[ The Indigenous Maya and the Ladinos ] [ Their History ]
[ Historical Clarification Report ]

Guatemala is the third largest country in Central America about the size of Ohio. It borders to the north and west with Mexico, to the east with Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and the Caribbean and to the south with the Pacific Ocean.

Guatemala is a country of such beauty yet it is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. It suffers from an uneven distribution of wealth and opportunities for its 11 million people. This is due to the fact that 65% of the land is owned by 2% of the people.

Guatemala has three main geographic regions: the Coastal Plains, the Lowlands and the Highlands.  60% of the people live in the Coastal and Lowland area while the other 40% of the people live in the northern Highlands which covers about half of the country’s total land area.  It is here in the Highlands where the indigenous Maya live and where S.O.S. visits.

Language
Spanish is the official language of Guatemala but there are more than 20 indigenous dialects spoken. 

Volcanos
There are 37 volcanoes in existence throughout Guatemala. Three of them are active.

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THE INDIGENOUS MAYA AND THE LADINOS

Guatemala has two groups of people, Ladinos and Maya. The Ladinos are people with mixed Spanish and Maya blood. To be referred to as a Ladino is not a derogatory term. It is sometimes used to describe a Maya who has forsaken the traditional Indian dress and customs. Ladinos wear Western-style clothing and generally enjoy a higher standard of living than the Mayas. Ladinos largely control the commerce and politics of their locality. While most Maya are farmers, Ladinos are more likely to work in shops, government departments, or as paid laborers in industry. Nearly all the larger commercial businesses are owned by Ladinos  as are all the large tracts of privately-owned land.

The indigenous Maya account for over half of the population in Guatemala.
Guatemala is the only country in the world where American Indians are the majority. Their life differs greatly from other Guatemalans. The Maya live in the mountains in villages where they maintain their own ancient customs, traditions, festivals, and colorful clothes. For example, the women wear colorful patterned skirts and beautiful blouses called trajes that are uniquely different in each village. This is a custom dating back to the Spaniards.
Rarely traveling any great distance from their villages, the Maya tend to think of themselves more a part of their community than of their country.  They pay little attention to affairs outside the community. Most are extremely  poor and uneducated. Most are subsistent farmers, growing corn and a few basic vegetables in the valleys in a manner not very different from the way their pre-Columbian ancestors did. One of the basic differences today between Ladinos and Maya cultures goes back to Spanish colonial rule when the Spanish regarded the Indians as ignorant pagans. The unfortunate legacy of this in modern Guatemala is that the population is still affected by racist attitudes.

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GUATEMALA HISTORY

In December of 1996, a Peace Accord was signed ending a 36 year civil war. 
Other websites can provide a more detailed account of that brutal conflict.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/justearth/indigenous_people/guatemala.html
http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/

What follows is a brief account. Basically, there was a government-sanctioned military, the guerrilla military and the Maya caught in the middle. The government accused the Maya of helping the guerrillas and the guerillas in turn accused the Maya of helping the government. The government led military brutally punished the Maya, burned their villages, massacred entire village populations, leaving mass grave sites. Over 400 villages no longer exist today because of this ‘scorch the land’ tactic. In the early 1980s, the frequency of the killings increased; a trend which continued into the 1990s. Many catechists, priests, religious clergy, and teachers were killed or simply vanished. Anyone who tried to better the people, to organize them to defend their rights, to teach them to read or write, were targets of government attacks. The violent murders usually took place inside the Catholic churches or convents. The Catholic Church was a popular target because it was dedicated to regaining the rights of the Maya. At this time, to be Catholic, was to be ‘marked’ as a target for violence. 

During the height of the violence, Bishop Ghiraldi was in Rome. He was not allowed entry back into Guatemala. In an effort to draw world attention to the persecution and violence, Bishop Ghiraldi closed down the Diocese of Quiche and instructed his priests and religious sisters to go into hiding or flee the country. 

Unfortunately, this action had little impact on world focus and left the Maya feeling abandoned by the Church in their darkest hours in history.  Throughout  the horrific years of shear terror, the Maya could not speak to anyone, not even a family member, about what they had witnessed or personally experienced because one did not know who the enemy was or who would be captured next, tortured and made to divulge incriminating information. When the Peace Accord was signed in December of 1996, amnesty was granted to the guerillas.  With the turning in of their weapons, the country could now begin the long process of healing. For the Maya, who were targeted for genocide this would be a long process; for some the wounds would never heal. Over 200,000 Maya were killed, 100,000 disappeared and 400 villages no longer existed.

THE REPORT OF THE COMMISSION FOR HISTORICAL CLARIFICATION

Text directly taken from Guatemala Memory of Silence

A Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) was established through the Accord of Oslo in 1994 in order to clarify with objectivity the human rights violations and acts of violence connected with the armed confrontation that caused suffering among the Guatemalan people. Their mandate was to provide an answer to questions that continue to be asked in peacetime:

• Why did part of society resort to armed violence in order to achieve political power?
• What can explain the extreme acts of violence committed by both parties ?
• Why did the violence, especially that used by the State, affect civilians and particularly the Mayan people, whose women were considered to be the spoils of war and who bore the full brunt of the institutionalized violence?
• Why did defenseless children suffer acts of savagery?
• Why, was there an attempt to erase from the face of the earth the Maya?
• Why did these acts of outrageous brutality take place.?

The main purpose of the Report was to place on record Guatemala’s recent, bloody past. Although many are aware that Guatemala’s armed confrontation caused death and destruction, the gravity of the abuses suffered repeatedly by its people has yet to become part of the national consciousness. The massacres that eliminated entire Mayan rural communities belong to the same reality as the persecution of the urban political opposition, trade union leaders, priests and catechists. ...Knowing the truth of what happened will make it easier to achieve nation reconciliation. 

Thousands are dead. Thousands mourn. Reconciliation, for those who remain, is impossible without justice. Miguel Angel Asturias, Guatemala’s Nobel Laureate for Literature, said: “The eyes of the buried will close together on the day of justice, or they will never close.”

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