had joined the guerrillas.
By July, horrible stories were whispered in themarketplace of whole cantóns being burned and everybody killed. Rumors spread that hundreds of people were dying. Thousands of Indios were fleeing north into Mexico, the closest place for them to try and escape the madness.
Still the soldiers blamed the guerrillas, and the guerrillas blamed the soldiers. I wasn’t sure what to think. I heard of guerrillas who killed military men, but I also heard of guerrillas who spied for the military. Still, I believed that only the soldiers were hateful enough to massacre whole cantóns. I had seen their thirst for blood with my own eyes.
By August most cantóns had posted lookouts to give themselves enough warning to run when the soldiers approached. Angered when they discovered a cantón empty, the soldiers burned down homes.
With each passing day, the war changed around us. As the soldiers earned a reputation for being coldblooded killers, many Indios openly sided with the guerrillas.
Each week at market, I heard more and more stories of soldiers killing the Indios and the campesinoswith no pretense. One week the old man selling fruit next to me in the market leaned over and whispered to me, “They’re sending out death squads now to kill us because we’re Indios. They want all of us dead.”
Manuel had told me of genocide in history, but I never dreamed that such a thing would come to Guatemala, and that we, the Maya, would be its victims. But the brutality I’d seen convinced me that the old man was right.
Returning from market one evening, I forced myself to walk along the river where the soldiers had massacred Manuel and the children. Standing there with the water flowing gently at my feet, I heard new sounds, the drumbeat of helicopters on patrol and the sounds of machine guns spitting death. These were new tools to be used against the Indios. As I stood there, a helicopter flew low downriver, forcing me to run and hide beneath some trees.
More than ever, I worried about leaving my family to go to market, but if I did not go we would not eat. Starvation would kill us as surely as any soldier’s bullet. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the Saturdayafternoon when I returned home late and saw fires burning ahead of me in our cantón. A rotten scorched smell filled the air.
I broke into a run. At first I spotted only a single body lying in front of a burning home, but then I saw another and another. Scattered everywhere among the ashes of our cantón were corpses. Many who hadn’t been killed by soldiers in the cantón lay dead in the open fields, killed by rifles or maybe by machine guns aimed from the helicopters. In the late-afternoon light, the fallen bodies looked like scattered branches from a tree. But they weren’t branches. They were people I knew—aunts, uncles, grandparents, and neighbors.
I stared in shock, convulsing as tears burned my cheeks like hot water. Again and again I swallowed at the bitter taste building in my throat, trying to make me throw up. This was my worst nightmare.
I ran frantically from one fallen body to the next, searching for my family. I found Papí first. Crumpled in the grass, his body looked frail and weak. Not ten yards away lay my little sister, Lidia, facedown as if asleep. Two red stains on her huipil showed where she hadbeen shot. I ran to Papí and then to Lidia, and fell beside their bodies, hugging them and sobbing. “No! No! No!” I cried.
Closer to our burned homes, I found Julia lying among several other children, faceup, a stick still in her hand as if she’d been trying to protect those around her in the only way she knew. I pulled a shawl from one of the dead bodies and laid it over Julia’s innocent face.
I walked now as if in a stupor, my mind drunk from shock. I wandered out away from our burned homes, searching. Not until I reached the trees did I find the next body. Lester lay dead behind two shrubs, as if he’d been
By July, horrible stories were whispered in themarketplace of whole cantóns being burned and everybody killed. Rumors spread that hundreds of people were dying. Thousands of Indios were fleeing north into Mexico, the closest place for them to try and escape the madness.
Still the soldiers blamed the guerrillas, and the guerrillas blamed the soldiers. I wasn’t sure what to think. I heard of guerrillas who killed military men, but I also heard of guerrillas who spied for the military. Still, I believed that only the soldiers were hateful enough to massacre whole cantóns. I had seen their thirst for blood with my own eyes.
By August most cantóns had posted lookouts to give themselves enough warning to run when the soldiers approached. Angered when they discovered a cantón empty, the soldiers burned down homes.
With each passing day, the war changed around us. As the soldiers earned a reputation for being coldblooded killers, many Indios openly sided with the guerrillas.
Each week at market, I heard more and more stories of soldiers killing the Indios and the campesinoswith no pretense. One week the old man selling fruit next to me in the market leaned over and whispered to me, “They’re sending out death squads now to kill us because we’re Indios. They want all of us dead.”
Manuel had told me of genocide in history, but I never dreamed that such a thing would come to Guatemala, and that we, the Maya, would be its victims. But the brutality I’d seen convinced me that the old man was right.
Returning from market one evening, I forced myself to walk along the river where the soldiers had massacred Manuel and the children. Standing there with the water flowing gently at my feet, I heard new sounds, the drumbeat of helicopters on patrol and the sounds of machine guns spitting death. These were new tools to be used against the Indios. As I stood there, a helicopter flew low downriver, forcing me to run and hide beneath some trees.
More than ever, I worried about leaving my family to go to market, but if I did not go we would not eat. Starvation would kill us as surely as any soldier’s bullet. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the Saturdayafternoon when I returned home late and saw fires burning ahead of me in our cantón. A rotten scorched smell filled the air.
I broke into a run. At first I spotted only a single body lying in front of a burning home, but then I saw another and another. Scattered everywhere among the ashes of our cantón were corpses. Many who hadn’t been killed by soldiers in the cantón lay dead in the open fields, killed by rifles or maybe by machine guns aimed from the helicopters. In the late-afternoon light, the fallen bodies looked like scattered branches from a tree. But they weren’t branches. They were people I knew—aunts, uncles, grandparents, and neighbors.
I stared in shock, convulsing as tears burned my cheeks like hot water. Again and again I swallowed at the bitter taste building in my throat, trying to make me throw up. This was my worst nightmare.
I ran frantically from one fallen body to the next, searching for my family. I found Papí first. Crumpled in the grass, his body looked frail and weak. Not ten yards away lay my little sister, Lidia, facedown as if asleep. Two red stains on her huipil showed where she hadbeen shot. I ran to Papí and then to Lidia, and fell beside their bodies, hugging them and sobbing. “No! No! No!” I cried.
Closer to our burned homes, I found Julia lying among several other children, faceup, a stick still in her hand as if she’d been trying to protect those around her in the only way she knew. I pulled a shawl from one of the dead bodies and laid it over Julia’s innocent face.
I walked now as if in a stupor, my mind drunk from shock. I wandered out away from our burned homes, searching. Not until I reached the trees did I find the next body. Lester lay dead behind two shrubs, as if he’d been
Similar Books
