Maya and Catholic Cultures in Crisis

19. Militarization in Guatemala

19 Militarization in Guatemala When the EGP had been defeated, the military turned the Maya areas into militarized zones. The goal was to prevent a reoccurrence of insurgency by rooting out any remaining guerrilla bands and by asserting its control over the civilian population. This chapter examines Catholicism among the Maya during this period. After reducing many communities to ashes in the early 1980s, the army took over all civil functions in the western departments. The army’s objective was “to regain the indigenous population and rescue their mentality from the guerrilla. . . . For the first time in Guatemalan history both the guerrilla and the army sought to gain the hearts and minds of the indigenous population” (Schirmer 1998: 38). Initially, no one was allowed to return to their home areas. All civilians and refugees were placed in model villages, some of which would become poles of socioeconomic development . This would separate the civilian population from the guerrillas, Militarization in Guatemala · 263 cutting them off from their support system. These settlements were to form their own armed forces—civil patrols for self-defense against guerrilla incursions as well as a means for the army to keep surveillance on the male population. The leaders of these patrols were given special privileges so that they would bond with the army and the government. This would pit Maya against Maya. Former members of the EGP were to be reeducated. “When the displaced were brought in during this period, they would be lined up in front of the army compound. . . . Since they had walked for several days or months and had high levels of malnutrition, everyone usually was first given hot food. They were asked by the S-5 specialists if any were former soldiers. . . . Those who were combatants in the revolutionary cadres, if not considered ‘lost’ to subversion, would be taken aside for ‘informal conversations’ and given ‘special attention’ as one Kaibil lieutenant . . . explains: everyone was politically ‘reeducated’ but those who had positions of responsibility within indigenous organization were kept ‘close at hand,’ sometimes living with their families within the army compound in a house close to the officer in charge” (Schirmer 1998: 69). This was an effort to turn the Maya into ladinos. As published in the official army journal, the plan was for the army “to put all its efforts into Civil Affairs Units to complete its assigned mission of intensifying the ladinization of the Ixil population until it disappears as a cultural subgroup foreign to the national way of being. . . . By ladinization one must understand it to mean castellanizar, to pressure the population to use Spanish language and culture, to suppress the distinctive traje, indigenous dress and other exterior displays of differentiating oneself from the group. Given that the constitutional concepts are in the official language of Spanish, these measures will facilitate communication. Without these differentiating characteristics , the Ixils would stop thinking as they do and accept all the abstractions that constitute nationality, patriotism, etc.” (104). Under these conditions, Maya Catholics sought to go on with their lives in a number of different ways, some under army control and others seeking to escape it. Army-Controlled Villages In 1982, the new president of Guatemala, General Rios Mont, offered amnesty to all subversives, provided they present themselves to the military and collaborate with them. Many took advantage of the amnesty. By that time, it was clear that the guerrilla movement was in trouble. But for many, their communities had been destroyed. Others did not want to return to 264 · Part VI. The Worldviews of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency their communities, as they feared both the army and the guerrillas. The army established a number of resettlement villages. Over seventy communities , with schools, health clinics, and markets, were constructed. Wooden houses with electricity and potable water were built close to each other for surveillance purposes. These communities met the military needs of the army and the felt needs of the Maya in these circumstances (Stoll 1993: 156–61). Any type of Action Catholicism was not tolerated. Another tactic of militarization was to rebuild some of the destroyed villages (Manz 2004: 155–82). The strategy was to repopulate each with diverse Maya groups that would militate against a unified community that might cause trouble, somewhat reminiscent of the Spanish congregaciones of different parcialidades in a town. A core group were the few original villagers who had escaped death (antiguos). New settlers from diverse...