by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

OPENING WORDS

Holy and beautiful is the custom

Which brings us together this day—

Three unseen guests attend:

Faith, hope, and love—

Let all our hearts

Prepare them room.

When Dr. Charlie Clements, Executive Director of the UUSC, asked me to go along on a human rights delegation to Guatemala last summer, I really didn’t know what to expect.  I knew in general terms about the U.S. policy in Central and South America, but I really didn’t know much about Guatemala specifically.  I sensed intuitively that somehow I would be changed by this experience.  And that was true. I was.

Linda has already spoken with you about the Forensic Anthropology Center.  That was one of the many moving experiences I was to have in Guatemala.  This was foreign territory for me. And I don’t mean Guatemala, I mean the bones—seeing those white bones on that bright blue cloth.  Later that night after our visit to the forensic lab, I was awakened by the sound of crying—it was my roommate, Johanna, of the UUSC staff.  “What’s wrong?” I said.  “It’s the bones,” she said.  “I keep thinking about the bones.  They were beautiful. They were laid out with such respect for the dignity of the victims.”  And then my tears came, and we were awake most of the rest of the night.

It is one thing to read about massacres in an article or a book.  It is quite another to be standing amidst these bones.  To see where the bullet entered the skull of a grandmother and then where it went out on the other side. And then to know beyond a doubt that there were children, too.  Confronted with such truth, I was forced to ask myself all kinds of questions about the presence of evil in our world, about the presence of evil in my own heart, about the source of human courage, about the importance of justice in peacemaking—and of course, about American foreign policy.

Let me tell you a little bit about the history of Guatemala.  The Mayan culture, language, and economy were transformed by their Spanish conquerors.  This dominance has continued to the present day.  The white people got the best land and established large coffee, spice and banana plantations.  The Indians, once a proud and sovereign people, are seasonal day laborers.  In 1944 the democratically elected Arevalo government started what was known as “The Peaceful Revolution,” which included agrarian reform, social reforms, and the beginning of a Mayan Renaissance. 

Arbenz was the next democratically elected president.  He continued with reforms and stepped up the program of land redistribution.  At that time, 70% of the land was under absentee ownership with large tracts of lands owned by or leased to the United Fruit Company. In 1954 this legally elected government was overthrown by an invasion force of mercenaries trained by the CIA and supported by four American fighter planes flown by American pilots.  The invasion put into power Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, who had at one time received military training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Business interests convinced President Eisenhower that Guatemala was turning “communist.”  But the government that the United States overthrew was the most democratic that Guatemala had ever had. President Arbenz was a left-of-center socialist.  Just four of the fifty-six seats in congress were held by communists. 

What was most unsettling to American business interests was that Arbenz had expropriated 234,000 acres of land owned by United Fruit Company, offering compensation that United Fruit called “unacceptable.”  Colonel Armas, now in power, gave the land back to United Fruit, abolished the tax on interest and dividends to foreign investors, eliminated the secret ballot, and jailed thousands of political critics.  Since this time, Guatemala has labored under one military dictatorship after another.

The massacres I speak of, and there were 624 in all—not 624 deaths, I am saying 624 massacres—these massacres were carried out in the early 1980s.  In 1982 Rios-Montt became president by military coup, and the era of massacres began.  There was a scorched earth policy. It was an attempt to wipe out the guerillas by “draining the swamp” of Mayan villages that theoretically supported the guerrillas.  Whole villages were wiped out—not only men, but women, children, pregnant women and the elderly.  Everyone was killed. The excuse was that the Mayan people were guerrillas or were helping the guerrillas.  Ninety per cent of the killing was done by the military.  They focused on labor leaders, civic leaders, and catechists, a lay Catholic group.  It is interesting that the American Evangelicals supported Rios-Montt because he was an Evangelical.

This factual knowledge is hard to take, but much more difficult was encountering the human survivors of these massacres who are now doing human rights work in Guatemala.  That was what our trip was all about—to meet them, to hear their stories, and to give our support, and to assure them of the continuing support of the UUSC. 

We stood by a well from which 62 bodies were taken last year.  We heard the story of Juan Manuel Geronimo, a civil rights activist, working in Rabinal at the Association for Justice and Reconciliation, another UUSC partner.  I will give you his story in his own words.  This is translated from the Spanish, of course:  “They did crimes against us.  They killed our families, and destroyed our homes and livelihoods. Because of this we meet regularly to bring criminal charges and demand our rights so that Guatemala can have Peace. 

“The Peace Accords were signed < Juan is speaking here of the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996 at which the time the civil strife was ended> but there has been no justice or reparations.  This is general throughout Guatemala.  We struggle to resolve this so that we will have peace for the next generation.  We do this for all of Guatemala.  We are a small group of twenty survivors.  We never lost the fear but we also never lost the courage to confront these injustices.

“The army called it counter-insurgency and they said we were guerrillas.  But we were Catechists who worked for the Catholic Church.  They threatened us and named us for death.  And so we leaders left the village, and they persecuted us and they took it out on us by killing our families.  At Plan de Sanchez on July 18, 1982, the army rounded up the town from house to house collecting each family. I lost 28 family members.  Altogether 202 people died in the massacre; including the disappeared there were 300.  I lost my mother, my wife and my two daughters.” 

When Juan Manuel finished his story, Charlie Clements, the head of the UUSC, said:  “We have given support to the Association for Justice and Reconciliation for ten years—what can we do for you now?”  And Juan Manuel answered:  “As president I have presented many projects.  They are building memorials, having commemoration ceremonies, and post card campaigns.  We would like money for more training so they could do the same in other communities where there were massacres.  Thank you for your support.  With your help we have charged Generals Lucas Garcia and Rios Montt.”  Charlie responded:  “I would like you to visit our churches in the United States so that they might know you and hear you, and possibly you can monitor our elections.  When can you come to the United States?”  He answered:  “Anytime.  It’s my responsibility.”  This amazing man remarried after losing his whole family, and now he has eight new children.  One of them was with him during our interview.

I want to move along now to another story.  The Chixoy Dam Project.  This was an interest of the Guatemalan government in 1975.  The CIA was involved in selling the idea of hydroelectric projects to convince third and fourth world nations that hydroelectric dams would bring prosperity.  They worked closely with the World Bank.  They sold these ideas all over the world. In 1976 the Guatemalan government did a feasibility study and gave its recommendations and an environmental impact statement was done.

In 1980 they started the forcible evictions of Mayan communities near the dam site.  They finished the dam and the water rose.  The community of Rio Negro moved uphill and built houses and fields.  The Rio Negro village was the first one to resist.  They were offered new model villages with new houses, electricity and sustainable economic projects.  But the reality was that they were being moved to a dusty urban slum, with no arable land.  Their leaders had kept documents signed by the government which had promised much more.  These seven leaders were killed.  The people in the village were labeled as guerrillas.  In February 1982, 96 men were killed.  And in March government troops returned and killed 70 women and 107 children and burned all the houses.  Those who escaped to the mountains live in the community of Paxoc at Rabinal, where we visited.  The poverty we saw there was appalling. 

After 25 years of living in misery, the community decided to seek reparations. According to the United Nations, 83% of the communities removed for the Chixoy Dam are living in poverty on less than a dollar a day.  These survivors formed a union with people from the other 23 villages and they recently met with the government.  And their first action was to call attention to the reparations.  With the presence of the United Nations, the government agreed to prepare a plan and a platform.

But Juan de Dios, the director of a survivor rights organization called ADIVIMA said, “That same week the government started calling us guerrillas and now the government is calling our negotiating team ‘terrorists.’  The government is charging our leaders with ‘interfering with the internal peace of Guatemala.’  Last year Carlos Chin was put in prison on these charges.   I am not in jail but I have to report to the government every 15 days.  This is how the government minimizes the number of cases against them.”

Juan de Dios said that he just returned from negotiating with the World Bank about  reparations. “They are committed to working with us,” he said, “and they will look over our petitions.” ADIVIMA is also one of our UUSC partner organizations. 

What is Guatemala like today?  It is a country of incredible beauty.  If you go there you will see breathtaking vistas of green.  You will see acres of farmland dotted with plots of corn and farm animals.  You will see the colorful fabrics woven by the Mayan women. You will see historic churches and courtyards where people visit.  You will hear the music of the instruments—and the music of the spoken word.  You will encounter smiles and kindnesses too numerous to mention—we were given cool glasses of water at every site, something very much appreciated in that climate.

The Mayans are a resilient people with a strong sense of community and a rich, solid family life.  I asked myself many times how could they have survived in the face of these horrors without all the fancy therapists and social workers that we have here in the United States.  I think it must be their closeness to the land and their strong sense of community.

The Mayans are a beautiful people, physically speaking, and to be in the presence of the ones with whom we spoke, was to be in the presence of a people clear-eyed, centered, a people evidencing a great sense of integrity. 

On the other hand, Guatemala itself is a place of a great deal of violence and poverty.  Life expectancy of the Mayan people is 49 years.  For Ladinos it is 65 years.  Spanish is the language of the justice system and the language of power.  There are 24 various Indian languages.  The literacy rate for Indians is low, especially for women.  In rural areas the female literacy rate is 12%.

Many of the former military have now become private security officers. There are 60,000 private guards and only 20,000 official police. Recently a phenomenon called feminicide is emerging.  Women are killed for no apparent reason, singly or in groups. Their bodies are often mutilated.  No one quite knows why.  The killers are often men who were formerly soldiers who took part in massacres.  The police and judicial system are weak.  There is a .27% conviction rate for murder.  There is massive impunity all the way up to the Supreme Court.  The Mayan human rights workers also are struggling against what is called the “Hidden Powers.”  This shadowy force is partly from the army and partly from organized crime, and some from high places in government and business.  They attack democratic leaders, justices, lawyers and human rights groups.   These groups are working in a country where there simply is no rule of law.

But the hope is that one day there will be a justice system that works. And when that time comes, the hope is that justice will be done. The United States AID Office, which we also visited, is concentrating its efforts there, in helping the crippled justice system to work. 

My journey to Guatemala has had a profound effect on me.  It is difficult to put into words but I know I am a changed person in some important ways.  Seeing these courageous people with so little in the way of resources, and those living with such terrifying memories, working so tenaciously, so hopefully in their work toward a peaceful and united Guatemala has moved me deeply.  To be in the presence of such people with such integrity and sense of purpose is to call into question my own commitments in this world—to call into question  what I do with my time, how I spend my money, what I focus my attention upon and what I give my energies to.  Many of these human rights workers are doing their work under the threat of death—they are actually risking their lives to do what they do each day—and so if they can be this courageous, I think I should be able to do my own little thing.

I’ll be leading a human rights delegation from our own church to Guatemala this summer, along with Charlie Clements.  I am doing this not chiefly to help the Mayans in their struggles, because I see them as strong and spiritually sound.  I am doing this because I have been changed profoundly, and I want others of you to have an opportunity for this kind of personal transformation.  For those who are interested, I’ll let you know later about the application process.

I have for many, many years now known that I am a called person.  Not just called to ministry but called to service, called to do the work of the Holy One.  But somehow I was always holding back a part of me.  I think I was doing that because of fear.  I think I was doing that because of some misguided sense of self-protection.  If I give all of myself away, what then, would I have left for me?  But now I see that was a foolish resistance to my God.  Now I see that real freedom is found in giving everything.  And so, I find that I have crossed a kind of line, a kind of invisible barrier in my heart that was keeping me from a fullness of being. 

It is hard to put into words but I can say this.  Many of my fears have simply gone from me, including a fear of dying.  It’s not that I seek death, or want death, it’s just I know at some deep existential level that I am a part of something much bigger than myself.  And united with that, the essence of me cannot die. I don’t know what specific paths might unfold before me, but I know that I am willing to be used in whatever way I am led to be used.  And I am confident that I will be led.  And I am confident that I will have the strength to undertake whatever tasks I am asked to undertake. 

This same kind of faith leads us forward in our church. I deeply believe that this institution is trying very hard to do the right things in this world.  I deeply believe that the members of this church are growing spiritually and have committed themselves to the Good.  And so I believe that we as an institution will be led and will be given the vision, the strength, and the resources to accomplish whatever good purposes are laid before us.  So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

Holy One, we acknowledge today that there is so much suffering in our world, and we acknowledge that our country has too often contributed to that suffering.  We ask for forgiveness, and for guidance.  We ask for an end to war, an end to killing.  We ask that we might in our own lives live out of the values we truly believe in.  We ask that more and more we might give ourselves away, that we might be truly free.  Amen.

BENEDICTION

May you go from this place today, knowing more surely what your life is about, and how you must live it.  Go in love, and go in peace.