In the general cemetery of Pacoj, a rural hamlet in Guatemala, a smell of dampness guards a storage room of ossuaries in boxes stacked like reams of paper. Each one bears a number. Nothing else. Remains of women, men, girls, and boys massacred by the Guatemalan Army in 1982.
Some of the remains have been exhumed since 1998. Others in 2014. Since the room was built nearly 20 years ago, most have been waiting for a dignified burial — a promise the government made in the 1996 Peace Accords. It’s Monday, June 29. Today, they will finally be transferred to individual burial niches, each bearing a plaque with a name and a date. This will ensure they are not forgotten, a reminder of what was done to them under the army’s “scorched earth” policy.
Many in Guatemala are taking the day off for Army Day. It’s actually tomorrow, June 30, but the Domestic Tourism Law moved the holiday to today to create a long weekend. A small group of residents from several communities in San Martín Jilotepeque, Chimaltenango —70 kilometers from Guatemala City, among them Pacoj— got up early to walk along a narrow, steep dirt and gravel path to the top of a hill, to the Pacoj General Cemetery. Another group arrived by bus from the city.
They’re all Kaqchikel Maya, and although their colorful attire resembles flowers in a garden, the atmosphere is somber. Of course, it’s a cemetery, but there’s something unsettling about this one. The place is small. Two very slender columns hold up two iron gates that swing open in the middle, forming a rickety entrance. There are some 25 mausoleums of all sizes and colors, overtaken by vegetation. A cluster of empty, numbered niches sits to the left of the entrance. It’s a pyramid-shaped concrete structure that has just been built. At the very top is a cross bearing the inscription: Victims of the C.A.I., or Internal Armed Conflict.
The Massacre of a Trial for Genocide
It’s almost 10 a.m., and the sun hasn’t yet unleashed its strongest rays. The chill mingles with the scent of incense and dampness emanating from the storage room, which stands about two meters high, looming over the niches. Photographers shuffle back and forth, making it impossible to see through the smoke. But in the distance, the ossuaries peek through — each bearing a number that corresponds to the niches, covering the three main storage room walls. At the entrance are two signs.
The first:
The Guatemalan Army murdered: José Patricio Lopes Balán, Juan Yecuté, Justiniano Balán, José Silvio Lool Balán, Eladio Balán Xajil, Francisco Yecuté. At the Choatalum outpost, San Martín Jilotepeque. Buried in the village of Chijocón Panatzan on August 29, 2009.
The second:
The day will come when the dead rise again; then the living and the dead will join their minds and hands and achieve justice. Then dawn will break forever, and the people will live in peace.
Here lie our brothers and sisters massacred by the Army on February 12, 1982, in Pacoj Chijocón. Inés Zet, Rubén Martín Morales, Mateo Martín Xajil, Agustina Tay Morales, Adrián Martín Tay, Marco Tulio Martín Tay, Felipa Tay Morales, María Silvestre Martín Yool, Joaquín Martín Yool, M. Apolonia Martín Yool, M. Agripina Atz Alvarado, Juana Tay Cusanero, Juan Tun, Huz, Onofrio Tun Huz, Francisco Tun Huz, Justiniano Culpatan Xalin, Lucrecia Huz, Felisa Culpatan Huz, Martina Culpatan Huz, Ciriaca Culpatan Huz, Virgilio Tun Huz, Bonifacio Culpatan, Modesto Atz Coroy, Esteban Cumatzil, Feliz Calex Albarado, Domingo Balán.
A table with a small altar displays two candles, a painting of the Virgen del Carmen, a flower arrangement, and a few bouquets. People stand wherever they can, sit on the mausoleums, or lean against trees. It’s surprisingly quiet for an outdoor space with so many people. There must be about 60 of them.
Silvio Tay, a victim of the conflict and representative of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR), breaks the silence. He is short with a slight mustache. He carries two long, narrow planks under his arm and asks for help placing them on a tall structure made of metal pipes, like makeshift construction scaffolding. The planks span both ends of the structure, forming a narrow, rickety bridge — as rickety, apparently, as the government’s promises of a dignified burial.
“Over time, we realized that wasn’t going to happen. We had to look elsewhere for a solution,” says Silvio. He only says that they asked the international community for help.
Catholic Minister Juan Xajil climbs the metal structure and stands on the planks. He holds a bottle of Dasani water, with a hole punched in the cap, just the right size to squeeze out a few drops. He begins to read a prayer from his phone screen. “Our Father, who art in heaven,” everyone prays in unison.
The minister walks back and forth across the planks, waving his hand. The drops of water shoot out and fall onto the niches. He moves down the tubes of the structure, making sure the entire pyramid is blessed.
Silvio shows a sheet with a color-coded honeycomb pattern printed on it and explains that it’s arranged this way because each color represents a family; this way, they can ensure that everyone remains together. Some of the ossuaries contain the remains of people who have not yet been identified. They, too, will be buried together in another section of the pyramid.
“We need volunteers to remove the ossuaries,” says Silvio. A chain of men forms from the storage room’s doorway toward the niches, scaling the metal structure to reach the highest rows.
“Niche 42!” the chain of men call out. An ossuary is removed from the room. It changes hands once, twice, three times until it reaches niche 42. The next one follows the same path.
Dominga Atz is a tiny, hunchbacked old woman. She is wrinkled beyond her years, and cataracts are already beginning to show in her eyes. She’s leaning against a wall, shielding herself from the sun, thinking of her father, who was murdered by soldiers in 1982. “He was coming from the coast, and they caught him here at the school,” she recalls. Two days later, a neighbor asked her if her dad had come back. “No, my dad hasn’t come back,” she replied.
“Niche 46!”
“But he was coming in a truck a few days ago. If he hasn’t come, it’s because they caught him in Pacoj—they killed 60 people up there,” they told her. The man who warned them went to see if he was there. There were three of them. They were tied hand and foot to a pole. They’d been hanged. “I went to get some water and a machete. I cut the rope and untied them. But they were left there,” she recalled.
“Niche 50!”
There are already about ten ossuaries in the niches. Silvio interrupts: they probably won’t finish moving them all today.
Some brought warm atol porridges to share, but first Silvio asks everyone to listen to some of the family members and victims. As they begin to tell their stories, a small chainsaw rumbles as it cuts through the cement blocks to cover the niches. A shovel scrapes against concrete. The conversation quickly fizzles out.
The sun is already beating down, and people are seeking shade and atol. Simeón Atz Zutuj, 76, is wearing a yellowish hat, a brown leather strap, and a light blue button-down shirt that matches his eyes. Underneath, a pink T-shirt. He looks at me with confidence, ready to speak. “How many family members do you have here?” I ask.
“Three—well, four. My wife was Agustina Yecuté Martín. My daughters: María Valeriana Atz Yecuté, five years old, and María Ermelinda Atz Yecuté, a year and a half,” he says, between Spanish and Kaqchikel. His wife was seven months pregnant.
Ixil Dignity
The chainsaw roaring at full blast, Simeón has a distant look in his eyes, transported back to his home, to that morning of March 26, 1982.
“We were together at home,” he recounts. “Get up, you son of a bitch — it’s the army!” his wife told him. As Simeón stood up, they shot his wife. Then one daughter. Then the other. “All I saw was: ‘Oh my God, it’s over!’ I didn’t even speak. I ran.” The soldiers chased him for a kilometer, but he escaped and returned home that afternoon.
He adds, as if the words weigh nothing: “I found my wife with a bullet in her forehead that had exited through the soft spot on her head.”
The damn chainsaw keeps going.
“My five-year-old daughter, with a bullet in the back of her neck that had exited through her face. They left her lying face down, as if she were sleeping. My one-year-old daughter, also with a bullet in the back of her neck, lying there.”
“Why do you think they came to your house like that?” I ask.
The chainsaw falls silent for the first time. Simeón exhales. “Who knows? We were just at home. But there they are.” He points at the storage room with his lips.
Several niches have been sealed, and people head for the exit. Silvio announces that he’s expecting everyone on July 15 for the celebration marking the project’s completion. People thank him and say their goodbyes. Some get into their old cars; others leave on foot. They move slowly. They’ve waited decades for this day.
The masons pick back up the chainsaw and shovel. The ossuaries are passed from hand to hand toward the niches. Number 59, number 60. The Guatemalan Army will march tomorrow. Here, the people will return when the cement dries. They’ll finally bring flowers.