Remembering Guatemala

10/14

Dennis Smith 2017

Being with my old friend Dennis Smith has brought  back memories of our time in Guatemala. These memories were made even more present by the fact that two days ago, it was announced that the second trial of Efrain Rios Montt for genocide was set to begin again.  

I remember that as our Presbyterian Task force prepared to leave for Guatemala, one task force member decided to remain in Mexico City and our then South American staff person had to be persuaded to go.  That was the level of anxiety that preceded our visit.

I remember Dennis coming to visit our hotel room, turning the radio way up loud to thwart obvious bugging  attempts. I remember passing a table of officers in a steakhouse and knowing by their accent they were Argentine advisors. (Israeli advisors were a little more behind the scenes.... )

We spoke with indigenous fellow Presbyterians telling us of  whole villages disappearing, cultures eons old being wiped from the earth.

We were called to visit the  country’s President Efrain Rios Montt.or ”El Viejo” as he was called. Over coffee on a balcony veranda, he pointed to a faded mural of a Mayan Indian ritual including human sacrifice and the bloody removal of a heart. “You see”, he said, this is what we come from.”

We were taken to visit the headquarters of Montt’s California based evangelical church, “El verbo.” We were greeted at the church’s headquarters, surrounded by a razor wire topped chain link fence, by loudly barking German shepherds. A short man in a leather jacket opened the door and let us in. When we asked him about genocide, he folded his hands, crossed his  knee, leaned forward and said, “You must understand, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” And nodded as if that was that. Not humans, but “rulers of darkness…”

The primal beauty of the country was in  stark contrast to the apparent apocalyptic reality of the violence that surrounded our visit. 

We prepared our report and took it to the 1983 joint assembly of the two branches of US Presbyterians in Atlanta fully prepared to call out Montt’s genocide and call for end to US aid. Guatemala was a clear part of US Central America strategy and the Reagan administration’s relationship with Montt was on of the  many things I could never forgive Reagan for. 

Montt was the darling of American evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. His open declaration of wanting to create a “Christian nation,” his Sunday night broadcasts demanding personal piety and socially conservative moralism while hiding genocide and his tough talking peasant program ‘frijoles and fusiles” (beans and rifles)  made him an iconic leader. In a word, Montt 

was to the Christian Right what the Sandinistas were to progressive Christians.

As our report was being debated in a late night General Assembly session, we were taken by surprise by a   strategic move by the conservative evangelicals. They had brought in two old school missionaries who sang Montt’s praises. A substitute motion was introduced, lifting up Montt’s faith and asking that we recognize him as a brother in Christ  and pray for him to prevent “a worse bloodbath..” The assembly was confused, we couldn’t get a commissioner or mission rep to a microphone, and  the substitute motion was approved. The Presbyterian Church was on record praying for Brother Montt.

Later that night I came as close as I would ever  come to throwing a punch at a church meeting when the gloating head of  Presbyterians for Biblical Concerns (what an unfortunate acronym that was!) came over to goad me about Montt, but friends intervened.

In another year, Montt was overthrown. (Though like a character in a franchise horror movie he never stopped coming back ..) Subsequently, the UN Commission on Historical Clarificationn declared him responsible for “acts of genocide” and perhaps as many as 200 thousand dead . It was estimated that at it's peak the war claimed 3000 lives  a month and 10000 between March and July 1982. In 2013, Montt was convicted for the murder of 1771 Mayan Ixil people in one village. While that was overturned on a technicality, he is up for trial again. His fragile physical state has led to a pretrial humanitarian decision that he will not serve time. 

In 1999, US President Clinton surprised us and  apologized to the Guatemalan people.

That same year, Guatemala President Portillo apologized to the people as well.  

The Presbyterian Church has yet to apologize…

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The Presbyterian Church essentially put its arm around Rios Montt while he killed his own people and   indigenous people who were also Presbyterian. That apology is still due….

The arrest and trial of Jesus, Part 2: Some thoughts on Guatemala

Sunday’s  New York Times reported Rios Montt of Guatemala finally going on trial for genocide. While specifically charged with the deaths of some 1700 Ixill people, some 200,000 mainly indigenous people were killed during the ’80’s under Montt. Another 45,000 missing. Nearly all indigenous people.

I remember meeting Montt, el viejo they called him. His kindly grandfatherly demeanor, his born again piety. And I remember meeting with missionaries, the radio turned loud to foil listening devices. Meeting terrorized Mayans, stories of whole villages disappearing.

And a visit to El Verbo, the church Montt was associated with. Behind barbed wire fences. Barking German shepherds. Their representative in a black leather jacket, sunglasses. You must remember, he said, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world...(Ephesians 6:12). And then we understood. The murdered poor were not even human but demon possessed legions of darkness.

We understood that whereas in most of Central America, the struggle was class-based, Guatemala had a particularly race based reality. The Reagan administration knew of the genocide and denied it. 

We took this truth to our Presbyterian General Assembly in 1983 in Atlanta as part of our comprehensive Central America policy report. And in a late night session, conservatives produced missionaries who allied their work to the Ladino population to testify to Montt’s evangelical faith, to amend our report to pray for him, to prevent an even worse loss of life. That he needed our support. I was enraged. We couldn’t get to a mic. Our missionary friends who worked with los indigenos were prevented from speaking. The amendment passed.

Later , over a late night meal, one of the conservative evangelical leaders kept questioning me. Finally he said why can’t you support our brother in Christ? I rose, drew back my fist. A friend pulled me back. I walked away.

From a  distance I heard, What’s wrong with him? And a friend replied, maybe he’s just seen too many decapitated bodies.  

Thirty years later, vindication. But there is no joy in that. even if an apology from Montt’s North American Christian supporters would be forthcoming. Especially to the people of Guatemala. Which will not happen. 

The point is, the trial of Jesus, the humiliation, the torture, has never ended. It just goes on....

Outside, wet snow is falling. Soli asks me how long its been going on. Dos horas y media, mas o menos, I reply.  John walks Hope to a cab. Cara walks me to the corner...