The Dark Night of Resistance: Pastoral Work in the Ixcán

by Ricardo Falla, SJ

Ricardo Falla, S.J., has done pastoral work with the Communities of Population in Resistance in the Ixcán since 1987. He is the author of numerous books, including his most recent one, Massacres of the Ixcán Jungle, which documents the army massacres of the early 1980s.

To some people it may seem impossible that pastoral work can be done among people who are in resistance. How can the word of God be preached as bombs fall? How can a network of catechists be formed in the midst of war? How can a living church grow when the people constantly have to flee?

In the following reflection we want to describe how we have developed pastoral work in the Communities of Civilian Population in Resistance (CPRs) in the Ixcán region of Guatemala. We will begin by describing the basis of this pastoral work, which is accompaniment of the people in their experience of persecution.

The idea of accompaniment is inspired by the way of following Jesus. Jesus tells us that anyone who desires to follow Him must take up His cross and walk behind Him, because as we follow Him in suffering, so also we shall share with Him in the glory. But today we do not see Jesus in the flesh even though He is risen. We only see Him in our brothers and sisters, who are all people, but especially the persecuted and the poorest.

Therefore, if we want to follow Jesus we have to follow our persecuted brothers and sisters to the limits of our strength, both physically and spiritually, to follow them with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul and with all that we have. This is the root of accompaniment by a priest and by the Church which does pastoral work among people in resistance.

The Pastoral Work of Accompaniment

First, accompaniment means staying with the people in their isolation from the rest of Guatemala. Six military posts form a crescent which presses the communities of resistance against the Mexican border; there is also a seventh military post, that of Cuarto Pueblo, which is placed like a threatening island in the middle of this area. The people cannot transport their produce to Guatemalan markets, neither their magnificent black beans, their abundant corn, their sesame and rice, their soya, nor their hogs and chickens. Neither can they visit their relatives and friends.

The Church also experiences this isolation because it isn't possible to send catechists to evangelize or celebrate with neighboring communities, nor to receive support from these communities. The people of the CPRs in the Ixcán are confined to a small area, and only with great effort and at great risk is it possible for people to cross the area where the military posts are located in order to ascend into the mountains to visit their brothers and sisters in the CPRs of the Sierra.

These communities were have been the most isolated from pastoral attention until very recently. The priest is like the missionary of the past because he is cut off from communication with other areas and unable, for example, to communicate with the pastoral team in Xalbal, which is only a day's walk away, because of the military's presence.

Sharing the Anguish of the People

Second, accompaniment means not only experiencing isolation, but also experiencing the constant threat of attack that the people experience every day. We live under a gigantic jungle canopy, always hidden and always alert for the sound of an approaching helicopter which could spot us. If one leaves clothes to dry in the sunlight, it is necessary to stay alert so that they can be gathered up if the buzz of those deadly giant birds is heard. If the people are sowing, they have to leave the area where they are working if a warplane approaches.

The sky is a constant source of threat during the day and is equally so by night- mortars explode like rays of light in the darkness. These threats are always on the edge of one's consciousness; even when there is a dance or a mass, everyone must always be alert for the sounds of planes which the people in the CPRs can detect five or ten seconds before someone who is not used to the sounds can hear them. This constant sense of threat wears you down without your realizing it.

The people of the CPRs contrast their lives with the lives of the refugees because the refugees can live tranquilly, in spite of the sadness of being in exile. The priest and the catechists should be present and should not be leaving frequently because then the people will lose their sense of identification with them.

To See God in the People

Third, accompaniment means not only sharing the constant sense of threat, but also experiencing the army's attacks on the people. During periods when the army is carrying out special offensives, such as the six months at the end of 1987 and the beginning of 1988, these attacks are constant, whether by aerial bombing or by infantry troops.

In ordinary times these attacks are limited to the weeks when the army invades the area. For example, during the last weeks of November and early December 1992, the army razed three communities with the objective of "cleansing" [depopulating] the area which borders on the land where the returning refugees have settled (Polígono 14).

During these weeks, the catechists and the priest, like the rest of the people of God, had to flee from the soldiers because the soldiers were going to burn whatever they found and no one knew whether they intended to capture people alive or kill them. Uncertain about what the army would do, we fled.

This may have given the army grounds to accuse the people of being guerrillas. But if we had stayed and the army had killed us, as happened in 1982, we would have committed the serious error that those who were massacred ten years ago committed.

As a result of these times of flight, which can last one or two weeks, an intense bond develops between the priest and the people. People respond with great affection, and give the priest the best food they have, literally taking it out of their mouths. I wrote in my diary on November 30, the day following the burning of the community, "Flor gave me an egg for breakfast, one of the few she had left, because her husband wasn't able to save even one chicken, while she gave the other members of the family only half an egg; by the time I realized what her gift, there was nothing left for her."

These things, which seem insignificant, are really of great significance to the pastoral mission of accompaniment. There is nothing complex about it. It is the simplest thing, but very profound, because the people see in me Jesus Christ, while I try to find Him in them. For what is pastoral work if it is not making God present?

Jesus is Born in the Mountains

Being present among people who are in resistance is the basis of our pastoral work of accompaniment. But we cannot simply be present and stay silent. We have to provide the nourishment of the Word of God. Pastoral work is not only a matter of making God present in the midst of God's people; pastoral work is also leading the people to green pastures, providing them with spiritual nourishment which becomes strength for life.

But the Word of God covers a very broad range of themes. What do we choose as the key points out of this enormous richness? The answer is simple. We center on Our Lord Jesus Christ, on His life, His passion, His death and His resurrection. For pastoral reasons, that is to say, for reasons of basic pedagogy, we focus on the New Testament rather than preaching and studying the Old Testament.

The mystery of God is opened up by the Word of God present in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We emphasize this at all levels (children, young people, women, adults), directly and indirectly, always trying to put the Gospel in a new and fresh light.

But someone may ask us, "What texts do you use most and how do you apply them?" More than texts, the people's resistance and the cycle of the year have led us to focus on three principle experiences from the New Testament: the birth of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The dramatizations of Scripture we try to do if we are not under attack help us a lot.

In regard to the mystery of the birth of Jesus, the most obvious aspect that the people in resistance apply to their own experience is the context in which Jesus's birth happened. It was similar to the situation we are in today. The Child is born away from his home, in the mountains, hidden, just as many children in the CPRs are born while the people are fleeing from attacks against their communities by the army.

"Are there any of you who have given birth during emergencies?" we ask in the women's classes. Someone always tells her story and this story is listened to with particular attention by the women who are pregnant, because they may have the same experience.

All the women, who have many children, identify with Mary who fled with Joseph when Herod decreed that all boys under two years of age be massacred. It reminds them that the great source of suffering of the women when they must flee during an emergency is their many young children whom they must carry.

What happens during these flights is something described elsewhere in the Gospel: there runs through the women's minds the bad thought, the curse, the scream or who knows what to call it, that goes, "Would that we had not given birth!"

The Passion and Resurrection of Christ in the People

Many comparisons can be made between the death and resurrection of the Lord and the experiences which the people of the CPRs are living, because the people have witnessed terrible massacres and have survived. But where is the resurrection? Some people have objected that in my book Massacres in the Jungle (available from EPICA in Spanish) I have said that I am announcing good news, but what can be good news about massacres?

But the people in resistance recognize the good news. The resurrection, they say, is that we are alive, and, even more, that we are in a process from which we are certain to emerge into the light of day and to be recognized as civilians with all the rights of civilians not only by the people of Guatemala, by the Church and by international solidarity, but also by the Guatemalan government.

The force of Jesus' resurrection overcame the soldiers, who fell on their swords when the rock rolled away from the sepulchre. We even have a song about this marvelous event to the tune of "The Morning is Joyful." The chorus goes: "In the middle of the night the soldiers were on guard so that no one could steal the body of Jesus. But he overturned the stone and shook the earth, rising with a great light."

Pentecost and the Birth of Community in the CPRs

In regard to Pentecost we are assisted by the intense experience that the people in resistance in the Ixcán lived during the years before the massacres. They had participated in the charismatic movement, which in essence was a very joyful experience. Although there were some distortions in the charismatic movement, it was undeniably an authentic experience of the Spirit.

The most essential point we draw from the account of the coming of the Holy Spirit is a comparison between the communal organization of life both in the early Christian Church and in the communities of people in resistance. The CPRs very much resemble the communities of the apostles and the first Christians, since in the CPR communities life is egalitarian and very communal.

Everyone has basically the same food to eat. While each household cooks in its own way according to the culture of the ethnic group to which the family belongs, and the variety of foods is supplemented by each family's own garden, still all the people have their basic food supply assured and corn is distributed equally according to the number of members in the family. Thus, either everyone goes hungry or no one goes hungry. There are none of the great differences which cause jealousy, violence and prisons.

In the early Christian communities, described in the Acts of the Apostles, it does not appear that there was collective production; but their communal spirit serves as an inspiration to the CPRs to encourage this form of collective production, which has been the nucleus of their resistance.

Much of what I am saying is critical of the military. But pastoral work among people who are resisting the persecution of the army cannot be otherwise, since the soldiers persecute us and want to kill us, and burn our houses and cut down our cornfields. How can pastoral work not be anti militaristic if it seeks to provide spiritual nourishment to the People of God?

What nourishment are we going to give them? Are we going to tell them to surrender to the army? What did Judith say when the leaders of her besieged city gave God a deadline in which to save them. She raised her voice in protest, because they were showing a lack of trust in God, because instead of encouraging the people to resist they were suggesting the idea of surrendering.

Resistance is understood, in the context of our pastoral work, as a gift of God, and, therefore, as a gift which must be received freely; thus, if someone doesn't want this gift wholeheartedly, then we tell them that it would be better that they leave. Resistance is also understood as a struggle for life and never as a struggle which is suicidal, fanatic or isolated from reality.

The people in resistance, in spite of the suffering they have experienced, are very down to earth and psychologically very healthy, probably because they have succeeded in overcoming their suffering through their heroic faith. If our pastoral work has been able to help nourish this faith, we pastors have also felt ourselves to be very satisfied and happy.