Sexual violence is genocide: their truth is our truth

AJR, et al.

11/04/2013

Opinión

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“I was 12 years old; they took me to the base with other women. There they tied up my feet and hands… They put a rag in my mouth… and they began to rape me… I don’t even know how many raped me… I fainted… and the blood was flowing… later I couldn’t even get up or urinate…”

This wrenching testimony given today by a Maya Ixil woman survivor of rape demonstrates how rape was used with the purpose to destroy and/or cause grave damage against Maya Ixil women during the General Rios Montt government; this was a practice that formed a part of the government’s policy of genocide.

We affirm that the acts of rape against Maya Ixil women constitute the crime of genocide since this is established as such in Article 376, sub point 2 of the Guatemalan Criminal Code: “Art. 376.- The crime of genocide is committed by one who, with the purpose of completely or partially destroying a national, ethnic or religious group, commits any of the following acts: … 2. Injury that gravely affects the physical or mental integrity of the group’s members.”

The testimonies of the ten (10) Maya Ixil women that were heard today clearly and undeniably demonstrate how the acts of sexual violence committed during the armed conflict against Maya Ixil women had the aim of causing irreparable damage to their bodies and their lives. This violence was an exercise to demonstrate power and hatred, which was manifested on their bodies and their absolute degradation and humiliation. All of which was backed by racist and patriarchal system in which women’s bodies become “things” of no value. Some of today’s witnesses stated: “They grabbed my mother and they dragged her like a dog...”; “As if we were animals so they could do anything to us”.

The counterinsurgency policy had the purpose of generating terror in the population and specifically in women, using cruel and extreme forms of sexual violence that caused serious and permanent injuries to Maya Ixil women’s physical and/or mental integrity. This aim is demonstrated by the ferociousness and abomination that was exercised against the bodies of women, including pregnant women as shown in the following testimony: “They wanted me to become their wife [to rape me], but I resisted; but they stabbed me in the head and then I could no longer resist… I was 6 months pregnant and 15 days later I gave birth to my dead baby…”.

These inflicted damages caused effects on Maya Ixil women that continue through the present day with feelings of deep sorrow, guilt, and fear alongside different physical ailments, illnesses such as those narrated by the women today with their testimonies: “I’m extremely sad; I’m always sick and I don’t leave my house… My heart hurts.”

The rapes that they witnessed of their mothers or daughters were one of the most markedly painful experiences narrated in the women’s testimonies today. These acts were repeatedly mentioned in numerous testimonies, thus demonstrating the intention to destroy and/or deeply harm the family dynamic, placing the women at the center of these attacks, as shown in the following testimonies: “I also saw how several soldiers raped my daughter. She was only 12 years old. They seized her in my bed…”. “There were four soldiers who raped my daughter; they severely beat her and she didn’t stop crying.”

It was also demonstrated that many of the women who had been raped were left brutally harmed so they could not conceive children, thus consequently limiting the reproduction of the Maya Ixil people. Other testimonies also acknowledged the physical impact on their reproductive capacities, as one a 46-year old woman witness stated: “I have an infection in my belly; my uterus always hurts…”.

As Elizabeth Odio Benito, vice-president of the International Criminal Court for Ex Yugoslavia (1993-1995), has determined: “The rape of women in not a more or less inevitable or meaningless consequence in an armed conflict, rather it is a policy applied systematically to destroy human groups, in addition to the direct victim herself.”

The testimonies of the Maya Ixil women that were given today in court make obvious that the acts of sexual violence which occurred in the Ixil region during the General Rios Montt government had a “modus operandi” since:

* They were acts that responded to orders from senior leadership, usually lieutenants, who directly gave orders to the soldiers as well as also participating themselves in acts of sexual violence. “It was a Sergeant who gave the orders to the soldiers.”

* The members of the Army and civil patrollers arrived in the communities, separated the women and men. The women were normally taken to the chapels, schools, on the street itself and at times to their homes. Once this separation was made, the Army and civil patrollers proceeded to execute different acts of sexual violence, which the majority of the time rape was a generalized practice. “They grabbed us and took us to a room in the parish hall and there they raped us group of women; there were several soldiers that used [raped] me and I was left hemorrhaging for almost a year...”.

* The massive character of the rape; in other words, the numerous soldiers involved and the many women affected. There also were gang rapes; different men raped the same women and in many cases, these rapes were repeated in distinct moments against the same women. “They took us to the base and there many soldiers raped us; I was there ten days and I was raped many times, and other women as well.” “They raped me the entire night; there were about 20 soldiers. But by the end, I had lost consciousness.”

All of these characteristics demonstrate that sexual violence was a premeditated, systematic, generalized practice that had the aim to destroy and gravely harm Maya Ixil women as a specific group. These were not acts committed by troops outside of the control of their superiors, rather these superiors were the ones who ordered, approved and legitimated these acts. The perpetrators were regular people; they were not maniacs and did not suffer from any pathology.

One of the most memorable moments in today’s hearing was when a Maya Ixil woman survivor stated with a clear and strong voice how she had heard a soldier say: “Rios Montt told us to finish off all of this Ixil trash since they collaborate with the guerrilla”.

The recurrent practice of submitting women to the sexual slavery in which soldiers raped women over several days and forced them to cook for them and to attend to them under the threat of death and continued violence was also demonstrated. “They stabbed me and I have scars; I could no longer walk when they raped me and they threw me around like a ball… I had to cook for them so they wouldn’t kill me.”

These ten testimonies of the Maya Ixil women presented today in court are ten acts of women’s bravery, strength and power. Today once again women have broken the wall of silence that exists in Guatemala around the sexual violence which was committed against Maya Ixil women and thousands of other Maya, mestiza and Garifuna women during the Guatemalan armed conflict. As one of the women stated at the end of her testimony: “Today there’s going to be a change in my life because I’m letting it all out.”

These women today have present all of us-- women and men-- with their voices, their hearts, their memories, their bodies, their pains and most of all, their truth to state that they were raped and that they want justice for what occurred to them and that they do not want this to be repeated. “I have come to state this so that it doesn’t happen again to us women”.

Guatemala, 2 April 2013.

Asociación para la Justicia y Reconciliación AJR [Association for Justice and Reconciliation]

Centro para la Acción Legal en Derechos Humanos CALDH [Center for Legal

Action in Human Rights]

Colectivo Nosotras las Mujeres [We Women Collective]

Centro Medios Independientes [Independent Media Center]

More information and reports on the trial:

www.paraqueseconozca.blogspot.com

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/75285