August 2, 2021
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ACPC re-building sustainable communities in the aftermath of genocide, in the age of increasing environmental harms and climate heating
By Grahame Russell, Rights Action, August 2, 2021
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/acpc-re-building-sustainable-communities-in-aftermath-of-genocide
In the mountains of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, the Asociacion de Comites de Produccion Comunitaria (ACPC) works home to home, village to village, to re-build community self-sufficiency in the aftermath of the Guatemalan State genocide against the Maya Achi people in the 1980s. The 1999, UN Truth Commission concluded that the US-backed Guatemalan military carried out genocide against for Maya regions of the country, including the Achi people of Rabinal.
Juan Manuel Geronimo. All photos: Grahame Russell
I have returned to Guatemala for the first time in 18 months, since COVID raced around the world. One of my stops was in Rabinal, where Rights Action has worked since 1994. Plan de Sanchez was just one of the villages in Rabinal that suffered the US-backed regime’s scorched earth military tactics.
On our 3 hour walk about (July 30) with ACPC leaders, we stopped first in the home of 78-year old Juan Manuel Geronimo, eye-witness to and survivor of the July 1982 army massacres that killed over 275 men and women, young and old, in his village of Plan de Sanchez. Juan Manuel lost his entire family, including parents, siblings, wife and children.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Juan Manuel has spear-headed close to 30 years of community work and struggle for truth and memory, justice and reparations for the crime against humanity they suffered. Rights Action supported this work for many years, and has published numerous articles.
In these times of increasing environmental harms and climate heating across the planet, in these times of Covid-19 ravaging discriminated, impoverished communities most of all, and in these times of corrupt, repressive governments in Guatemala (“democratic allies” of the US and Canada) continuing to hand over Guatemala’s richest lands and other resources to global companies, investors and consumers, the work of the ACPC is visionary, supporting a locally-controlled, designed and implemented response to these systemic ills and injustices.
During our hike from the mountain-top village of Plan de Sanchez, around and about, down to the village of Xesiguan, I was able to witness just a bit of what ACPC is doing.
Alfredo Cortez, founder of the ACPC, was born in 1979 in the fields and mountain crevices we walked through. Achi families – fleeing aerial bombardment campaigns and patrols of marauding soldiers – subsisted and tried to eek out their survival for as many as 4 years in these forest and mountains, scattered as internally displaced populations.
Today, Alfredo leads the work of ACPC providing an alternative to the violently imposed global economic model that systematically impoverishes Guatemalans, forcing thousands off their lands and into forced migrancy, year after year, decade after decade.
ACPC’s work is a combination of teaching, and working to recover ecological agricultural practices that are sustainable in the Rabinal region, part of the ever widening “Dry Corridor” that carves through Central America.
I recommend this article, by Andrew Wight (January 20, 2020), about the work of the ACPC (Indigenous Women's Agro-Ecology Is Healing Guatemala's Landscape, https://sojo.net/articles/indigenous-womens-agro-ecology-healing-guatemalas-landscape):
“In the Achí community of Xesiguan, 7 miles outside of the town of Rabinal, the rocky soils and dry landscapes [of the “dry corridor”] seem to drop away suddenly on the site of a farm that serves as an example to other farmers throughout the region. Blecin Rublia-Cajuj, 31, one of the key figures in this community showed me the various parts of the farm: the small pond that holds Tilapia fish and snails; the chicken coop; the coffee bushes; a wide variety of legumes, fruits, and vegetables.”
“Here, farmers learn about incorporating agro-ecological principles into farming practices. These techniques include rotational cropping, agroforestry, integrated crop and livestock systems, and the use of local varieties.”
Walking forward, one ecological agricultural project at a time
As the global economy churns steadily forward, the work of the ACPC - rooted in millennial practices and believes of the Achi people in this region of what is now called Guatemala – provide an utterly sustainable, healthy alternative model for current and future generations.
It was an altogether uplifting and enlightening hike. The best people and work for Rights Action to support, empower and learn from.
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To support the work of land, human rights and environmental defender groups, and human rights and justice struggles in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
- U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
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