Documenting Mayan Women's Struggle for Human Rights

A Lengthy Act of Genocide
Freedom To Communicate
Capturing Truth on Film

As the first rays of sun penetrate the morning mist of the Guatemalan highlands, a young Mayan woman comes out of a small adobe house, surrounded by the green of cornfields. She ties back her long black hair, adjusts her handwoven skirt and blouse, then walks along the path leading to the church in the village square. Stopping and reaching into her shoulder bag, she pulls out...a video camera and sound equipment. "I want to get some shots of the church before we interview the women's group," she calls out, checking the battery in her microphone.

The woman is Emiliana Aguilar, a videographer and film producer with Centro Ixim. Ixim is a Mayan video-production collective created to promote peace and human rights in Guatemala. Today, Aguilar is conducting interviews for her documentary film Kuj Kowinik! (We Are Capable!), which chronicles the life stories of indigenous women. In the interviews, the women talk about the destruction caused by Guatemala's long civil war and their present efforts to rebuild their communities.

After filming the morning church service, Aguilar begins her interview with members of a local women's development organization. "What does the term human rights mean to you as a woman?" she asks. "How were your human rights violated during the war? Are they respected today?"

These are difficult questions, but Aguilar has a reputation for putting her subjects at ease. Perhaps this is because she has a story of her own to tell--a story that fuels her passion for the rights of her people.

A Lengthy Act of Genocide

On December 28, 1996, the final in a series of peace accords was signed by the Guatemalan government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity Party (URNG), ending 36 years of civil war--the longest war in the modern history of the Americas. Emiliana Aguilar, who was 27 at the time of the signing, had lived her entire life in the shadow of war. Her people were the hardest hit by the government-sponsored violence. They were targets of counterinsurgency campaigns designed to eradicate revolutionaries and their possible supporters. This military strategy has been referred to in recent reports by the UN-sponsored Truth Commission as "a lengthy act of genocide."

When Emiliana was 11 years old, the violence struck her family. With the help of the local church, her father, uncle, and several other members of the community had organized a cooperative health clinic. Designed to provide some badly needed health care in an area of extreme poverty, the cooperative was viewed with suspicion by the military. One night, soldiers broke in and murdered Emiliana's uncle. Her father, Don Pedro Aguilar, was able to escape through the cornfields, but the health clinic itself had to be disbanded.

Soon after this incident, Emiliana's 17-year-old sister, a woman committed to her faith and her people, was "disappeared." Her father said he heard she was taken to the capital and tortured before she was killed.

When the army burned their house and destroyed their small parcel of land, the Aguilars fled to the relative safety of a larger town in the province of Quetzaltenango. "We still carry the sadness in our hearts," says Don Pedro. Among family members this sadness is manifested in frequent bouts of depression and anxiety attacks.

Although Emiliana herself struggled with depression throughout her teens and early twenties, she was able to finish her elementary education in the nearby city of Quetzaltenango and win a church-sponsored scholarship to help her attend high school. She and other indigenous students formed a community where they could study, work, and worship together. During their daily devotional time, she says, they would reflect on how their faith supported their struggle for freedom and for change.

Two years later, Emiliana Aguilar met Austin Haeberle, a North American documentary producer working in her neighborhood. Interested in the potential of his project, she began training in videography, audio, interviewing skills, writing, and office management. Eventually, she helped to form a collective Mayan communication project.

In 1997, Aguilar was hired by the UN Commission for Historical Clarification to aid in the documentation of human-rights abuses that occurred during the war. She returned to her homeland of Quiché to help conduct and translate interviews in her native language. Today she attends Landivar University and is pursuing a certificate in court translation, but she spends several days a week working on her video projects and refining her technical skills.

As striking as Emiliana Aguilar's story is, her personal experiences during "the violence" in Guatemala are not unique. The United Nations Commission for Historical Clarification, along with the Commission that was headed by the Guatemalan Catholic Archbishop's Office for Human Rights, spent several months recording thousands of testimonies of human- rights violations. The February 1999 presentation of the UN-sponsored report claims that more than 200,000 people were killed or were "disappeared" during the conflict--83 percent of whom were known to be indigenous. Many more were tortured or otherwise violated. According to the Commission, more than 90 percent of the human-rights abuses committed during the war were inflicted by the military. A spring 1998 report, entitled Guatemala, Never Again, was sponsored by the Archbishop's Office. This report also cited extensive and pervasive violence by the military against the civilian population. Within a few days of the report's release, its presenter, Archbishop Juan Gerardi, was murdered in his home. [See "Guatemala Struggles To Find Peace," New World Outlook, July-Aug. 1999, 18-23.]

Freedom To Communicate

Although the war in Guatemala has officially come to an end, the state of peace is obviously still quite fragile. Aguilar and several other indigenous activists have committed themselves to reclaiming the right of freedom of speech in order to strengthen and promote this peace.

Included in the peace accords is "The Agreement on the Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples," by which the Guatemalan government agrees "to open spaces in the official mediums of communication for the popularization of indigenous cultural expression and to support similar openings in private mediums."(Sec.3.H.2.i)

However, even if this basic right to indigenous cultural expression is observed politically, there are economic and social structures that gravely inhibit the democratic participation of the majority of the population in the media. Emiliana Aguilar's production group, Centro Ixim, was created to open up communication opportunities for the indigenous Mayan population of a country where most media outlets are controlled by foreigners, the government, and the non-indigenous ruling class. Discrimination, extreme poverty, and lack of educational opportunity and skills training are among the obstacles that now keep the majority of Guatemala's population from the realm of public communication.

These obstacles are even greater for Guatemala's indigenous women. According to a 1996 study by UNICEF, 80 percent of the adult indigenous women in Guatemala are functionally illiterate and have little or no opportunity for continued education. "To be a woman, to be indigenous, and to be poor is to be triply discriminated against," Aguilar observes. "But in spite of our extreme poverty, lack of schooling, and constant battle against discrimination, our accomplishments are numerous."

Making these accomplishments known is an important part of Ixim's work. In a country with a low level of literacy and a centuries-old history of oral tradition, video is a promising medium for communication and popular education. For effective communication and cultural preservation, the 21 Mayan languages must be used and respected. As a voice for the Mayan people, the Ixim collective produces documentaries in Mayan languages, as well as in Spanish, on the issues that affect the indigenous community. For educational purposes, nationally and internationally, their work documents human-rights violations against the indigenous peoples of Guatemala.

Capturing Truth on Film

An important part of human-rights activism is building a network of international audiences and partner organizations. In May 1998, Aguilar worked on a video with Alva Cox, then interim Director of Electronic Media for the General Board of Global Ministries, and with the National Coordinating Office on Refugees, Returnees, and Displaced People of Guatemala (NCOORD), an international organization of human-rights observers.

Flying on a rickety little plane to the remote jungle region of Ixcan, Aguilar helped to film interviews with "returned" refugees living in a makeshift settlement. Like thousands of Guatemalans, these refugees had fled to Mexico during the war. Now back in Guatemala, they face the challenge of finding a place to safely rebuild their lives and communities. Members of NCOORD are living and working in this and other communities, providing international accountability and observance of human-rights violations by the military against the returned refugees.

The video team recorded additional interviews and testimonies in another returned refugee community in the coastal region of Esquintla. In Guatemala City, they were able to speak with spiritual and political leaders about the plight of refugees and displaced persons in Guatemala. Spiritual leaders spoke of their commitment to extending support to all human beings in need of sanctuary. The video is being used for educational and fundraising purposes.

Last year, Aguilar and her coworkers completed an educational video called Against Impunity, in conjunction with the United Nations Mission for the Verification of Human Rights in Guatemala (MINUGUA). The video describes the process of reporting human-rights abuses and fighting to hold the abusers accountable. This documentary reflects the goals and desires of the collective to communicate not only problems but also solutions and ways to fight injustice. Working with MINUGUA, Ixim has produced educational materials on the right of indigenous peoples to have trained translators in the legal system and has made a video in the Q´eqchi language that outlines the contents of "The Agreement on the Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples."

In all her projects, Aguilar tries to capture on film the experiences, faith, and courage of her people, who have been historically oppressed and devalued by those in power. By retelling their stories, she continues a tradition begun in simple prose almost two millennia ago when the Gospel writers told stories about peasants, farmers, and fishers. Like the world of the New Testament, Aguilar's world is sorely in need of justice and peace.

Her current project, Kuj Kowinik, includes Mayan women from all walks of life. A mother, a spiritual leader, a student, a human-rights activist, and a member of congress will be included in this piece. The documentary will be recorded entirely in the K'iche' language, with translated versions in Spanish and English. In Aguilar's words, the project will "help us show that women have value. The rights of women are human rights. As indigenous women, how unjustly we have been treated! But we will show the world that we know how to speak the truth...to protect the human rights of our families."

As she continues today's interviews, Aguilar encourages the señoras to give advice to other Mayan women, sharing their feelings and hopes. "I have learned that it is important to speak," says a middle-aged woman in a brilliant woven blouse of red and blue. "When I was young, I was too afraid to speak to anyone. I was silent all the time in community meetings. But now I sometimes say what I know."

Aguilar gently nods while the woman finishes speaking. Then she turns off her camera. The women bring hot, sweet coffee and soft white bread and talk about the day's activities. The sun begins to descend behind the surrounding mountains. Aguilar's assistants help her pack up the equipment. Then, single file, they follow her back down the path and through the cornfields toward home.