poem from tribunal tower 42 years into the future: will we have unlearned genocide?

April 24, 2024

By: Romi Fischer-Schmidt, New Hope Foundation cooperant

This is a reflection on the experience of walking with four Maya Achi women survivors (Pedrina López Depaz, Paulina Ixpatá Alvarado, Máxima García Valey, Margarita Alvarado Enríquez), plaintiffs in the Achí Women case, who received a sentence in 2022, as they returned to the Tribunal Tower in Guatemala City in May 2024. The reason for this journey was another trial: this time, Maya Ixil women were giving testimony for the crime of Genocide against the former Commander-in-Chief of the Guatemalan Military for the period of 1978-1982.

Instead of recounting the facts of the case (others have already done a good job with an overview, a summary of testimonies April 8-12,  15-19, 22- 25, context here, and stay updated here), I wish to share the following poem with you, which I hope conveys more affectually the experience of witnessing such anguish carried by these vehement and unassailable women for 42 years, and the interconnectivity of genocidal violence across continents.

poem from tribunal tower 42 years into the future: will we have unlearned genocide?

Content warning: genocide, sexual violence

 

one hundred kilometers away                        a 2 a.m. departure to the state capital

from Rabinal, centre of Mayab’ Achi Aloom (territory)

Rabinal Achi, ancient Maya king, defects from Maya K’iche’, establishing a new capital, 13th century AD

to guatemala city,                                              capital established by invaders, 1775

 

thirty-six Mayab’ Achi women, reached their state-sentencing two years ago, legally

it took fourty years for the facts to establish themselves in court

but suffering doesn’t wait as long as justice

and isn’t cured by it either

 

2022: Mayab’ Achi women accompanied in court by Mayab’ Ixil women

2024: Mayab’ Achi women comforting those Mayab’ Ixil women as they rise to the witness’ podium herselves,

teachers in reciprocity

sisters Mayab’ women surviving gender violence on the genocidal scale

rape, death, orphaning, pain inexplicable

“damage to the mother of my body”

sex slavery

at the hands of a government intent on extinguishing her culture, her people, and to take her land as his.

a colonial project reaching back 500 years into the collective body

without consent

or rather, subordinating sovereignty and sublimating consent-ability.

we hear her.story in today’s testimony.

 

as testimony is history

history is testimony

arriving at the tribunal tower,

passing security screenings, pat-downs,

gray towers, vibrant dresses,

small elevator, huge and expansive sisterly love,

15 stories up,

still air, deep movements

history in the making

testimony giving.

 

sharing a testimony that sentences us, that sentences me into the abyss.

 

If new violence necessitates imagining new machineries of death,

can the repertoire of violence be closed once it has opened?

or

once violence is enacted, are we doomed to repeat ourselves?

or

justice means never again.

or

will we unlearn genocide?

 

in a Mayab’ cosmovision, time is cyclical, endings are beginnings

such as: death is commemorated in 7 year cycles,

7, 14, 21, 28, 35

spirits of the passed are brought back, nourished, and returned, through ceremony

today is 7 x 6 = 42 years later

 

will the military general responsible be sentenced? it feels impossible for it not to be

dreams for justice that lift us to the skies

volcano in the distance

justice in the distance

will we unlearn genocide?

 

Mayab’ Achi women arrive to support their Ixil sisters at the 15th and top story of the tribunal tower,

zone one guatemala city, april 2024,

testimonies time travel to march and february 1982, Estrella Polar vilage, march 23, 1982

a time she would never voluntarily return to

but for in this act of justice-seeking

testimony giving

history making

she is cross-examined

her testimony splattered by the defense’s racist tropes.

 

outside the window, a bomb drops in Gaza

Gaza Strip, 2023, 2024, Palestine, 1948, 1967.

will we unlearn genocide?

where will we be in 42 years’ time?

Mayab’ women still healing the wounds of the guatemalan genocide after 42 years,

where will Palestinians sisters be?

healing a settler-colonial genocide, on Turtle Island in 500 more years, healing still, the cost of this genocide, of genocide, spans generations.

must it take 500 more to unlearn genocide?

500 more before never again?

 

working for a never again in Guatemala, means working for a never again in Turtle Island, means working for a never again in Palestine.

to follow the traces left by the flow of weapons,

reveals the deathly current linking guatemala, canada, usa, Palestine and isr**l

1977: usa arms embargo to guatemala, yet isr**l continues to sell guns to guatemala’s new president benedito lucas garcia

the same man on trial today

for genocide.

 

guatemala and Israel enjoy a special relationship founded on mutual support,

for genocide.

teachers of deathly reciprocity

usa weapons to guatemala may have stopped in the 70s, facing mounting violence. Too slow still,

too slow still in Gaza, too.

 

will we unlearn genocide?

42 years later, we are still learning, here atop tribunal tower.

I look Eastward, and back 42 years,

beyond the eastern horizon lies Mayab’ Q’eqchi territory

the Sierra de las Minas (Mountains of Mines)

the Polochic River Valley

Tkaronto-based INCO ltd. nickel miners

pushing forward hand in hand with genocidal governments, clearing land for an ecocidal genocidal nickel mine,

1960: Guatemalan armed conflict begins

1960: INCO begins explorations in Q’eqchi’ lands

1978: first nickel extractions by canadians

1982: gates shut, only because genocide reached unimaginable rates

 

stainless steel indicates an 8% nickel content

german nazis provided 9% of INCO’s revenue, between 1934-39

an INCO mine in Atikameksheng Anishnaabeg land (sudbury, ontario) provided 40 % of ‘allies’ nickel during WWII

or

genocide brings a good price for nickel, no matter the buyer.

 

Mayab’ Q’eqchi have grown corn here for 10,000 years

canadians grow weapons here since 1978.

 

Panzós, May 29, 1978

what if I told you, the first genocidal massacre of the guatemalan, of the guatemalan genocide era, was funded and directly linked to a canadian-owned mine?

Panzós, May 29, 1978

the trucks from that mine, carrying soldiers and paramilitaries, who would commit the first massacre of an era of over 626 massacres, entire indigenous Maya peoples’ villages, burned to the ground, and unimaginable proportions of the community dead.

if new violence necessitates imagining new machineries of death,

can the repertoire of violence be closed once it has opened?

or

once violence is enacted, are we doomed to repeat ourselves?

or

justice means never again.

or

will we unlearn genocide?

 

Mamá Maquín: sigues viva, you live on.

 

just as the bones of the massacred during genocide are exhumed

bones unearthed

by forensic researchers

that same nickel mine, opens again, 2004, until today. unearthing ore. unearthing bones. unearthing metal. unearthing climate change. the Earth’s body. the mother of my body. secrets taken. as the women’s bodies are taken. to build arms.

isr**l won’t wait half as long to unearth Gaza’s gas reserves.

how much Q’eqchi nickel will be dropped as bombs on Gaza?

before we unlearn genocide?

 

our governments funneled money to the genocidal regime in the 80s through world bank loans. towing the line of capital-D development inter-american development bank filling the pockets military leaders, 400 million usdollars full,

“we need electricity to power our nickel mine of development”

“we’ll build the Chixoy Dam” on ancient Achí waterways

genociding villages of Achí women on the banks of the Río Negro,

unimaginable, violence, survival, living in the mountains, like animals,

 

animalizing language reminds me of isr**li commanders on my phone screen over the past 228 days echoed in the chamber of the tribunal tower: like animals to the slaughter.

from Ixil, to Palestine,

Q’eqchi to Turtle Island,

from Achí to Mi’kma’ki,

will we unlearn genocide?

 

/for more detailed history and evidence of usa-israel-guatemala arms trade and military ties see here/