Paradise in Ashes

Beatriz Manz, author of Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope

According to Manz, events that occurred in the Guatemalan village of Santa María Tzejá from the early 1970s are typical of what happened throughout throughout the country during a deadly and chaotic time. Broadly speaking, the civil war pitted representatives of the governing Ladino elite against leftist guerrillas—with the poor, landless Mayan peasantry often caught in the middle. The casualties were immense, dwarfing those of contemporary conflicts in other Latin American countries such as Chile and El Salvador. According to a report compiled by the United Nations-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) after a peace accord was signed in 1996, some 200,000 Guatemalans were killed in civil strife over a 34-year period (and the armed forces were responsible for 93 percent of those deaths); 1.5 million people of a total population of 8 million were displaced, with at least 150,000 fleeing to refugee camps in Mexico; and 400 villages were destroyed. Noting that the Guatemalan military perpetrated 626 massacres, the CEH concluded that its actions amounted to genocide against the country’s indigenous Mayan population.

Manz said CEH investigators blamed the “antidemocratic nature” of the Guatemalan economic and political system for widespread emotional and physical distress among the most vulnerable members of society. The worst offender was Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, a dictator who received significant U.S. support during the fiercely anticommunist Reagan administration even as he aggressively violated Guatemalans’ human rights and killed thousands of people.

Santa María Tzejá is located in El Quiché, the province that suffered the most during the civil war. The village was settled in 1970 by peasants from the highlands, where arable land was concentrated in the hands of wealthy, exploitative plantation owners. Some 100 families moved to the rainforest lowlands near the Mexican border where they found abundant land and sought to create a community far from the oppressive government’s reach. Miles away from any serviceable road, the settlers built communal buildings, established schools, and assigned land plots.

They were not immune from the escalating civil war, however; army units soon arrived to battle insurgent groups operating in the region. The military’s scorched-earth tactics—which included indiscriminate kidnappings, murders, and property destruction—prompted many peasants to join the guerrillas. Santa María Tzejá was not completely destroyed like many other villages in the region, but its residents suffered greatly for many years regardless. Most adults were forced to join civil work projects; deforestation and environmental degradation increased due to the army’s presence; and choice land was appropriated for government supporters.

The formal conflict ended with the signing of peace accords in 1996. Since then, refugees have returned from Mexico, land disputes have entered mediation, and the village has regained much of its pre-war calm. Manz said, however, that attacks against the village—presumably by rightist groups—continue to occur on a regular basis. Such attacks and the lingering emotional scars from the war mean that “trust is very difficult” for the peasant population across the country. Reconciliation efforts have been largely unsuccessful so far, according to Manz. "There has never been 'conciliation,'" she said, "so how can there be 'reconciliation?'"

Meanwhile, nearly all Guatemalan social and economic indicators point to a struggling society. The World Bank estimates that 75 percent of the population lives in poverty, and illiteracy and infant mortality rates remain stubbornly high. Many Guatemalans would be in even worse shape without the $2 billion in remittances sent each year from relatives in the United States. Manz noted that the U.S. government—which more than any other country helped prolong and intensify the conflict—lags far behind Europe in providing aid to help Guatemala rebuild.

Manz said the country’s problems are so immense that it is often hard to be optimistic. But she concluded that the resilience of Santa María Tzejá’s families—which she chronicles in the book—provides a significant ray of hope for the future.

Alex Wilde, vice president for communications at the Ford Foundation

Wilde called Paradise in Ashes a "wonderful book about terrible times." The "fundamental core" of the book is the village and its people, he said. "Their lives are shaped by power but—and this is a major finding of her book—they are also capable of finding power in themselves and using it. Finding power above all in community. They are acted upon in terrible ways, but they are also actors." Wilde praised Manz for her insights into the important role the Catholic Church played in empowering people in the 1970s, the height of the church’s liberation theology movement in the region, and encouraging them to believe that they have rights that can and should be defended.

According to Wilde, the book is a seminal work of anthropology and history characterized by the author’s “stubborn determination” to find facts. Her clear, consistent commitment to the villagers earned her their trust, even at times when they were distrustful of nearly all outsiders. Regarding history, he said, Paradise in Ashes is "a book about historical memory—collective memory and individual memory of a violent, conflictive, traumatic time. It exemplifies what scholars in Spanish increasingly call tiempo presente—history that is written when the events of a recent past are still alive in the changing memories of a significant part of the population."

Wilde pointed out that Santa María Tzejá is not a "typical" Guatemalan village, an observation that Manz also makes. "But at the same time," he added, "anyone reading this book comes to understand many things about Guatemala and about the larger world through these 30 years."