Sexual Violence as a War Crime in Guatemala: Mayan Women Struggle for Justice
Sexual Violence as a War Crime in Guatemala: Mayan Women Struggle for Justice
Saturday, 13 June 2015 00:00
By Kelsey Alford-Jones, Upside Down World
Interview with Gabriela Rivera, Lawyer with Mujeres Transformando el Mundo (MTM, or Women Transforming the World) in Guatemala, on the Sepur Zarco sexual violence and sexual slavery case.
Q: We talk a lot about torture, massacres and other atrocities committed during the internal armed conflict in Guatemala, but don’t hear a lot about sexual violence. Can you give a little background on how this case developed?
Sexual violence happens during conflicts. Especially in Guatemala where racism and sexism are so widespread, it is really important to know what happened to women during the war.
After the peace agreements were signed in 1996, there was a truth commission to understand what happened during the conflict. During these investigations, it was known that women suffered from sexual violence, but they weren’t really looking for sexual violence. Because there were so many violations committed during the armed conflict, massacres, enforced disappearances, and they were not really asking what happened specifically with women. Many women even gave their testimonies for these truth commissions and spoke about what happened to others, but didn’t speak about the sexual violence they suffered.
The other two organizations in our alliance, ECAP and UNAMG, were hearing that a lot of sexual violence happened in the eastern part of the country. In 2009, MTM, an organization formed mostly of lawyers, was called in to help women learn about their options in the legal system. During that time, the conditions of the legal system were not very good (they still are not very good) but at the time organizations felt there were no real possibilities to go to trial. So the organizations decided to do a Tribunal of Conscience, a symbolic form of justice. In this tribunal, women from different parts of the country talked about how they suffered sexual violence from members of the army, some from members of the guerrilla, and military commissioners, but mostly the army.
Though there were hundreds of thousands of human rights violations, not many cases have gone to trial from that time. Maybe you have heard how, two years ago, former General Efraín Ríos Montt was brought to trial on charges of genocide and he was convicted. The events that happened in Sepur Zarco were during the same time Ríos Montt was president. It was all part of a widespread policy of the government to eliminate or exterminate Mayan people – by killing them, disappearing them, by displacing them and forcing them to leave the country, to leave their culture, or forcing them to live in conditions that were impossible to survive in. But the case was overturned.
More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31302-sexual-violence-as-a-war-crime-in-guatemala-mayan-women-struggle-for-justice#
