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Quique Zapeta: A Testimony
Quique Zapeta is a Quiché Maya who
immigrated to the U.S. from Guatemala in 1995 to study in a Bay Area college.
ISLA requested him to write this testimony of the horrors his family faced
during the worst years of the Guatemalan civil war (1981-84).
It's been two years since the Peace Accords were signed in Guatemala between
the government and the URNG (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity), ending
36 years of bloody civil war. But although the current president Alvaro
Arzú and the commandants of the URNG have signed many treaties, several
sectors of society were forgotten or left out. The agreements may have been
signed, but too little has been actually accomplished by the government.
As many Guatemalans have said, "you don't sign peace, you build
peace."
This is my family's testimony. It is one among many Guatemalan testimonies
that have not yet been told. It was some time in 1979 when my whole family
had to leave our hometown Quiché, which was one of the towns most
affected by the civil war. We left our house, friends, relatives and all
that we once owned, and moved to Guatemala City carrying nothing, forced
to start a new life. What I did not know at that time was the reason we
were leaving Quiché, and only later on I found out. The reason we
fled was because my father, Encarnación, was on a blacklist of people
who were to be killed by a specialized group of the army. He ended up on
this blacklist because of accusations of being a communist. My father believed
in justice and human rights for everybody, so the government accused him
of being "subversive." My father was a bilingual teacher who taught
children and adults to read and write in Spanish as well as their native
Mayan language, Quiché. He taught them that they had human rights,
that they had the right to an education, the right to have a job and get
paid a fair salary. My father and other members of the Guerrilla Army of
the Poor (EGP) organized people and taught them how to organize themselves
and fight for their rights. In Guatemala anybody who wanted human rights
was considered a communist from the government's point of view. My father
had to flee to Guatemala City and hide because his life and the life of
other friends were in danger in Quiché.
At the beginning of the 1980's the repression by the army was terrible and
became even worse during the following years. Then president, General
Ríos Montt, believed in "cleaning up"
the country. To fulfill his plans, he got rid of union workers, teachers,
students, Catholic leaders, "communists" or anyone who was against
his ideas. Guatemalans lived a nightmare of bloody violence, human slaughter,
fear, terror and uncertainty. Thousands and thousands of people received
death threats, were kidnapped and/or killed. People lived day by day because
they did not know if tomorrow would come and for many it never arrived.
In August of 1981 my father was captured by secret agents from the army.
My mother was with him when it happened, so she was the last of our family
to see him. It happened one night when my brother César was working
with my father's friend in a tailor's shop. César didn't show up
for dinner as he had promised, and given the general state of insecurity,
my mother became very worried, so she and my father went to look for him.
When they got to the tailor's shop, my father knocked on the door, but my
mother stayed several feet behind him. The door suddenly opened and a man
jumped out, grabbed my father by his chest, pushed him against the wall,
hit him several times and then put a gun to his throat. The man asked him
questions, but my father refused to answer. As my mother watched all this
going on, another man came out demanding to know who she was, and what was
she was doing there. "I am lost; I am looking for an address,"
my mom responded. "Get out of here or I am going to kill you too,"
threatened the man. My mom turned back and walked away without fully realizing
what had happened.
I don't remember how she got home, but when she entered our house, she was
crying and screaming. She was hysterical. We all got together and she told
us that our father had been captured. I remember looking at my sisters'
eyes full of tears when they heard the terrible story. We decided to grab
some clothes and leave the house immediately. Once again, we left everything
that we owned. It was a cold night, and all of us left the house after midnight
and went to our grandma Ana's house, who lived close by. In the morning
my mom and my sisters went to retreive some of our stuff from the house,
but it was too late. The whole house was surrounded by soldiers and the
police. We lost everything.
Three days later, my brother César was back home in my grandma's
house. We were so happy to see him again. He told us that the secret agents
beat our father up and took him away. The agents never found out that my
father was looking for his son, and that is why my brother was able to get
away in the morning. This time my brother was luckier than my father. We
never found out exactly what happened to our father, but we certainly know
the army took him away and killed him. We can imagine the horrible tortures
he had to endure while he was still alive. To this day, we have not been
able to reclaim his body.
In 1983, my brother César left home early in the morning to do some
work at my grandma Ana's. Before he left, he said that he was going to come
home at noon for lunch. But lunch time passed, dinner time passed, and he
never showed up . By midnight my mom was going crazy. I can still remember
the way she was crying. It was so painful to hear. It was so painful to
hear my sisters crying as well. It was a long, long night, a nightmare that
never ended because my beloved brother César never came back. He
was just a teenager, just 16 years old when he disappeared. He did not live
long enough to see what life is like. My mom looked everywhere for César.
She went to every single police station, army base, hospital, private clinic
looking desperately for her son. She asked everybody but found nothing,
nothing!
It's been over 17 years, and we still have not found the bodies of my father
and brother. But we have not lost hope that some day we will find their
bodies because hope is the last thing to die. And I hope some day Latin
America will be free of tyrants.
I plead and demand justice for my father, brother, for the 30,000 people
who disappeared, and for the 50,000 families who were affected by violence
during the 36 years of civil war. I plead and demand that the CIA declassify
all its files on Guatemala. |
