The Testimony: Death Of A Guatemalan Village By Victor Montejo

Also, the growing presence of the Soviets and Cuba in Nicaragua escalated the cold war and in order to ‘draw the line” the Reagan administration “doubled economic aid for El Salvador to a hundred and forty four million dollars” (pg 40). According to Danner, “the priorities of American Policy in El Salvador had become unmistakable” (pg 41).Second, The American government was “opposed to dispatching American combat forces to Central America” (pg 22) and in order to prevent another Nicaragua, Congress agreed to “reform” the Salvadoran Army by financing, training and arming its troops to fight the FMLN. As Danner notes, “the Americans had stepped forward to fund the war, but were unwilling to fight it”. Third, the Monterrosa led Atlacatl led batallion through American funding descended in El Mozote with “the latest M-16’s, M-60 machines guns, 90 millimeter recoilless rifles, and 60- and 81 millimeter mortars”(pg 39) and with a list of names massacred an entire village because “communism was cancer”(pg 49). The U.S. government was clearly responsible for the Massacre at El Mozote because without the funding, supporting, and training of El Salvador troops the war would have been tilted in the guerillas favor as they had managed to hold the disorganized army in certain areas. In contrast to neighboring departments El Mozote and its inhabitants of born-again Christians did not fit in as guerilla sympathizers. In fact, the training at American hands

In Guatemala, whose population is 60% indigenous, schools teach that the Spanish colonialists, when they arrived in Mayan territory, found the native peoples ‘naked and soulless.’ And it was only thanks to the civilizing force of these white men that led to the current way of dress of the Mayan people. Yet, the Mayan textiles reproduced and worn today date back to around 1000 B.C.E., and as before, the textiles continue being the fabric of Mayan cosmology. This rhetoric embodies Guatemala’s colonial past and present, where racism, discrimination, and systematic erasure abound. As indigenous women are the rightful creators and artists, the state in particular oppresses and hinders their knowledge and livelihoods. These women, to counteract this

What is significant about the war is that it is largely an example of discrimination and calculated genocide. Although the population of Guatemala is predominantly made of Indians, the Spaniards in the region have long abused the people of Mayan descent. So eventually it causede a massive civil war.

When Maya has friends over she tries to keep them sheltered from that part of her life, because she doesnt want them to know about the kind of culture she belongs to. When you look out into the world many people relate to Maya, they all want to hide the kind of culture they grew up in and the kind of lifestyle they live in. These people will hide who they are on a day to day basis because of their culture. These people try to avoid the question “whats that” or “why is that hung up and what does it mean” or they just want to avoid being bullied because of

The bodies of those innocent people and rioters were left out in the streets at night for the public to dispose of, the family members would find the lifeless bodies. Catholic Churches began to bring in people of that time, it was the only haven for the people of El Salvador. There at the churches is when they began to be influenced by Oscar Romero. He spoke against the Army and the horrific actions they were taking against innocent people, and their children. Before his tragic death, Romero would receive horrible letters with death threats from death squads. Unfortunately, March 24th the leader was shot and killed by someone in the audience of that day’s Mass. Another leader against the Army was FMLN, ( The Farabundo Marti National Liberation), this group fought for the rights of the people.This all caused the military to kill the people, anyone who looked guilty. This murder of almost 30,000 people was called La Matanza, Farabundo Marti was later on arrested and put on death sentence. Another horrible murder happen to be with other members of church and innocent people, the victims were Six Jesuit priests,

For twelve years (1980-1992), El Salvador suffered this brutal civil war and saw some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin American history. The government refused to attend peace talks by the FMLN and the FMLN refused to participate in elections knowing it results would be rigged. The military tried to kill all suspected rebels and the FMLN damaged anything that supported the government’s economy. Throughout the war there was so much human rights violations such as subjecting civilians to torture, forced disappearance, extrajudicial killing, mutilation, mass rape, massacres, summary executions, landmines and indiscriminate bombing. As the result, by the end of the civil war about 75,000 people were killed, sadly most of which were civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time. The intensity of military repression and constant fear provoked massive northern migration to the United States. By the mid-1980s almost one-fifth of the Salvadoran population was living in the United

The Massacre at El Mozote begins in the present where scientists are uncovering the bodies of the villagers of El Mozote who were unjustly slaughtered by the Salvadoran government with the aid of the American administration. Rufina Amaya, the sole survivor of the massacre, recounted her story for many years and it is only recently it was deemed credible. The massacre at El Mozote is one of the lesser known consequences of the Cold War. It is a crucial event that highlights the powerful, irrational fear induced by the Cold War and its violent outcomes. Communism was perceived as a disease, one that could not be obliterated without throwing human rights out of the window.

During genocides many things happen, homes and lands get rected, women get raped and many people die. A genocide that happened in 1981-1983 was in Guatemala. During the Guatemalan genocide it targeted the Mayan civilization. The first stage was classification. It is when they would put people in categories to determine them by their ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality. By the second stage symbolism was used. In this stage, a simple thing or idea represented them. Then the Guatemalan army used their power to deny the rights of the Mayan, which lead to denying the humanity of the Mayan. Organization then began. This meant that plans to start the killings began. Next, the extremist split the group through the use of propaganda. Then, armies

This article examines the effects of the Classic Maya collapse of Copan, Honduras on its constituent social units in an effort to ascertain the flexibility and resilience of these groups within a larger political structures. The author argues that the collapse and abandonment of Copan is not the exception among Southern Maya Lowland centers it once seemed. Instead, a relatively rapid and complete abandonment of the site during the decades most likely followed after the dynastic collapse, due to the fact that Classic Maya social units were not semiautonomous groups but, rather were integrated within polities. And so the author elucidates in the article on how they must be understood within larger political frameworks. A total of 5,635 Ejar-complex

The deposition of their land, involvement in violent conflict and exposure to new diseases, resulted in the death of a vast number of Indigenous people. For the small population that did survive through this period of time, their lives were irreversibly changed, forever

Twentieth century El Salvador is made up of violence, suffering, and hardships. After the independence of El Salvador, the elite took control of this country which produced discontent amongst the lower classes. During the 1920’s this discontent grew because of political abuse and increased poverty. According to John Chasteen in Born In Blood and Fire, Salvadoran indigenous people were pushed into volcanic land by the

The military is responsible for enforcement, which includes death squads, torture, and public execution. The big businesses who are able to extract an endless supply of 'minimum wage' labor, amass great wealth but instead of reinvesting it locally, most invest overseas or in capital intensive labor whereby local jobs are eliminated. Taking all this into effect and the fact that social classes and living conditions of many Central Americans are deteriorating rapidly leads some to rebellion. Some have taken a path of Passive rebellion. This can be seen in literature and popular music which questions the government.

The whole village was constantly under threat from the invading army and the Leader, therefore the village was restricted by the conflict zones. The mayor believed that if Tata was to give the Leader a gift, it would make him less angry about the death of his friend and stop being as harsh to the village as he was. Tata was not free in this choice, he had to give a gift ‘They opened up the lions’ cage’. This decision did chane the way the leader thought of the village so they were back to being restrained. Alice was also not free, she had to leave her village and hide from the army with some resistance fighters from around her country, they all had a limit of where they could go or else they would get

The Mayan are an ancient cutler, they were advanced for their time. Mayan worshiped gods and goddesses. There coulter consist of blood sacrifice to feed the gods, this was done bye there priest.

Those people ranged from low end soldiers who made their money by raiding villages. To higher end lieutenants. To become a lieutenant for the governments military it seemed as though you had to kill as many people as possible. Outside of the governments military their were bands of guerillas who fought to bring a new government and change to the Guatemalan society. They would attempt to do this by fighting against all people who they saw is believing the government was right. The other type of people in the society around them was the government workers and officals themselves who promised all these small villages such great things but just keep the money themselves instead. If you were defy the government you would be killed, imprisoned or tortured.