Intern update: Finding Justice, Learning Peace.

BTS Intern, Cristi at her “despedida lunch” with the team at the Rabinal Community Legal Clinic (ABJP).

Intern update: Finding Justice, Learning Peace.

As I transition back to life in Canada after finishing my placement at the Rabinal Community Legal Clinic (ABJP), memories of people, places, and events resurface throughout my day. Whether it’s meeting new members of the BTS network across the Maritimes or even as simple as listening to a song I would often play while watching the sunset, memories of Rabinal come flooding.

Before arriving in Rabinal, I wrote a letter to myself outlining a few broad goals I hoped to achieve by the end of my placement. Among them, (1) to understand challenges and limitations within the justice system in Latin America and carry this knowledge into my career; (2) to have formed meaningful relationships with folks in the community; and (3) to have deepened my understanding of peace, justice, and community-led initiatives. In hindsight, I see these aspirations reflected in different moments throughout the last four months, which I feel inclined to share with you today.

View from my temporary home in Rabinal.

Justice means the state taking responsibility for allowing violations to occur, as they rendered the Mayan Indigenous population as a threat under the Doctrine of National Security. Through this doctrine, several counter-insurgent operations were carried out to “eliminate the enemy determined by the army” during the Internal Armed Conflict (IAC). These operations included massacres made up of extrajudicial executions and the violation of human rights, such as illegal detention and torture, enforced disappearances, and the mutilation of corpses. This is most evident in the Caso Vecinos before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). This case represents victims of human rights violations in Rabinal and surrounding villages with the aim of delivering individual and collective reparations that are materially, morally, and culturally adequate. I had the opportunity to talk to a woman from the community, who came to the ABJP to provide us with some feedback on reparations measures. We began to talk about seeking justice on behalf of the grandchildren and great grandchildren, descendents of victims of the armed conflict. She said to me:

“Were it not for the presence of the state in these communities, every home would have a pila and every one of my grandchildren would have access to education and health.”

She told me that communities need funding for sacred sites to honour their loved ones, and psychosocial help brought to communities as they continue to heal scars left behind by the IAC. In these conversations I find a lot of hope for these individuals and their families. Although convictions are necessary to bring perpetrators to justice and ensure non-repetition, I have learned it is equally as important to support tangible solutions to systemic issues caused by the IAC.

Blessing Ceremony for the Mujeres Achí before the final court date.

I also learned that peace is not only found at the Torre de Tribunales. Peace is found in Xococ and Río Negro where the community comes together to honour the lives lost at the hands of the state forces. Peace means healing wounds at the individual and community level caused by external forces that might never understand just how deep they cut. Healing takes place in families’ homes, in sacred grounds, and between people. I saw this reflected in my workplace. I found resilience, courage, and grace in the women staff at the ABJP who hold the struggles of the community and work for justice every single day.

In addition to working on historical cases of human rights violations, they also mobilize and organize to bring tangible solutions to ongoing tensions at the municipal level. They hold and attend workshops to improve their capacity to act as agents of change in Rabinal and provide psychosocial help to women and young people in surrounding villages. Every time the Achí women would confide in the ABJP psychologist, Melissa, I would be in awe of how much grace and thoughtfulness she would put into the care she provided. I witnessed a sense of peace wash over the Mujeres Achí at a ceremony to bless them before traveling to the capital for the sentencing of three ex-PAC. When I came back to Canada I felt like my heart was still in Rabinal, and specifically at the ABJP; I am beyond grateful to have gotten to know the wonderful people that put the work, heart, and soul into each one of the cases they handle.

This past week, I have gotten the opportunity to travel around the Maritimes with Inés Cuj and Patrik Mucía from the Mesoamerican Permaculture Institute (IMAP), who have been visiting us and sharing their teachings on food sovereignty and Indigenous sovereignty. After spending 13 days in Alberta with the Blackfoot First Nation community, Inés and Patrik were able to visit and meet folks in Antigonish and Cape Breton. Ines and Patrik also spoke at the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation’s (ACIC) Aid to Action symposium, sharing insights from their work and outlining several threats to traditional knowledge. One of these threats is private companies’ privatization of native corn species through patents, thus opening the doors for the further expansion of genetically modified seeds. After speaking with some peers the next day, I learned that Inés and Patrik’s panel was one of their favourites, because it introduced necessary discussions that must be prioritized in development discourse in order to preserve Indigenous knowledge for the well-being of nature and our relationship to it. In these spaces of connection and re-connection I find myself growing hopeful for communities in Guatemala, because of the individuals within them.

Members of the BTS Halifax Committee bid farewell to Inés and Patrik with a potluck.