EL SALVADOR

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EL SALVADOR and survival instinct. I will never forget those days when we had to flee the shootings in our villages. Our grandmother was brave and decisive. Some nights when the shootings took place very near our makeshift hut by the Pan-American Highway, she simply embraced us and reassured us that the world was going to be okay. In 1993 my grandmother heard that the United Nations had declared an International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People. Let’s remember that in 1993 a UN-mediated peace agreement had only just ended the 12-year-long civil war. Most of us were afraid, traumatized and unsure if the killings would restart if the UN observers were to leave. Despite all this uncertainty and fear, my grandmother asked me to organize a plan. I was to gather members of the community to form a cultural committee in our village. She also requested my help in writing down as much as she could tell me of her oral tradition. Her vision during this time was extraordinary—she could see that this was the moment of transition, the chance to rescue our people’s cultural heritage and preserve it for the modern world. In November 1994, in a small community gathering, we proclaimed her the living Comishaual. This title translates into English as Flying Jaguar, and was used by all her female predecessors who reigned over the Lenca people. My grandmother asked me to craft a basic bill of cultural rights—an almost unbelievable idea for those of us who had lived for generations under prohibition. When I gathered our neighbors in the village and read the proposed bill to them, many were amused, others excited and some were challenged by the audacity of the indigenous family to act as a noble clan and enact cultural rights. The people most offended by our public display of indigenous pride and intention to declare our own rights were the ex-military men—killing machines sitting idle during the transitioning years from war to peace. With our small cultural charter, we had become a target of their unresolved anger. Multiple death threats and subsequent attacks against our family escalated during the very fragile peace process implementation. I survived several shootings because my grandmother advised me to sleep in different homes that she negotiated as safe havens among her contacts. I remember once after one of those shootings, I was crying and telling her how afraid I was of her being killed by these armed groups. She simply told me that this time we were not going to back down. I wrote a letter to the provincial governor reporting the attacks and my concerns. In it I highlighted our desire to celebrate our identity as part of the nation and not as separate groups. I wanted them to understand that we were not, as accused, a guerrilla group promoting communism. I never received acknowledgment of my letter—at least not formally. Instead, in September 1995, an armed group arrived in a car to our neighborhood and without warning gunmen opened fire on me and my nephew Ernesto. At the sound of the bullets, my nephew put himself in front of me, receiving eighteen bullets and dying instantly. My grandmother then summoned a family gathering, ordering me to seek safety. I objected, arguing that my duty was to be there for her and to die for her if I had to. She quickly reminded me that the decisions of the Comishaual were not open to debate. In July 1996 I arrived as a humanitarian refugee in Australia, leaving behind all that I knew, loved and lived for. Living in exile as a refugee was a painful process despite all the help and support given by Australia. I lived with extraordinary pain and longing every day as I saw the sun set and felt no hopes of ever seeing my grandmother and extended relatives again. In 1997, when I finally relocated the whereabouts of my grandmother, she directed me to never give up the cultural program. She reminded me of my duty to my people: “we are born noble, and nobles we die.” And so that year I established the Office for Lenca Affairs. Since then, my role at the UN sessions increased. Without the efforts of my grandmother, these achievements would never have been possible. I can truly say that I am her product, and that I am in debt to her for all that she gave me during her life. Her brave example and rigorous teaching shaped me as a person in the new generation with skills and values to face the challenges at hand. From exile, I have been able to influence the successful reform of the constitution of El Salvador, which in 2015 acknowledged the indigenous people. I know that these landmark events can only happen when great leaders are behind the scene, adding their wisdom and strength to the local processes on the village level to affirm our rights and to add our voice to a global process of great significance to us. Today, there are well organized indigenous entities such as CCNIS, ASIES, ACOLCHI and many more. My grandmother lived to see these great events before her death in August 2015. Never fleeing into exile in the face of danger, but choosing to stay in the land of her people, the last Comishaual now rests in the place that is once again acknowledged as the traditional land of the Maya Lenca people. Our lineage is one of the last matriarchal clans of the Americas that has somehow survived to become the meeting point of the old ways and the modern world. Today, my sisters and I live scattered across several continents. Despite these vast distances of separation, we stay close and united by the values and traditions given to us by the last Queen in the Americas. Leonel Antonio Chevez is the Ti Manauelike Lenca Taulepa (Hereditary Chief of the Jaguar House and the Lenca Indigenous People). He has served as strategic adviser to indigenous groups participating in the “Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples” at the United Nations, and as a panel member in special sessions at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous People 2000-2014. He lives in Australia and can be contacted on info@lencas.net 30 ReVista SPRING 2016 OPPOSITE PAGE: MELISSA GUEVARA, I AM STILL ALIVE 2, 2015C-PRINT COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND THE MARIO CADER-FRECH COLLECTION
ART AND ACTION Claire Breukel and Mario Cader-Frech Performing El Salvador • James Iffland Roque Dalton: The Magnificent Wound That Never Heals • Federico J. Rivas Technology and Collective Dreams in a Torn Nation REVISTA.DRCLAS.HARVARD.EDU ReVista 31
Page 1 and 2: SPRING 2016 HARVARD REVIEW OF LATIN
Page 3 and 4: HARVARD REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICA SPR
Page 5 and 6: Top: Labor Day protest for decent p
Page 7 and 8: FIRST TAKE A rose hangs on the wall
Page 9 and 10: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS Caro
Page 11 and 12: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS posi
Page 13 and 14: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS Beyo
Page 15 and 16: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS pove
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Page 19 and 20: PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC POLITICS ence
Page 21 and 22: PERSPECTIVES Carlos Dada Postwar Ki
Page 23 and 24: PERSPECTIVES devastated the country
Page 25 and 26: PERSPECTIVES holds skills or a tert
Page 27 and 28: PERSPECTIVES One out of every three
Page 29 and 30: PERSPECTIVES The pro-life movement
Page 31: PERSPECTIVES lepa, which in pre-Col
Page 35 and 36: ART AND ACTION Performing El Salvad
Page 37 and 38: ART AND ACTION Venice Biennale, Wal
Page 39 and 40: ART AND ACTION Meléndez was named,
Page 41 and 42: ART AND ACTION An outdoor theatre p
Page 43 and 44: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT Salvadoran
Page 45 and 46: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT while in of
Page 47 and 48: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT ecution. In
Page 49 and 50: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT A military
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Page 53 and 54: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT A Search fo
Page 55 and 56: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT Goals of th
Page 57 and 58: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT From top cl
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Page 61 and 62: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT Clockwise,
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Page 67 and 68: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT A U.S. Army
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Page 71 and 72: REMEMBERING ROMERO Lorne Matalon Sa
Page 73 and 74: REMEMBERING ROMERO From top, clockw
Page 75 and 76: REMEMBERING ROMERO Sergio Domíngue
Page 77 and 78: REMEMBERING ROMERO interview in his
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Page 81 and 82: REMEMBERING ROMERO (Archbishop Ósc
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THE DIASPORA Sofía Jarrín-Thomas
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THE DIASPORA A Salvadoran-themed mu
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THE DIASPORA From the series, “Ho
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THE DIASPORA Marta Castillo Ramos i
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THE DIASPORA From left, clockwise:
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THE DIASPORA From left, clockwise:
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THE DIASPORA 4 2 3 From upper left,
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BOOK TALK democrat, who describes t
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BOOK TALK To Build or Not to Build?
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BOOK TALK ultimate theory that rule
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DAVID ROCKEFELLER CENTER FOR LATIN
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EL SALVADOR 1730 Cambridge St., Cam
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EL SALVADOR

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