{"id":460,"date":"2005-07-01T00:11:34","date_gmt":"2005-07-01T00:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/?p=460"},"modified":"2018-06-23T19:22:21","modified_gmt":"2018-06-23T19:22:21","slug":"mateo-july-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/mateo-july-2005\/","title":{"rendered":"Mateo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I was between 8 and nine years old in 1982 during the worst part of the war. We were in a town near where there were massacres. But we were lucky that they did not continue with the massacres, they stopped about 4 or 5 Kms. from my town. The military came to my town but they were tired of killing . So, in my town they just rest, but all the men get together to receive the military and around 5 or 6 p.m., the military arrive at the school and talk with the men in the community and say they want food. So, the men go back to their houses and bring all the food they can for the military and the military sleep that night at the school, in our community, in Santa Eulalia.
\nOur people used vacuum sealers in the military camp and I really like this idea, highly recommended for everyone. Read more about vacuum sealers on the shark rocket review<\/a> that’s come out recently. It has everything you need to get started.<\/p>\n

In the morning before the military arrive, the people who see the massacres run from the military walk white ghosts.\u00a0 In my village, the people who were fleeing said to my mother and father \u201clet\u2019s go, the military are coming\u201d. My father and mother say \u201cNo, this is my home, I can\u2019t abandon my home\u201d, and everybody left by midday, but my father and the community waited. I don\u2019t know why but they all waited. They say, \u201cIf we\u2019re going to die, we die, but we won\u2019t leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was lucky, when the soldiers arrive they don\u2019t do anything. They\u00a0 said \u201cWe\u2019ll guard tonight and you guard tomorrow. You can go home to rest\u201d. So, it was like an option to wait for death, to die at home. But, that night with the military there, my father and mother pray to God together, to the God that doesn\u2019t exist, but they all pray. All my family got together. I was very little\u2026<\/p>\n

All of my siblings were born by then, there are 8 of us, the little ones and the older ones with my father. So, we pray that night but I don’t understand then, not now. \u00a0My parents cry and pray. I was 8 or 9, I didn\u2019t understand, but nothing happened during the night. The next day, the military return to town and go in the military trucks to the military base in Huehue, so luckily nothing happened to us. They were tired of so many days and nights just killing, so when they got to us they just wanted to rest and nothing else.<\/p>\n

What did your parents tell you?<\/em><\/p>\n

They already knew about the massacres , how they happen before. \u00a0When the military come they already know everything, they hear that the military kills people. Women, men, houses, everything\u2026they know.<\/p>\n

Yes, they know. \u00a0My father mostly, maybe because of pride, was trying to organize the civil autodefense groups. They voluntarily got together and they take the Guatemalan flag and welcome the military, so it\u2019s like a good relationship. Because if they are not welcomed, it is as if the groups were guerrillas.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just a warning from the military. That\u2019s why my father talked a lot with the military. He\u2019s like a friend of theirs because he belongs to the civil autodefense group. In the past, my father was the commander in chief for about 4 years. But later on, in 91, 92, 93, there were no problems with killings. \u00a0With the past commanders there were.<\/p>\n

My village is very big. The military were killing in communities far from the city where there\u2019s no newspaper. But my town is close to the city, so it\u2019s more difficult for the military to kill.<\/p>\n

Rios Montt\u2019s killing policy comes from a mix of different cultures. It\u2019s called \u201cmodel towns\u201d. He uses the United States system for killing. Before, his policy is to create cooperatives in the mountains. He says that \u201cthe land is free\u201d. So the people who have no money or land go to the mountains to a town or community. One community here and another one there. His program of model town I think lasted for 3 or 4 years. So it\u2019s a mix of cultures like Quiches, Kachiquel, Mam. Ladinos, Espanol, in one community: this is Rios Montt\u2019s plan so that they can’t communicate, they can\u2019t organize.<\/p>\n

They are from different towns, for instance, people in one community that don\u2019t have land or money. But Rios Motts offers them an agricultural economy, INTA politics (National Institute of Agricultural Land). They give them land but in the mountains. They have a house, school, church, there in the north, so people travel to live there. And people from the capital that have nothing also go there but after 2 or 3 years. Rios Montt sends the military to protect the people from guerrillas. And then, when there are military in each town, Rios Montt starts to kill the people in model towns.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s politics. First they promote it, then they kill. But this is very common in the north, as you see it\u2019s the jungle, there are mountains, communication is not possible and the international community can\u2019t see it. My town is in the north, but not in the mountains. There is newspaper to know if they kill. Generally, in the radio they say it\u2019s the guerrillas, but the guerrillas are the people who escape a model town. So the military look for them in the mountains and it is there where they kill.<\/p>\n

You know the conditions, the discrimination, racism, because the idea that ladinos have is that the indigenous, Indians, are the problem in Guatemala. For instance, Miguel Angel Asturias, the Nobel Prize in literature, is the first racist. His thesis is about evaluation of indigenous and ladinos. Whether the indigenous are intelligent or not. He\u2019s very racist. Racism starts there. He\u2019s an intellectual, it\u2019s a racist investigation. And the people now are not intellectuals, but they are racist. So, the problem is racism.<\/p>\n

Rios Montt believed that Guatemala doesn\u2019t progress because the indigenous are uneducated, lack hygiene, don\u2019t shower. That they don\u2019t have good habits, that was the problem that kept Guatemala from progressing. Then, it\u2019s better to kill, genocide, to kill the indigenous culture because they are the problem for Guatemala. This is the main problem, racism.<\/p>\n

But, since there are many indigenous people in Guatemala and few ladinos, then, if the indigenous population grows, it\u2019s a problem for ladinos. And it\u2019s a problem now because the indigenous have an education. Ladinos don\u2019t like it because each time there is a Maya professional at the university, it\u2019s like substituting a ladino in a profession. Because Mayas are bilingual and ladinos are not, then, since it isn\u2019t good for ladinos, it makes it harder for indigenous people to graduate from the university. Before, about 20 years ago, only the ladinos had an education. But now it\u2019s different. 20 years ago, the ladinos were teachers at the university, at the elementary school, administrators at the court, in medicine, at the bank, everything was ladino.\u00a0 But now there are many teachers that are indigenous or bilingual.<\/p>\n

About 5 years ago I had a lot of problems with discrimination. It was hard on me. But for about 3 years, I have been changing because I don\u2019t want any more problems with Ladinos. I want to share, but generally, I can\u2019t talk with a Ladino.<\/p>\n

There are very few Maya, about 10%, who get a university education.<\/p>\n

For example, in my field, Agronomy, generally, there are not many women, it\u2019s mostly men. But, about 20%\u00a0 of the Agronomy students are indigenous. But it\u2019s different in other fields.<\/p>\n

Maybe a little more, but it never reaches a 50% of indigenous people. Because, generally you need to live in the city, and the majority of the indigenous don\u2019t live there. They live in the mountains, in the rural areas, and in order to study in the city they need a job to pay for the university, rent and food. So, one of the problems for them to study is the economic issues. Another one is the social pressure against indigenous people. It\u2019s like it\u2019s not possible to leave that low position. Indigenous (are believed) never have an education, they can\u2019t work, they are not smart.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the belief that the indigenous can\u2019t do it. Then, in a rural area there is not much university culture. In a rural area, there are only teachers for secondary school, since the university is difficult for money and for the belief. There are many factors. But I think that it\u2019s mainly the economic aspect, because there are many people that want to go to university, but can\u2019t. But, you can see that in my university I never had an indigenous teacher. There were all ladinos. Not even in the secondary school, only in the primary or elementary school.<\/p>\n

But now there are many indigenous teachers in elementary school and also in secondary school. But very few at the university. In my field there weren\u2019t any, but in other fields there were some, but just a few, it hasn\u2019t changed much.<\/p>\n

Only in primary and secondary school, not at the university. That\u2019s the system. In the university, if you are indigenous and want a job there, it is competiton for the intellectuals. For instance, I\u2019m indigenous, and at the university I bring an indigenous point of view for the students. But the Ladinos don\u2019t want that. They usually believe an indigenous that is not intelligent.<\/p>\n

Because my ideology is peaceful there is no problem working in the university with Ladinos. But, if I am very extreme, the Ladinos don\u2019t like me because I am competition for them.<\/p>\n

And it is difficult to compete with Ladinos. And it is a problem for Ladinos, because the Ladinos don\u2019t know the history, the political situation, no.<\/p>\n

My friends are indigenous. I am toxic for Ladinos because Ladinos always talk about things that aren\u2019t interesting, or they talk about cars or clothes, or they just talk about money. They never talk about things that are important for personal development or to develop the country.<\/p>\n

Because in my university, in agronomy, we are drinking and discussing\u00a0 political history. And always they are all against me because I know the history, I know the reality. But they are all against me. They say I am lying.<\/p>\n

But I feel proud because I know the truth.<\/p>\n

In my family all of my brothers are studying. My sisters not much. My first brother is very racist against Ladinos. Because of the system. And he\u2019s studying a lot of the culture and now he has got a master in intercultural studies and he\u2019s bilingual.<\/p>\n

He speaks Canjobal, Espanol, but his specialty is in cultural-biling\u00fcal in Guatemala. And he reads a lot of books about the cultural, and rascism, and he has strong ideas and in some way he taught us his ideas.<\/p>\n

Have you talked with other people about your experiences during the violence?<\/em><\/p>\n

In my family\u2026well, we didn\u2019t have direct problems with the military, with the violence\u2026 well, a little, but not as much as death. The one that died was my aunt\u2019s husband.<\/p>\n

But now we have the expositions to learn about and to accept that the reality we have in Guatemala is multicultural. We have Germans, hispanics, \u201cBelgas\u201d, different people from different countries. And the schools are bringing the children to see it.<\/p>\n

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I was between 8 and nine years old in 1982 during the worst part of the war. We were in a town near where there were massacres. But we were lucky that they did not continue with the massacres, they stopped about 4 or 5 Kms. from my town. The military came to my town […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":536,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions\/536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/cualguerra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}