Emilio Tojín "Justice for Genocide in Guatemala" April 24, 2007

Emilio Tojín speaks to a packed room about efforts to bring the perpetrators of genocide in Guatemala to justice.

The Search for Justice in Genocide’s Wake
By Ellen Moore

December 2006 marked the 10 th anniversary of the Guatemalan Peace Accords which formally ended a brutal 36-year armed conflict and ushered in a period of transitional democracy. Though the country is officially at peace, for survivors of the government’s scorched-earth policies the war won’t be over until those responsible for genocide are brought to justice. Emilio Tojín López, a massacre survivor and refugee turned human rights activist, spoke at UC Berkeley about efforts to hold Guatemalan officials accountable for their crimes.

The Guatemalan Scorched–Earth Policy

A K’iche’ Maya from the Guatemalan highlands, Tojín began his talk with a history of the final years of the armed conflict. In 1982 the Guatemalan military implemented a tierra arrasada or scorched-earth policy aimed at depriving armed insurgents of their civilian base of support. The military targeted Maya villages accused of harboring insurgents. Soldiers razed villages, massacred entire communities, destroyed crops and forcibly displaced thousands of Maya.

In 1999 the United Nations sponsored the Guatemalan Truth Commission, which found that approximately 250,000 people died or disappeared during war. The Commission characterized the military offensive as genocide, declaring it a deliberate and systematic attempt to exterminate the Maya people. The UN further documented over 650 massacres as well as hundreds of thousands of cases of survivors who had either been displaced or forced into exile.

When asked to comment on the role of the United States government in the conflict, Tojín noted that it was a major financial sponsor of the Guatemalan military, supplying tanks, munitions, helicopters and training. Guatemalan officers were trained in counterinsurgency and torture methods at the School of the Americas (now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in Fort Benning , Georgia . The school remains the U.S. Defense Department’s principal Spanish-language training facility for Latin American military and law-enforcement personnel.

Memories of War

In 1982 Tojín lived with his family in the Maya community of Santa María Tzejá in the rainforest near the Mexican border. One Sunday soldiers entered the nearby village of Cuarto Pueblo . Troops surrounded a thatched church full of worshippers, barricaded the doors and set it on fire, incinerating the building and all those inside. Soldiers then opened fire on the town market, killing anyone in sight. Although some villagers evaded capture by hiding in the mountains, the community had been decimated. The army carried out a similar massacre on a neighboring village. No one survived.

When soldiers arrived at Santa María Tzejá, most of the community fled to the mountains. During the harrowing journey through the Guatemalan jungle, parents tried to muffle their children’s cries, for fear they would be discovered and shot. Though the army failed to kill all the villagers, soldiers destroyed the town, burning the buildings and ruining all sources of food. When troops discovered the villagers’ hidden encampment, Tojín escaped with his three-year-old daughter, believing his wife killed in the raid.

Emilio Tojín

 

“It’s very painful to have to tell this story,” he said, overcome with emotion as he recounted having to tell his daughter that her mother had been killed. The two hid in the jungle for six months, foraging for food and shelter. They then made their way to a refugee camp in southern Mexico where they were exiled for 12 years. Unbeknownst to him, Tojín’s wife had survived the raid, but they remained separated for more than a decade, each believing the other dead. They were finally reunited thanks to the research of Ethnic Studies Professor Beatriz Manz, who chronicled Tojín’s escape in her 2004 book Paradise in Ashes.

Seeking Justice

At the end of the war, refugees returned home under a provision of the Peace Accords. Upon their return, survivors of military massacres organized the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR), a human rights group which seeks to hold the military high command accountable as the intellectual authors of the Mayan genocide. In 2001, the AJR brought charges against several military officers, including former military dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt. But despite ample evidence, Tojín said that to date there has been neither a trial nor a conviction as a result of the AJR case. He cited a weak judiciary and a “system of impunity” which makes it difficult to prosecute military officers.

A similar case being prosecuted in Spain also seeks to hold former military leaders accountable for gross human rights violations during the counterinsurgency war. In this case another human rights group, the Rigoberta Menchú Foundation, has brought charges of genocide against Guatemalan former military leaders. Tojín noted that the Spanish courts have been more responsive than the Guatemalan national courts. In November 2006 a Spanish judge ordered the arrest of four generals, including Ríos Montt. Two of the four have since been arrested and imprisoned. Ríos Montt has appealed the charges, claiming that the Spanish judicial system has no legal authority to prosecute the case.

Tojín acknowledged that his advocacy work places him in physical danger. Human rights workers in Guatemala , particularly those involved in investigating the massacres and assassinations of the 1980s, have repeatedly received death threats, and some have been assaulted or murdered.

“Many survivors have been traumatized, and our family members have been killed. But some of us are really motivated to fight back and seek justice. The truth is that this work is dangerous, and some of us are afraid.” But despite the danger, and despite the pain of having to recall traumatic events, Tojín said that he and other survivors will continue to publicize their case against the generals.

“That is why I’m here,” he said. “I have suffered a lot; I was forced into exile and separated from my family. Remembering is very painful, but the reason we talk about this is because we are fighting against impunity. I don’t want to let what happened to us end in impunity.”

Emilio Tojín Lopez is a founder of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation in Guatemala and a member of its Board of Directors. He spoke at UC Berkeley on April 24, 2007.

Ellen Moore is a student in the Graduate School of Education.

Professor Beatriz Manz (in blue) and Emilio Tojín speak with audience members after the talk.