Guatemalan Indigenous Widows Speak Organize for Life

by Fermina Lopez

Fermina Lopez works with the National Coordination of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA) in Guatemala City.

The National Coordination of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA) was formed out of the need to respond to the suffering which women have suffered for many years in Guatemala. Because many women cannot read or write, or even speak Spanish, we are exploited and discriminated for being indigenous and for being widows. For years women have never been allowed to participate in society, and our work has always been underpaid.

We also suffer because we are widows. More than 50,000 women have lost their husbands: some were assassinated, some were kidnapped and disappeared. Thousands more have lost their husbands, when they were forced to work under such harsh conditions of poverty and there was no money to buy medicines for them when they got sick. As a result, the women have remained as the heads of our families.

I am a widow. My husband was kidnapped December 5, 1982. Like everyone else in our village, he was a farmer. He was also active in Catholic Action and worked as a catechist in Quiche. He worked with cooperatives, was on the village committee, and he participated in cursillos and meetings with youth. It's because of this work with the community that he was accused of being a communist. That was in 1981.

In November, 1982 los judiciales came to our house. I was pregnant with my third child. My husband, however, wasn't at home, he had gone to work in another village. Los judiciales searched our home, and interrogated me: "Where is your husband?" they asked. "Where are you keeping the guns?" They robbed our money, and took many other things from the house. They stayed for three hours and left about one in the afternoon.

Three weeks later they came back, this time with eight or ten men. It was Sunday, about three in the afternoon. We were having lunch with my relatives when los judiciales appeared in the entrance to our house. My husband tried to escape but they shot him in the leg. Then they grabbed his two brothers, put them face down on the ground and beat them. They accused us of being guerrillas.

I had given birth to my third child two weeks before, and my sister-in-law had also given birth a week before. Los judiciales interrogated us again: "Why are you meeting together?" "Where do you keep the guns?" I didn't know how we were going to defend ourselves, I wanted so desperately to escape. They searched the house again, and took 100 quetzales and some clothes. They also took my husband with them, and his two brothers. My husband had been wounded, and they had bound his hands behind his back with two pieces of rope they found in the house. Then they left to take them to the army barracks in Quiche.

When los judiciales left the house I followed them, pleading with them to let my husband go: "Why are you taking him away? He's wounded," I called out. I took my children with me and followed close behind. They threatened to shoot me if I didn't go back. Then they said to my husband: "Should we leave her here or do you want us to take her with us so that she learns what you have done?" "Go back," my husband called out. "You know that everyone that is kidnapped disappears. Take care of the children and stay in the house." So I went back.

We Went to the Hills to Hide

I didn't know what to do. They also told me not to tell anyone what had happened: "If we ever meet you in town we'll take you away too." We had no where to go. The only reason we went to the town was to buy soap, salt and sugar, and we always came right back. But we couldn't stay in our house. So we went to the hills to hide ourselves and slept beneath some trees. We only went back to our house during the day to cook our tortillas, and then left.

By now it was harvest time, and nobody else was left to harvest the corn, just the three of us women who had been left widows and our nine children. We had sold our domestic animals so that we could pay a hired hand to help us in the fields. We had even set aside some corn to sell during Holy Week when the prices went up. And so we passed our days. But three months later los judiciales came back to our house. Two men in hoods interrogated my father-in-law: "Where are the guns?" Then they forced him to lay face down on the ground, they stepped on his back and they beat him with their guns. Then they took everything we had in the house, including clothing and my husband's watch.

Once again we were shocked. We didn't know what to do or where to go. We had to leave our house again. We were afraid to stay, so we went to stay for several months with out neighbors. But once the rainy season was over, we began to think about what to do. Planting season was near, and if we didn't plant we wouldn't be able to eat the following year. We decided to go back to our house. If they kill us then they kill us, but we had no other place to go.

We went back to the house and took my nephews along so they could help us plant the corn. My baby was eight months old now, and sick from all the shocks we had experienced. He wouldn't nurse anymore. I was afraid to go to town and besides, I didn't have any money to buy medicine for him. He was sick all night, and the following day he died. We didn't even have money to bury him, or even coffee to share with the people who came by to share their condolences. So we decided to bury him the same day. Our neighbors made a wooden coffin. He died at nine in the morning, and we buried him at two that afternoon.

With all this misfortune I couldn't bear to go on living. I wanted to die. But then I thought about my two remaining children, and who would take care of them? So we had to go on working, cultivating our fields in order to survive. I would go to the hills with my sisters-in-law to gather firewood, and then we would sell it in the town. We also made tamales, tortillas and coffee on feast days to sell to the people. That's how we survived, but some days we had nothing. We couldn't even buy clothes for the children, we'd have to put sheets around them while we washed their clothes and hung them out to dry.

These are our problems. But it's not only happened to me. Thousands of women have suffered the same problems or even worse. Many children who are alive today suffer because their parents or siblings were killed in front of them. Nor is this a problem of the past, of things which happened in 1981-82. The massacres and kidnappings continue to this day.

We Began to Organize Ourselves

Little by little we overcame our fear when we began to organize ourselves in CONAVIGUA. After all that we had suffered during these years, 1983-1987, I trembled whenever I spoke to anyone until I felt I just couldn't speak anymore. That changed when we began to organize ourselves. Before I used to get frightened whenever I saw soldiers or the police. I felt like they were going to kill me. But now we are learning to overcome our fear. I feel that these interviews are helpful as well. Before we used to say to each other: "Don't say anything, or they're going to kill us." So I never said anything but kept it all inside. But after the first or second time I told everything that I have suffered, it helped me a great deal.

The other compañeras in CONAVIGUA have also helped me as well. I used to think that I was the only one who suffered in this way. I didn't realize that others suffered as well. True, I did hear commentaries, but I didn't hear from the others who suffered directly. But when CONAVIGUA held its first assembly, women came from many different places to share their suffering, stories which made us cry. But I felt encouraged by this experience of sharing, and little by little began to overcome my fear.

I also was helped by courses that we received in CONAVIGUA about the rights of women, the dignity of women, and the Guatemalan Constitution. I never knew that there were laws, or rights such as the right to work, the right to organize, the right to free expression. But after I received these courses I felt more courage, knowing there are laws which protect these rights. Now whenever anybody tells me that it's not good for me to do what I'm doing, I tell them I have a right to do it. This has helped me a great deal.

A Mass for the Widows and Orphans

Since 1987 many government institutions have come to our communities and offered us many things. Once the government launched a campaign for widows and orphans and told us it would pay all our debts, rebuild our houses, give us tools to work, and give our children school supplies and medicines. But they never fulfilled their promises. They also told us to form committees and to come into town every 20 days to pick up these supplies. We met people from many other towns and villages, including Chimaltenango and Guatemala City. But when we realized that the government wasn't fulfilling its promise, we banded together to demand help.

What was the response of the government? They took our lists and burned them, or they made fun of us because we don't speak Spanish. They called us Communists instead of responding to our petitions. So a group of widows decided to go to Chichicastenango in May, 1988 to ask the priest if he would celebrate a memorial mass for mother's day. Traditionally this is a joyful occasion, but for many of us we feel only sadness because our children have been killed or disappeared.

We celebrated the mass on May 14. People came from every town in the Department of Quiche, and we asked the priest to allow us to participate in the mass. Many of the women spoke about the petitions we had made to the government. It was a moment for us to share everything, because we have never had the opportunity to do so. We spoke about all the suffering we have endured and offered their petitions to God. We told the people gathered why we are widows, how the army kidnapped our husbands, and how we continue to suffer hunger today. Finally we placed gifts of firewood and tortillas on the altar and offered them up to God.

A few days after the celebration of this mass the repression began again, and there were threats against us and against the priest. The army forced the people in the civil patrols to demonstrate against the priest, and even forced the pregnant mothers to take the priest out of the parish house. But the priest had been warned days before and was not in the village that day.

We Have to Unite

This is how we discovered that as long as we were divided we would never be strong enough to make our voice heard. We were not able to help ourselves because we were not united. That's how we got the idea to form CONAVIGUA. Our organization was born of all the suffering we have endured. Our communities never received help. In a few villages the government did distribute beans and corn, but with the condition that we would not organize, demonstrate, or form our own village committees.

Then the government would say over the radio and television, and in all the newspapers, that our children were receiving clothes, women were becoming involved in community development, and Guatemala was a democratic country. But we have never seen this development or democracy; we have only known suffering. Another day passes and we have nothing to give our children.