On Tuesday, April 8, the Human Rights and Global Justice Working Group at the Center for Global Studies, in collaboration with Latin American Studies and the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission (GHRC), hosted speaker Makrina Gudiel at George Mason University’s Fairfax campus. Makrina is the coordinator of the Network of Guatemalan Women Human Rights Defenders. She has pursued two cases against the Guatemalan government at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for the murders of her brother and her father. Her brother was disappeared in 1983, and was included in the infamous Military Diary, an official registry of 183 people disappeared by government security forces, which was leaked to investigators. Just days after bringing her brother’s case to the Court in 2004, her father was killed. The Guatemalan government has refused to carry out an adequate investigation of these crimes. Makrina visited Mason to discuss her search for justice.
Dr. Jo-Marie Burt, Chair of the Human Rights and Global Justice Working Group and Director of Latin American Studies, began the afternoon’s event with a general introduction about the internal armed conflict that Guatemala experienced between 1960 and 1996. An estimated 200,000 people were killed, the vast majority by government forces, including 45,000 who were forcibly disappeared. After decades of impunity, in recent years Guatemala has pursued an active accountability agenda, including the 2013 conviction of former dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt. While that conviction was overturned on what many consider to be an illegal decision by the Constitutional Court, human rights observers note that the verdict was not challenged on substantive grounds, and note the historic importance of the fact that a court of law determined that there had in fact been a genocide in Guatemala. Dr. Burt then introduced guest speakers Makrina Gudiel and Kathryn Johnson from GHRC.
Makrina began her talk by explaining what it means to be a human rights defender. A human rights defender organizes to demand rights for people or communities. They may be educated about the issues, or they themselves may be victims of an oppressive system. Makrina traced her own activism to her father, who campaigned for housing, schools, and infrastructure for poor communities. Makrina described the political situation in Guatemala as “monocultural”: fourteen wealthy families exploit the vast majority of the country, and encourage racism against indigenous groups.Catherine Johnson, assistant director of the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, began the presentation by providing context for the human rights situation in Guatemala. The country’s first democratic election occurred in 1944, leading to a period known as the “Ten Years of Spring” during which the government worked to implement reforms. Wealthy landholders, including the United Fruit Company, organized a coup in 1954, which lead to an armed insurgency and a long, devastating civil war lasting from 1960 to 1996. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration lifted restrictions on sending aid to the Guatemalan government, precipitating new rounds of human rights abuses. Even today human rights activists risk their lives by pursuing justice against the perpetrators of atrocities.
From 1975 to 1983, Makrina’s family engaged in the struggle for human rights. During this time, anyone who organized for justice was persecuted, from cooperatives to unions to religious movements. Individuals were put on lists given to death squads. Her father appeared on a list and was accused of being a communist; after surviving an assassination attempt in 1980, the family fled and joined the over one million people internally displaced by the conflict. In 1983, her brother disappeared.
Makrina also discussed the Sanctuary Movement. Taking its inspiration from the Underground Railroad slaves used to escape to freedom, the Sanctuary Movement was a network of churches that hid refugees like Makrina from the repressive regimes in Guatemala and El Salvador, transporting them out of Central America to safe spaces in the U.S. Makrina described this as an example of the “necessary solidarity between two peoples.”
After the 1996 peace accords, Makrina returned to Guatemala to search for her brother and contribute to plural society. However, while Guatemala had established formal democracy, it had not achieved true democracy, and many of the old abuses remained. In 1999, the Military Diary surfaced, giving Makrina’s family evidence they could use to bring her brother’s case to the Inter-American Commission. Her family was threatened by the Kabiles, soldiers trained at the School of Americas in the U.S. who were responsible for many atrocities. Her father was then killed shortly afterwards. Makrina said that even after the end of the conflict, defenders of democracy and fighters for equality were still considered an internal enemy by the Guatemalan state, which is made up of the same wealthy and powerful people who governed during the civil war. She continues to receive death threats.
Catherine Johnson concluded the event by highlighting the GHRC’s recent work to maintain a ban on military aid to the Guatemalan government. She outlined how aid travels to Guatemala under the auspices of fighting narcotics trafficking, but then ends up in the hands of those who can use it to suppress domestic dissent. She advocated for pressuring the U.S. Secretary of State to withhold material support for the Guatemalan military.
May 05, 2014