BBC Witness History interview with Jeremias Tecu

More than 200,000 people were killed during Guatemala’s 36-year internal armed conflict and of these, an estimated 45,000 people were forcibly disappeared. BTS Network member, Jeremias Tecu’s two brothers were among the disappeared. They went missing after a family party in 1981.

Jeremias tells BBC Witness History‘s Vicky Farncombe how his mother put herself in danger trying to find out what happened to them. Listen to the interview or read the transcript of their conversation below.

Vicky Farncom: You’re listening to the BBC World Service. I’m Vicky Farncom, and this is Witness History. I’m taking you back to one of the bloodiest moments in Guatemala’s history. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the army terrorized and killed thousands of Maya people. Of those, an estimated 45,000 were forcibly disappeared. Their bodies buried in unmarked pits or dumped in mass graves. I’ve been speaking to Jeremias Tecu, whose two brothers went missing in 1981. This programme contains descriptions of violence and torture.

Jeremias Tecu: My mum is a hero. How many moms in the world, they are like her, having the courage to go and face a general and say, ‘Where is my son? Where are they? Give me at least one arm, one finger, one bone. Give me peace.’

VF: Jeremias describing his mother’s desperate search for her two sons. But the story of their disappearance begins in September 1981, with exciting news. Jeremias has a new baby brother.

JT: We were so happy because there were four girls, and at the time, we were three boys. So, with the birth of new born, Felix, which is the name of my father, we were a four-four.

VF: Eager to meet Felix, Jeremias’ two older brothers return to the family home in the aldea La Ceiba, a village near Rabinal in the central part of Guatemala, where around 2,500 Maya people live. Simeon is 28 and completing his military service. Oscar is 18 and training to be a priest. The family spends two days celebrating the new arrival. Then comes worrying news. A bridge close to their village has been destroyed, and government soldiers are angry. They want to find out who is responsible.

JT: My brother was so scared, and he was telling my other siblings, ‘I’m afraid that something is going to happen to us.’

VF: Oscar’s concerns are understandable. Guatemala is in the middle of a brutal civil war, and the army is responsible for killing thousands of villagers just like them, as this BBC report explains.

BBC Report: The government claimed that the rebels are Marxist-inspired and Cuban-trained. The guerrillas find their support among the peasants in the hills. Their villages shelter the rebels. So with the awful logic of war, to ensure the eradication of the rebels, whole village communities must be destroyed.

VF: Along with the massacres, some people have simply gone missing including Jeremias’ own father, who disappeared just a few months previously. Back in La Ceiba, big brother Simeon tries to reassure Oscar his status as a soldier will protect them.

JT: My oldest brother, he says, ‘No, don’t be afraid. You are with me, and they’re not going to do nothing to you, so don’t worry.’ So, we have a lunch together, and then they went back to the city hall, the two boys. My sister, my mum and I, and the baby, went back to La Ceiba. That was the last time that we saw our brothers.

VF: The following day, Jeremias’ mother hears from her neighbours that there has been a massacre. At the same time, she discovers her sons never returned home. She takes Jeremias with her to look for them along the roads outside their village. What happens next is beyond comprehension for anyone, but especially Jeremias, who is only 11 years old.

JT: We were picking up like arms or some part of the body to recognize our brothers because my mum was saying, ‘Your brothers were killed.’

VF: Mother and son sift through body parts, strewn all along the road, trying to identify just a small part of Simeon or Oscar.

JT: But we didn’t find them. We identified our neighbours, but not my brothers. After three days, my mum went back and she faced the soldiers and she was saying, ‘Please give me at least a part of my son because I need to grieve, and I have to have a ceremony for them. Please tell me.’ But they didn’t care. The only thing I know that my mum come back with bruises, and she was crying.

VF: More horror is to come. Two weeks after the brothers’ disappearance, soldiers rampaged through the village of La Ceiba. Jeremias’ home is burned to the ground. His aunt and uncle murdered. It is later estimated that more than 400 villages are wiped out by the army during Guatemala’s civil war.

BBC Report: There’s not one single survivor to witness why life evaporated here. The crops have been left quietly to grow. The houses haven’t been looted. Disappeared men tell no tales. But human rights researchers have uncovered evidence of entire village communities destroyed in the army’s effort to purge the country of guerrillas.

VF: With his two brothers missing, as well as his father, Jeremias is now the man of the house. He finds a hiding place for his mother, baby brother, and younger sisters in the giant roots of a ceiba tree, known in Guatemala as the tree of life or the inup tree.

JT: It’s a humongous tree. Their roots are like compartments, you can sleep in between.

VF: They hide there for around 15 days before escaping to Guatemala City, a journey of around 160 kilometres, about 100 miles. But Jeremias’ mum is still desperate for news on her missing sons. Over and over again, she returns to the town of Rabinal, where the soldiers are stationed to beg for answers. Every time she puts herself at risk of being beaten up or sexually assaulted.

JT: I cry to mum several times, try to stop mum several times.

VF: How many times would your mum go?

JT: Many times, many times, many, many times. She never have fear. All the time, she was looking for my brothers.

VF: Jeremias’ mum never finds out what happened to her sons. But there is one person who reappears in their lives. Fifteen years after the massacre, Jeremias is building a fence outside a church when a pickup truck pulls up. The car doors open and out steps his father.

JT: I look at him and, wow… tearing inside. Miracles exists, but what is this?

VF: His father tells him the story of his disappearance. Hearing his status as one of the village leaders had made him a target for the army, he had turned to a group of nuns who ran a medical centre to help him escape. They had disguised him as a pregnant woman and driven him past the army checkpoints.

JT: This lady is pregnant and we have to have an operation. We don’t have the equipment, and we’re going to bring him in Guatemala City. So, they stopped several times. My father remembers he was saying that he was praying all the time.

VF: Jeremias’ reunion with his father is bittersweet.

JT: It’s a mix of feelings. I could go and hug him or go and slap him. Every emotion. It was really horrible. Horrible, beautiful. I don’t know, moments. We’ll hug and cry.

VF: You were angry with him for leaving you with everybody and not being there for you.

JT: To be frank, honest, I was really angry. Too long, too many years. We spoke and we make peace like nobody’s fault, and he has to do whatever it has to be doing. Otherwise, he was killed.

VF: Jeremias Tecu now lives in Canada and has written a book about his experiences called In the Arms of Inup. He was speaking to me, Vicky Farncom, for Witness History.

Click on the image below to purchase a copy of Jeremias’ book. 10% of the profits benefit Breaking the Silence.