[robandjulie]

I went to a talk today by the man who served as US Ambassador to Guatemala during the late 90's while the peace accords were being signed. I have watched "When the mountains tremble" and read some of Rigoberta Menchu's accounts of the civil war so it was very interesting to see this sad story told from the perspective of the USE.

He strongly recommended a book by David Stoll called "Between two armies" which is written by a man who lived (with his wife and toddler) in the highly violent Ixil triangle during the war. He said it's one of the most balanced accounts he's ever read.

I'll be checking this out soon as Jorge's birthfamily is from Nebaj in the Ixil triangle and was living this as their reality for nearly 40 years. If anyone else has read it please share your thoughts.

Thanks!
Julie

[karen nickols]

for sharing this. I read Rigobertas books many years ago and have them on my shelf. She won a noble peace prize. Later, I beleive, it was found that although the stories were most likely true, her account that some of them happened to her own family were not. I will look for this other book for another account of the struggles in GT.

[iccsd]

That book sounds very interesting so I thought I'd order it. I looked on Amazon and it's $63! It must be out of print. There were other sellers with used copies for less, but still over $30. I'll have to see if any of our local libraries have it.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Sara

[annaguat]

I am currently reading Guatemala Blood in the Cornfields by Bonnie Dilger. I found it in a used book store. Anna

[CarolineWheelwright]

Hi,
I can recommend a book by a Scottish-Canadian academic called W.George Lovell who lived in Guatemala and has written about the Civil War. It is called 'A Beauty that Hurts' and is certainly quite painful to read but it did give me a realistic understanding of the position Guatemalans are in now. We are adopting a baby and it is horrendous to realise that most of the kind, gentle people we met in Guatemala have probably lost friends and relations not so long ago. It was an invaluable book in that helped me understand just what a gulf there was between myself and the people who had given up our baby. It will help me explain things to her when she is older (minus the gory incidents of course).

Re. David Stoll, there was quite a lot of controversy when his book appeared to attack Rigoberta Menchu but to me there seemed to be a lot of hype around what he had said because he actually seemed to be criticising some small examples in her story, not her overall stance or story at all.

[pamcita]

Julie, I lived in Nebaj for a year! I was there in 1989-90, working with teachers in the schools, and living in a group home for girls orphaned by the violence.

At that time, the civil war was ending but far from over: I had some scary moments (for example, on a market bus from Nebaj to another town in the triangle, we were stopped and held up by guerillas.) But nothing I experienced compared with the devastation of the indigenous Ixil population. I was there to assess and try to help with the psychological trauma in the surviving indigenous population. Every single person I met had lost someone to the violence - that's how pervasive it was in the area. Many people were returning from years of hiding out in the mountains to find their villages burnt, families fractured by murder and displacement, with an army base occupying the center of town - this was not a source of reassurance, btw, but a constant, unspoken threat to keep quiet.

I know David Stoll's work. It is based on in-depth experience living and talking with people hardest hit. It's painful to read, but powerful and important. He is well regarded in academic circles.

Nebaj is the most beautiful, complex and haunted place I've ever known. It was one of the hardest hit regions in all Guatemala. Despite all their suffering, the Ixil people welcomed me with incredible generosity. A huge piece of my heart remains there.

Are you in touch with Jorge's birthfamily? I have many pictures and stories about Nebaj if you're ever interested.

Thanks for bringing this up. It's an important part of all our kids' cultural history.

-- Pam

[Devora]

In terms of the Stoll/Menchu debate, you might be interested in this book: The Rigoberta Menchu Controversy, edited by Arturo Arias. From the book jacket:

Guatemalan indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchu first came to international prominence following hte 1983 publication of her memoir, "I, Rigoberta Menchu", which chronicled in compelling detail the violence and misery that she and her people suffered during her country's brutal civil war. The book focused world attention on Guatemala and led to her being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. In 1999, a book by David Stoll challenged the veracity of key details in Menchu's account, generating a storm of controversy.

In "The Rigoberta Menchu Controversy", Arturo Arias has assembled a casebook that offers a variety of perspectives. The first section of this volume collects the primary documents -- newspaper articles, interviews, and official statements -- in which the debate raged, many translated into English for the first time. In the second section, a distinguished group of international scholars assesses the political, historical, and cultural contexts of the debate and considers its implications for such issues as the culture wars, historical truth, and the politics of memory. Included is a new essay by David Stoll in which he responds to his critics.

For those who haven't read Menchu's book (she has others as well), a large of it is not actually about the civil war itself. Rather, it details traditional life in her region, the struggle to provide for one's family, the life of migrating between the milpa and the fincas, cultural practices around courtship/marriage/childbirth. There is much of the book that is completely untouched by the controversy.