Thursday, January 17, 2013

Doña Theodora Chen: The One Who Got Away


 
Government repression in the countryside surrounding Rio Negro grew sharply throughout the fall of 1981. Following an army-led massacre of 200+ innocent civilians in Rabinal, the municipal capital, villages were forced to set up Civilian Patrols (PACs) in order to assist the military in their control over the district.

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 For a brief historical overview of the Rio Negro/Chixoy Dam massacres, please follow this link to the 'About This Project' page of this websitehttp://rionegroproject.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
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The community of Xococ, located partway between Rabinal and Rio Negro, was not unlike countless other rural, predominately Maya villages of the time. Their first confrontation with the army was in October 1981, in which soldiers opened fire on a group of farmers harvesting peanuts, killing eighteen. After the PAC was formed, members expressed their willingness to cooperate under any circumstances with the military to avoid further confrontations.

Several months later, in February 1982, a group of arsonists, presumably guerrillas, burned down the market and killed five community members. The army was quick to blame community members from Rio Negro, who by this time were in conflict with the government due to their resistant stance on displacement from the Chixoy Dam.

From this point on, Rio Negro campesinos were considered part of the guerrilla and enemies of Xococ – despite their long history of friendship and trade. 


It’s important to note that by this time the Xococ PAC had received specific training, weapons, and guidance from the notoriously ruthless and far rightwing command at the local military detachment. They were participating in army-led massacres throughout the region, and several of the top commanders of this unit are now serving life sentences for their brutal acts of murder, rape, kidnapping, and torture.

It was just days after the market burning incident that 150 Rio Negro citizens were ordered to report in Xococ with their IDs. Upon their arrival, the head of the PAC accused them of being guerrillas and burning their market. Leaders denied the accusation, stating that the market was of importance to them as well, and that they had no reason to destroy it. The confrontation ended without violence, yet the commander held their IDs, saying that they could retrieve them the following week. 

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Theodora Chen, then 46 years old, was one of the 74 individuals who returned to Xococ that following week to collect their ID's, and remains the only survivor of the massacre that transpired on that day, February 13, 1981.

It was on a cool and blustery afternoon this past December that Theodora gave me her testimony, from outside her home in Pacux. Speaking solely in Maya Achi, her words were translated into Spanish by my interpreter, Pablo Chen Chen.


Thursday, January 3, 2013

Sebastian Iboy Osorio and the 'New' Río Negro




It was in the winter of 1991 that the three men – Julian, Mario, and Sebastian –walked back to Rio Negro, to reclaim the land of their birth. For nearly ten years they had been away – in the mountains hiding, on fincas cutting sugar cane and harvesting cotton and coffee, and in the tight, military-controlled confines of Pacux. Life in relocation had been one of precariousness and unimaginable hardship, and each man, along with their families, decided that it would be worth all the apparent risks to live once again in the shadow of their parents and grandparents.

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 For a brief historical overview of the Rio Negro/Chixoy Dam massacres, please follow this link to the 'About This Project' page of this websitehttp://rionegroproject.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
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Twenty years later and a community of one hundred or so children, men, women and elders live peacefully in the steep, undulating terrain above the floodwater. Beyond the two main quebradas, or drainages in which the majority of families live, people farm their milpas – the Maya trilogy of corn, beans and squash - and sometimes graze a few cows. Closer to home they keep their fruit trees, chickens, and hortalizas – small vegetable and herb gardens.

While many more survivors and their families wish to take root in the newly formed relic of the old community, there is always the issue of money, which is needed to start a proper homestead, as well as the issue of space, as the very best land – the most usable and well watered terrain – lies permanently inundated. There are also those in Pacux who could never dream of living in Rio Negro again, after what took place, and the demons that still lurk. 

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Sebastian Iboy Osorio met me on a bright December day on the deck of Rio Negro’s Centro Historico, a fine wooden building perched several hundred feet above the Chixoy Reservoir. A hot, desiccating wind sifted through the pines, and from the houses and farms below you could hear the laughter of children, and the short yells and whistles of men communicating across the landscape.

 
At 46 years old, Sebastian appears much younger – his body is lanky and strong, and his smile boyish – yet the eyes speak of many lifetimes of struggle and determination. As with anyone born in Rio Negro before 1982, Sebastian is a survivor of attempted genocide. Both his mother and father were killed by the military, and his brother was murdered before his eyes after trying to escape from the military detachment outside Pacux. He himself nearly died in the base, upon his arrival to Pacux, in 1984.

“After so many days of interrogation and torture,” he tells me, “I lied and said I was a guerrilla, thinking they might let me go.” The result was another six days in the latrine, his hands bound to a filthy toilet. Upon his release the commander told him that he had spared his life, but that others wanted to kill him. Once in Pacux he joined the ranks of other survivors, forced into the Civilian Patrol, and destined for a life of poverty and restriction.

And this is where I let him begin…