Mayan activist to speak about U.N.
The good news is that the people of the Mayan Quiche community of Los Cimientos, Guatemala, have legally regained their ancestral lands after being exiled from them in 1981 and relocated into model villages. The bad news is that the 50 families who occupied that land, cutting down trees and invading sacred spaces, have not yet been relocated as the Guatemala government promised.
Because the United Nations peace mission in Guatemala helped the community with its efforts to regain its land, The United Nations Association of Monterey Bay has planned an evening with The Mayan Connection featuring Tek Itzep Pasa, spokesman for the community. On Saturday from 7 to 9 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, Monterey, a musical program will precede the story of how the United Nations helped.
Joining Tek for the musical part of the evening will be Bruce and Judy Cowan, on guitar and marimba, and singer Sophia.
The community, which lived scattered through the mountains in houses surrounded by cornfields, has built new houses close together on one hillside for safety's sake.
"The 50 families are all armed, and we do not believe in violence, so we do anything we can to avoid it," said Tek, through an interpreter. "We are trying to find a peaceful way to have those families move off the lands that we hold title to so we can plant our crops and resume our former way of life."
Tek is in the United States to update people who have supported his community both morally and economically, and to find new supporters. A freeze earlier this year wiped out the crops that sustain rural Guatemalans, who basically live in a no-cash economy. With the cost of living going up 30 percent in recent months, what cash is available buys less.
Tek's work also involves helping the widows and children who live in the model village where his community lived for 13 years.
"The husbands have either been killed by the military or by the pesticides used in the plantations where they worked," he said.
Commenting that the long war which disrupted the life of his and other Guatemalan communities has been, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, "a silent war." Tek said, "I try to give a voice to my people. I work as a volunteer and am thankful to be able to share with the international community and ask for their help."
As part of an organization of Mayan priests, he is working also to establish a cultural center where visitors can learn about the Mayan culture.
The public is welcome at Saturday's program. There is no charge, but donations will be accepted for Los Cimientos.