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THE MAYAN CONNECTION-LOS CIMIENTOS ALLIANCE
Los Cimientos elders reached out for international help in 1993. Since that time, The Mayan Connection has raised funds, accompaniment, food supplies, developed a cottage industry and given cultural and information presentations across the United States telling the story of Los Cimientos and the life of today's Maya in Guatemala.
HISTORY
The ancestors of today's Los Cimientos community received title to the land called Los Cimientos, first from the Ixil people pre-1900, then from the Guatemalan government in 1909. They were tranquilly living in their mountain paradise when, in 1981, the Guatemalan Army genocidally swept through the area, destroying entire villages, torturing and burning to death thousands of unarmed men, women and children. The 672 residents of Los Cimientos escaped with their lives. They fled to live in 6 villages, under close control of the Civil Patrol and Army, suffering near starvation and deprivation for 13 years. The leaders of the community, who in their wisdom had safeguarded the titles to the land, constantly petitioned the government to return their land. In 1989 the Army placed 50 Maya Ixil families on the land with guns. The courts and the Organization of American States confirmed the titles of the legal owners and agreed that the 50 Ixil families were to leave the land. Los Cimientos people had repeatedly tried to find ways to share the land with them, only to have their offers met with threats of violence.
The government signed an agreement August 7, 1994, promising to purchase land for the Ixil families. To date that agreement has not been fulfilled. Los Cimientos owners are presently living on a small part of the land while the people who are illegally on the land hold more than 2/3 of the area. In the midst of this, the Los Cimientos community is steadfastly and patiently rebuilding their lives.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF LOS CIMIENTOS, CHAJUL, GUATEMALA
Today's Los Cimientos community consists of 132 Maya K'iche families whose ancestors lived on this fertile, water-rich mountainous land in the municipality of Chajul for many generations. They lived on and farmed this land, co-existing peacefully side by side with their Ixil neighbors. In 1909, the Itzep family ancestors received title to the land from President Manuel Estrada Cabrero as part of a presidential land grant program. They were industrious, hard working families, eager to nurture the Sacred Mother Earth, to produce healthful food for the future generations and to live a peaceful, dignified life.
In the mid-1930's, Diego Itzep Rojop, a respected leader still living in the community, inherited the Mother Title to the land from his father. The land was registered, as it had been when the original title was granted, and inscribed in the Second Registry of Property in Quetzaltenango, just as it had been in 1909, In 1973, Grandfather Diego Itzep Rojop, gave land and titles to 65 members of the community. Consistent with his moral and spiritual values, he gave this land as a gift to each family who had shown the quality of their stewardship for the fertile earth and abundant Cloud Forest. These titles were again registered with the Registry of Property in Quetaztenango.
In 1981, the remote Mayan highlands became a nightmare at the hands of the Guatemalan Armed Forces. The Army unleashed a massive wave of genocidal repression, calling it "counter-insurgency". The military strategy was to annihilate any imagined or real opposition to the ruling military-political-economic order that had kept the majority of the Maya people as a slave-labor population for 500 years. On May 24, 1981, 15 members of Los Cimientos community, including women and children, went to sell their produce in the Market of Finca San Francisco, four hours walk from their homes. After they entered the market, the Army surrounded the marketplace. 325 unarmed, non-combatant children, women and men were slaughtered. 14 residents of Los Cimientos were murdered. A child, 9 years old, hidden under the bodies, survived. He escaped to flee home to tell his family.
Shortly thereafter, the Guatemalan Army invaded the community of Los Cimientos. The soldiers rounded up the families and accused them of being sympathetic to the People's Army of the Poor, a small group of "rebels". Many of these "rebels" were survivors from villages destroyed by the genocidal Army attacks. Two Los Cimientos Elder's, traditional Mayan Priests, were found lighting candles and praying in the cemetery. The military butchered them like sheep before the horrified eyes of the community and told the terrified families to leave before they were all killed in the bombing that was to follow. The families turned to Grandfather for direction. He told them to bring their land titles and to stay together. They then fled through the holocaust of the mountain paths, seeing their friends and neighbors being tortured and burned in their houses by the Army. They fled with only a handful of personal belongs, leaving their animals, orchards and their crops of corn, beans and coffee in the fields. Later when some of the families returned to salvage what they could, they found all their possessions gone. The crops and buildings were burned. The families began 13 years of life suffering as refugees and as a source of cheap labor.
Most of the families of Los Cimientos came to live in 6 "model villages." These were Army controlled settlements for people who had been displaced by the violence. These villages were part of the economic/development strategy of the Guatemalan Army and government, that received direct and indirect aid from the U.S., Israel and other world governments as well as from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The residents of the villages were kept under armed surveillance by either the Army or the Civil Patrol. It was claimed at that time that serving in the PAC (Civil Patrol) was "voluntary". The truth gradually revealed that men (13 -75 years of age) who did not serve, were frequently killed or their families killed or injured. Many atrocities are attributed to, and proven to be, the actions of the Civil Patrols,The PAC's were officially disbanded in December, 1996 as a stipulation of the Peace Accords.
The Maya K'iche families of Los Cimientos presented a petition to the Guatemalan president in 1985, Venicio Cerezo, requesting that he facilitate the return of their land. Cerezo referred the case to INTA, the Instituto Nacional de Transportacion de la Agricultura, which investigated and found that the families were the rightful owners of the land. However, INTA, lacking enforcement apparatus, referred the case to the Court of First Instance in Santa Cruz de Quiche. The court found that due to the armed conflict and the role of the military, it could not order the return of the land. In 1987 and again in 1989, the leaders of the community renewed their petition to the President, who repeated the process of referring the case to INTA, which similarly referred the case to the Court of First Instance in Santa Cruz de Quiche, which each time gave them a similar response.
In 1988, representatives from Los Cimientos visited "Military Base 20" in Santa Cruz de Quiche, in an attempt to negotiate the return of their land. A Lieutenant Colonel present at the meeting stated that there were "subversives" near the territory and that the Army still had to "clean up the area." In 1982, under the presidency of an Evangelical Army general, the order was to free the Guatemala from "atheists and communists". In the perspective of his religion, the "atheists" were the traditional Mayan priests and the "communists" were anyone who spoke for social justice, especially Catholics. That thought exists to this day.
In 1989, members of Los Cimientos community returned to visit their land, many of them for the first time since they fled. They found that the Army had destroyed their ancestral cemetery and built a garrison on the site that was sacred to the K'iche. The government had announced that the community could return to their land. Instead, the Army brought 50 Maya Ixil Civil Patrol families to live on the K'iche land. All these families owned land near the town of Chajul and 2 of them were Military Commissioners whose fathers, Ixil settlers from Cotzal in the 1970's, had tried to steal land titled to 2 K'iche Los Cimientos owners. They had killed the owners and had been arrested and threatened with lengthy jail terms. Elders of the K'iche community forgave them, for the sake of the Ixil wives and children. Today, these Ixil, members of the Primitive Methodist Church, are holding the land sites legally titled to the Catholic K'iche community. These Evangelical Ixil are being supported by Pentecostal Christians from the US and a US based Christian development agency that is support by wealthy Christian businessmen and owners of oil companies.
In 1990, the K'iche community of Los Cimientos hired a lawyer who initiated a lawsuit for the recuperation of the land in the Court of First Instance in Quiche. They received a similar response to those previously received from that court; their titles to the land were valid, but the court could provide no relief in terms of enforcing their land claim against the Minister of Defense. This lawsuit, costing about $2,500 US in lawyers fees, only served to increase the community's poverty as they continued working at slave labor wages on coffee and sugar plantations owned by the Army and international investors.
On July 6, 1992, seeking assistance in recovering their land, representatives of the community went to CERJ, the Counsel of Ethnic Communities,"We are all Equal", one of the leading organizations doing human rights work in Guatemala. CERJ organized several meetings that were attended by all relevant parties. INTA stated, in an opinion published in July, 1992, that the land was registered in the community members' names, that the titles were unencumbered and that there was no problem in measurement of the lots. However, they stated that they were not competent to enforce a resolution and suggested that the parties resolve the issue through the court system. By this time, it was clear to the Los Cimientos land owners that this suggestion was meaningless.
CERJ held more meetings with governmental agencies, the Ixil and the K'iche. Hearings with the Organization of American States (OAS) and a visit from a top United Nations representative increased public awareness of the plight of the K'iche community. In August, 1994 the community made the decision to face the guns of the Ixil and return to the Los Cimientos. On August 8th, an agreement was signed by the Army, 2 Guatemalan governmental agencies and all parties involved, agreeing to a Final Study of the facts and stipulating that governmental agencies CEAR and FONAPAZ would purchase land for the parties found not to be the legal owners, and that the illegal residents would leave the land peacefully. In February, 1995, the Final Study was signed, recognizing the legitimacy of the K'iche land titles and affirming all agreements made in the August, 1994 accord.
However, at the request of the Ixil Mayor of Chajul, Pablo Mo, a Pentecostal Christian, long-time friend and worker with Helps International (a Dallas based Christian development agency and field workers of summer institute of linguistics, a branc of Dallas based Wycliffe Bible translators), a survey was called for. INTA in 1992 stated that "there was no problem with measurements of the lots" and yet at the request of Pablo Mo and the Ixil, another survey was ordered, before the Ixil would move. The government engineer was able to complete only half of the survey when he was stopped by the CPR, (Communities of Populations in Resistance), Mayan refugees whose villages were destroyed in the 1980's. Were at that time living illegally on Los Cimientos land, awaiting resettlement on their own lands. For a while they joined together with the Ixil to keep the K'iche community from reclaiming their legally owned land. This situation is currently being peacefully resolved through negotiations.
In 1996, after repeated threats of violence from the Ixil, Los Cimientos community again had to hire a lawyer to bring about the eviction of this lawless group. The Ixil are receiving on-going support from U.S. Pentecostal missionary groups.
The K'iche community has repeatedly offered to share their land with the Ixil. Three times they offered to give land titles for city block size pieces of land to each Ixil family. These offers were all rejected. The Ixil have destroyed K'iche food crops, killed their horses and most recently, with the support of Helps International, they have installed a water system that cuts off the K'iche water supply. This system was designed by a Summer Institute of Linguistics worker, Paul Townsend. The tank looks like it allows water to go to the K'iche community yet when human rights observers leave the area, the Ixil place hoses that keep the water from the K'iche. The project, installed by 20 Christian volunteers from the US, destroyed a large quantity of K'iche food crops, without restitution or apology. (*Los Cimientos Alliance August Human Rights Update and July 27 Report)
The agreements signed by Guatemalan governmental agencies, CEAR and FONAPAZ state that FONAPAZ will purchase land for the Ixil to move to, even though they already own land, with homes and cattle, near Chajul. Interesting to note that FONATERRA, the FONAPAZ agency responsible for purchasing land with funds Guatemala is receiving from international agencies implementing the Peace Accords, is directed by the brother of the current Mayor of Chajul who is the cousin of Evangelical Pastor- Military Commissioner, Felipe Caba Rivera. Felipe Caba Rivera has led the Ixil in their determination to hold on to Los Cimientos. He recently threatened to kill a young Los Cimientos landowner and an 8 year old child when he and four other Ixil, armed with machetes, found them in the K'iche corn field, unarmed, harvesting corn for the evening meal.
The legal owners of Los Cimientos need international support. They have exhausted all their resources, to no avail, in pursuit of internal legal avenues. The K'iche need funding to keep their legal counsel in Guatemala, and funding to bring about the return of the use of their land, before they succumb to hunger and despair. They have been, from the very beginning, a law-abiding community with religious ideals that include the tenants held by their neighbors, the pentecostal Ixils and the missionaries.
The K'iche Elders have requested that their Constitutional right to own land be honored. They have to fight to harvest the crops of their legally owned fertile fields, including the fruit from the orchards they planted 20 years ago, orchards that the Ixil, who did not plant trees on their land, are plundering and selling in the Chajul market. As the Ixil move more cattle into Los Cimientos, with the help of well-meaning Christians, the K'iche call for help from intelligent people who will study the documents, review the court findings and speak on their behalf We ask you to be an advocate for this honorable community.
The Elder's ask you to help them, for the survival of their people, the cultural survival of a unique expression of Mayan wisdom and the Seventh Generation survival of their children. They invite you to accompany them in their quest for Justice in Guatemala. We invite you to write letters to the Guatemala president; to FONAPAZ ; the United Nations Mission in Guatemala, MINUGUA; and the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Huntington Beach requesting that all agreements be fulfilled in Los Cimientos, that the Ixil peacefully leave the land and that the land and lives of the K'iche people of Los Cimientos be protected.
Representatives of Los Cimientos visited the U.S. offices of Helps International and Summer Institute of Linguistics requesting their help in reaching a peaceful and just resolution in the Los Cimientos. Immediately following these visits, violence from the Ixil increased.In January and February, 1998, there have been attacks on village residents. Helps International and Summer Institute of Linguistics feel they have no responsiblity for nor influence on the actions of the Ixil people. Please see More Information relating to the latest information on Human Rights Updates.