"The day they killed my father, twelve other people also died"

Andrés López 

Andrés Raimundo López still has vivid images of how his family and their neighbours first fled their home. "I remember the night when the gunfire began at around 10 o'clock. Things had been fairly normal still. I was at home, and began thinking, blood must be running in Nebaj cos it sounded really loud. We got scared and decided to leave the house and go to the edge of town. We thought they must be finishing off everyone in the centre. It wasn't just us, but lots of families that ran. 

As dawn approached, the shooting stopped, we were still there when the aeroplane flew over the houses. That frightened us even more. Some folks went running for cover, leaving everything they'd brought strewn across the road." The army then called all the townsfolk together and told them they had to form civil defence groups to protect the area from the guerrillas. Many volunteered out of fear. They were then told to report to the local barracks, where they were given weapons and instructions to patrol the outlying regions, interrogating anyone they met. Anyone who had not shown up at the meeting called in the town centre was automatically assumed to be a rebel supporter, the military said.

Hiding in the undergrowth outside town, Andres Lopez and his family were too scared to return. "Since we were already some way away we didn't go. If we'd gone they were sure to say that we were guerrillas. So we headed off instead. That's when they formed the first civil defence patrols, that same day at one o'clock. In the following days they began controlling everyone. My brother's wife went back into town, only she could go, but they still stopped her for questioning.". "That's when we decided to leave for good, since the army was all over the place, and we couldn't be at ease.

Some people went farther off, we just went some distance outside the town." But having left everything behind, Andres' father decided to steal back to the family's house for provisions. "It was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. He'd gone back to get some things from our home. He was about 300 metres from the house when the army saw him and shot him in the back. He managed to drag himself away, crawling for about seven hours until he reached my grandmother's house.. That was about 1 am. He died at 3 am." 

"He had been carrying a bunch of mazorca for us to eat. But they shot him on the road. That was the end of him. It was a great shock to us, but what could we do. It wasn't just him, there were 12 others killed in Nebaj that day, some of them had been tortured, left without their ears, or arms. Other bodies had been dumped on the road with their eyes gouged out." Andres, his brothers and their families, decided to move further on into the hills, seeking to avoid the constant army and civil defence patrols.

"When my Dad died we got even more frightened. If we don't move again, we'll surely get killed, we said. So we went to another place for a time, but the army caught up with us again and we moved on again. We borrowed land from the locals to sow, but there were lots of us, and not enough room for everyone to plant. Just as the corn was ripening, my brother died, of hunger - we didn't have enough to eat, we'd left everything behind. Whatever we found on the way we ate." 

"Since the army was always coming after us, lots of the people got together and decided to form teams so as to help us organise the escape route. That's how we got to Santa Clara. If we hadn't organised ourselves, I don't know what would've happened. I guess we'd have gone on one by one, but for sure the army would have kept on killing. They didn't care if you were supporting the guerrillas, or not, they hit out at everyone without distinction."

Andres Raimundo López is now the 35-year-old director of the modest school in the resettled community of "El Triunfo". He's proud of the modest school, where over four hundred Mayan children are set through their paces from pre-school to sixth grade. He has fifteen teachers, or "educational promoters" as they are known - young men and women, like himself, who began giving lessons under the shade of the trees in the mountains in between army raids on their communities.

"It was hard giving classes in the mountains when you had always to have one eye on whether the army was coming back. It was a real sacrifice then both going to school and teaching. Here it's different." His goal is for the new generation growing up in relative safety can learn new skills to allow them a decent job - "but without forgetting about learning of our reality." Up to 3rd grade the youngsters are taught only in Spanish, so as to give them a good start. After that they also learn in their native Ixil, or Quiche.