four years, UUSC has been working with the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas of Sipakapa, a Guatemalan group in San Marcos supporting indigenous people's rights as well as water quality and quantity in the face of the harmful effects of GoldCorp's gold and silver mining operations. In May, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) responded to a petition from San Marcos communities by ruling that precautionary measures were necessary as the petition was further considered.

In the face of dried-up wells and community members' health problems, the IACHR ruling asked the Guatemalan government to suspend operations at GoldCorp's Marlin I mine, decontaminate water supplies, ensure access to clean water, and address community health issues. The Marlin I mine is impacting at least 18 communities of Maya people in Sipakapa and San Miguel Ixtahuacàn.

Molly Butler, a lawyer working with the Sipakapenses as a volunteer expert associated with UUSC, reported to UUSC that though Guatemala's President Colom was initially resistant to these recommendations, in late June he reversed his position and agreed to suspend mining at Marlin. No date has been declared for the closure, and some worry that legal wrangling and foot-dragging between the government and GoldCorp could stretch it out for months or years.

But while it's unclear when the suspension will take place, the IACHR's judgment is still significant both to this specific case and to supporting the human rights of indigenous people in general. UUSC celebrates this success for people advocating for the right to water, the right to a clean and safe environment, and the right to prior, complete, free, and informed consent in these matters.

In addition to working with the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas of Sipakapa on this issue, UUSC partners with the Commission for Peace and Ecology (COPAE) in San Marcos. COPAE, together with volunteer expert Rob Robinson and his team, coordinates community water-quality monitoring and assesses damages to houses from the mining operations.

Rob Robinson, a long-time UUSC supporter and environmental activist, recently organized a special delegation to Guatemala to investigate environmental damage that may be connected to a new gold-mining venture. He filed this report from his home in Colorado.

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.

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

In Guatemala City, we visited the Presidential Commission on Human Rights (COPREDEH) [site in Spanish], where we met with Maria Jose Briz, the newly appointed head of office. She is responsible for, among other things, submitting human-rights reports to international organizations.

According to Briz, the commission serves as the human rights monitoring body within the state, educates government officials on human rights, investigates violations of human rights (e.g., against human rights defenders), and takes key cases forward to the Inter-American Human Rights Court.

The commission also follows up to ensure that government offices comply with their human rights responsibilities. Another area for the commission is insuring against economic exclusion because of gender or ethnicity.

Briz told us that the commission receives varying cooperation from government departments, but that they are moving forward with a national plan for human rights. Once it is coordinated, they believe it will serve as a basis for significant improvements in the country.

They now have a staff of 65 people, but there is a proposal to combine the organization with the Peace Secretary [site in Spanish], which would increase its size significantly.

Briz also told us the commission is concerned about violent human-rights abuses directed at women and children, who are particularly vulnerable to abuse. The commission itself has has been the target of threats: while she, herself, hasn't received any threats, the commission received a bomb threat on her first day at work.

She said that with the recent selection of Ruth de Valle as head of the commission, she anticipates starting consultations with other organizations. In her view, this appointment is cause for hope.

In March 1982, nearly 200 women and children were massacred in Rio Negro, Guatemala. Now in February 2008, nearly 26 years later, six men stand accused of participating in the killings and are being tried for the crimes. The defendants were not generals or captains or even low-level soldiers of the Guatemalan army. Rather they were members of the "civilian patrol" – an organization of local Guatemalans enlisted involuntarily by the army and government to do the dirty work of genocide.

The trial of the six men, who look more like grandfathers than killers, is playing itself out in a simple courtroom before a three-judge panel and surprisingly little security.

On this day of trial, testimony was given by three witnesses. The first was a 65-year-old man who recounted, through an interpreter of his native indigenous Achi tongue, that his 10-year-old daughter had been kidnapped and killed. He indicated that the civilian patrol and one member in particular had committed the crime. He further stated that the civilian patrol had also burned many houses in the area.

The second witness was Carlos Chen, co-founder of ADIVIMA, a grassroots organization that assists communities that suffered massacres during the civil war in the Guatemalan states of Baja and Alta Verapaz. Carlos, now 52 years old, told of the events of March 13, 1982. He was returning to his house after collecting wood and he could hear his wife yelling, "The military are coming." All of the women and children were being taken to Pacox. From the bushes, Carlos could see the women being shot. He later went and saw the bodies, which included his pregnant wife, his daughter and son, and other family members such as his mother-in-law and sister-in-law, as well as many friends and neighbors. Carlos stated simply that he "wants justice for what happened."

Finally the third witness was a 44-year-old woman who testified in her native Achi tongue through the court interpreter. She told of how the civil patrol came to her home on March 13, 1982, entered and grabbed her. She was stripped of her clothes and although she was not assaulted she was ordered to go to a meeting. They dragged her outside and grabbed a number of other women from other houses along the way. "We were all tied together by lasso, but I kept fainting as I had given birth just three days before." Finally they left her. Later she heard that the women who were taken to the "meeting" had all been killed and many of the children in the village were orphaned as a result. She was able to identify two of the six defendants as being involved in the events she described.

This tragic tale is made all the more so by virtue of the fact that those accused of such atrocities were the neighbors of the victims. This was not a case where the military stormed the countryside and wiped out the community. It was more subtle yet no less devastating.

The civil patrollers were basically conscripted into doing the government and army's business through a program where, to get access to food, locals had to serve in the patrols. Such policies served the army well by breaking the bonds between neighbors and communities and fostering fear and intimidation.

The process of justice for the victims and against the perpetrators – both civilian and military – will likely be long and torturous. Only after justice is achieved can reconciliation take place.

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

On Wednesday morning, our group heard from Juan, of UUSC program partner ADVIMA. He described their many programs, which include reconciliation (following the Guatemalan genocide and decades of internal strife), scholarships for middle-school children, and micro-finance initiatives.

Later, we visited the new village of Rio Negro. I say new because the original village now lies under a lake, flooded by the Chixoy Dam. Today, 12 families live there, and 21 children attend the grade school. Yet, as far as I could tell, there was no visible means of support, beyond an impressive visitors' center, funded by a German organization. Outside the building, there was a small construction project, as well as a woman vendor selling her weavings.

This is a remote enclave. Getting here requires a 1.5-hour drive on a gravel road followed by a half-hour boat ride. Alternatively, one can hike 4 hours from the nearest road. The village also uses two mules to bring people in over the trail. To get to the visitor’s center from the lake requires hiking up a steep hill, which is perhaps 400-feet high. Another 300-foot vertical climb and a half-mile walk brings one to the school and residential area. While the project [of re-establishing this community] seems a long way off, the people sure have hope.

Early in the evening we met several people from NIGUA, including Sue and Bridgett from the Guatemala City office. After introductions we had a circle connecting our energies for successful programs and then went to dinner.

Tad [our guide] took us to an organic restaurant with great food. We heard a presentation from a group sponsoring organic farming and healthy eating. They told us they ensure farmers have access to supplies of non-genetically modified (non-GMO) seeds. They also work to convince farmers not to use GMO seeds, which are given away for free. Flowing out of their operating philosophy, they are campaigning to include both women and men in their projects. They were quite pleased when I told them that ADVIMA's scholarships encourage girls, as well as boys, to become educated (instead of the tradition of only educating boys).

The following post was written by Judy Fincher, of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, Va. Fincher writes from Guatemala, where she is participating in a UUSC JustJourney.

One thing is striking when you start learning about the human-rights movement in Guatemala: the prominence of women as leaders of human-rights initiatives and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Women also head programs targeted at the poorest strata of society, widows and orphaned children and women factory workers.

We met with Ana Maria Monson, the head of the women´s program at the Center for Legal Action in Human Rights (CALDH), and learned of the activities she sponsors to help women employed in the maquilas (textile and assembly plants). CALDH is pressuring the minister of Labor to open offices for maquila workers to process their claims and address their needs. CALDH has set up legal clinics to help women who are fired from the maquilas without severance pay or benefits. The majority of maquila workers are women of indigenous origin, who live and work in the capital as well as provinces.

CALDH also assists women victims of the Guatemalan genocide, which occurred from 1978 to 1983, during the armed internal conflict under the repressive regime of General Ríos Montt and others. (Ríos Montt was elected to the Guatemalan Congress in December 2003 and again this past December. He claims that he has immunity from prosecution as a member of Congress for organizing and overseeing genocide from 1981-1982.)

Women hold prominent positions in the quasi-governmental Forensic Anthropological Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) and COPREDEH, a government institution created to advance human-rights policy.

We met with Alma Vasquez, the assistant director of the forensics lab at FAFG, who showed us a film on identifying massacre and mass-burial sites, performing exhumations, and the painstaking work of identifying remains and returning them to their families and communities. We were all moved when we saw the forensics team at work on the tiny, crushed skeletal remains of an infant.

In spite of government claims that victims were resistance fighters, “guerrillas,” in fact, many, if not most, were defenseless women, pregnant women, and children, as depicted in the Canadian-made films, The Rainmakers and En Toute Solidarité.

We saw stacks of boxes containing unidentified remains, as well as storerooms full of identified remains awaiting their return. We left in a somber mood.

The next day, we met with Maria José Briz, of COPREDEH. As head of the Reports Division, she reports to Director Ruth Del Valle, who has met previously with UUSC and UUCA members in Arlington, Va. Maria José confirmed our impression that women provide most of the leadership of the human-rights movement here. She estimates that 60 percent of the staff at COPREDEH are women, as well as 60 percent of the office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, where she worked previously.