The Anthropology Of Genocide - WNLibrary

11
Terror, Grief, and Recovery
Genocidal Trauma in a Mayan Village in Guatemala
Beatriz Manz
In the hot, humid afternoon of Saturday, February 13, 1982, a long column of soldiers
moved with an angry, deliberate gait down a muddy path toward Santa Maria
Tzejá, a small, isolated village in the rain forest of northern Guatemala. As the
troops approached, the terrified inhabitants scattered in every direction into the
surrounding forest, having heard that the military had massacred the people of a
nearby village two days before. When the military unit arrived, it found an eerily
quiet, deserted community. Only one woman inexplicably remained. The soldiers
beat, repeatedly raped, and murdered her. They then dumped her battered body
near the building housing the village’s cooperative. This heinous act was only the
prelude to the horrors to come.
Over the next two days, the soldiers looted and torched every structure in the
village. Then, as the flames consumed more than a decade’s worth of hard work
and dreams, a long line of troops hiked down a path that skirted an area where two
terrified groups, a total of fourteen women and children, were quietly hiding.
Crouching in fear in the dense foliage, mothers had stuffed rags into the mouths of
their infants so they would not cry. As the last soldier passed, a little dog suddenly
began to bark. The unit halted and then returned to scan the area more closely.
They soon discovered the first group, a pregnant woman, her infant, and two boys
left in her care. A young boy, who was running to warn his siblings of the approaching
army, heard the soldiers say something to the terrified woman, and then
the troops opened fire upon them, after which a soldier threw a grenade to finalize
the carnage. The unit then moved on, locating the second group of eight children,
their pregnant mother, and a grandmother. As they did with the first group,
the troops methodically and mercilessly slaughtered everyone. Some were shot, others
hacked to death, some decapitated. Soldiers slit open the stomach of the pregnant
woman, killing mother and child. Others, laughing, threw babies into the air.
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