Miguel Angel Sandoval
I dare say that these days we are witnessing a debate that truly has historical implications. I say this because after the uprising of the indigenous peoples and other social sectors in the month of October, – which continues to this day – a discussion has come to light in the social media, the press, particularly digital, or in the chats of different democratic groups, a series of well-founded articles on the emergence of indigenous peoples in the political life of our country. That is why, before an academic vision, which is indispensable, a political vision is imposed. In some cases with surprise, in others with expressions of satisfaction, and sometimes idealizing the unknown, or at least what was not known. Now there is a serious effort to understand one more dimension of our complex reality of the country that we all inhabit.
In this intellectual production, with some academic features, others political, there is the participation of indigenous and non-indigenous people, activists or analysts of the most diverse type, but who, in a general way, quite appropriately locate the center of the topic: the peoples. indigenous people burst into national life with the October uprising, with the clearest objective of the period: the democratic struggle. And not only that, they were catalysts of deep social discontent that can be seen in the participation of popular neighborhoods or in sectors such as markets or universities.
Not only did they burst in, but they led with clear and community leadership, the struggles of that renewed process in October. For the first time in recent history, and by that I mean the history that dates back to the founding of the republic, the presence of indigenous peoples in the whole of national life had not been considered in all its dimensions, much less in its political struggles and in recent years with its democratic characteristic.
If we remember what happened more recently, we see that, during the period of the October revolution, their participation was moderate, although they were still limited beneficiaries of the Octobrist process. I only mention the agrarian issue where in one way or another the wave of agrarian reform reached them, after centuries of dispossession and everything we already know. Before the right to vote for indigenous women in a particular way. Or the abolition of the remains of the day laborer’s booklet and all “legal” forms of exploitation of indigenous labor.
But the greatest expression of recent political participation of indigenous peoples was in the years of the 36 years war. In this process, the presence of indigenous cadres can be identified from the first guerrilla uprising. Of an emerging leadership, where there were cadres and guerrilla leaders of all ethnicities or, if you prefer, the majority. Although the greatest participation can be established through mass participation in different regions of the country. At times the combatants of the indigenous peoples numbered in the thousands. I don’t discover anything extraordinary. This is widely known.
Talking with indigenous leaders there is an idea that is of utmost importance. The left in arms did not come to us through a process of cooptation or recruitment, it was us from the communities that called for insurgency as an option in the face of the reality of exclusion, repression and urgency for changes. We know that the cost of that challenge was high, that the healing of the wounds in the social fabric has not yet been achieved, but we are in another era. Or at least a new era opens.
Perhaps the greatest example of this participation is the response of the racist and counterinsurgency state. Thousands of non-combatant indigenous people were massacred because of the fear they aroused, as they opted for armed struggle and for the revolutionary change that was on the horizon. It was not possible, but they left an indelible stamp on those struggles.
It is not possible to talk about the recent war that concluded with the Peace Agreements, without the indigenous peoples, just as it is not possible to talk about the modern resistance to the clearest expressions of the extractivist model without the indigenous peoples and their organizations. Or other forms of savage capitalism in our countries and particularly in the territories inhabited mostly by indigenous peoples.
Perhaps it is important to emphasize that in the vision of indigenous leaders or indigenous scholars and academics, there is the thesis of four great waves of resistance that begin with the resistance to the invasion-conquest, with the fight against the effects of the liberal reform, the participation in the 36 years war and then all the organized opposition to the extractive megaprojects in a central way. In relation to the organized struggle of the people in defense of natural resources and their territories, we remember that more than 90 popular and community consultations were held in good faith, but that the economic and political power of the country ignored them, even if the They were supported by agreement 169.
One of the largest acquisitions on the agenda of the peace agreements is the Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples -AIDPI-. And an agreement of this nature would be unthinkable without a reflection that arises precisely from the indigenous organizations that join the revolutionary process. There is the construction of a thought that feeds on itself, that comes and goes in two directions. From the indigenous peoples and from the most enlightened sectors of the revolutionary intellectuality and advanced worker and peasant sectors. In other words, the agreements, and in particular the one mentioned, respond to the needs of the people who make up the Guatemala we want.
It’s not just this agreement. There is another that refers briefly but very clearly to the need to build democracy in our country. It is the Querétaro Agreement, which for reasons that to date do not appear in its full dimension, took a backseat to the urgency of all the issues on the agenda. However, the question of democracy, not only from the formal perspective, was raised in the peace commitments and, furthermore, permeated the set of reflections and commitments recorded.
That is why in the October uprising we saw how two of the aspects that make up the peace commitments, and project them, we saw democracy and the rights of indigenous peoples emerge in a way that we did not know. Perhaps in some way, because since the signing of the AIDPI, there was a political platform that the indigenous peoples could make their own, as well as the most defined ideas of democracy. It is also evident that all of this is impregnated with the particular forms of organization of the people and with the worldview of those cultures.
If for many years the discussion on the rights of indigenous peoples had remained in the closed frameworks of some academic pockets, or in the reflections of sectors of indigenous peoples, today we are witnessing a national debate where visions from the anthropology, from history, from a merely cultural vision, with the political vision that has a particular validity in this period.
This debate has a history in recent years. Perhaps the first was participation in the popular consultation that recommended by the Peace Accords had proposed the change in the definition of the Guatemalan state, the recognition of legal pluralism, languages and many things. On that occasion, 1999, the result was adverse, but the lawsuits continued. Perhaps it is worth highlighting that, although the national result was one of rejection of the reforms, particularly due to the manipulation to which they were subjected, in the indigenous regions the result was favorable to this reform.
And more recently, in 2016-2017, there was the debate on constitutional reform limited to issues of justice, where the inclusion of the reform to constitutional 203 and the demand to recognize legal pluralism in the country, served as the spark for the most conservative sectors like the CACIF to oppose judicial reform with all their strength and resources. Despite everything, the indigenous peoples withdrew their demand for justice reform in Article 203 and continued the reform, which to date remains stalled. From those days, sit-ins or blockades are remembered, which were not as massive as in October 2023. Although at that juncture, the conservative weight was much more far-reaching than the resistance displayed.
When I refer to the political vision it is because, after the signing of the peace, as noted, there are several moments in which the rights of indigenous peoples have come to the attention of national opinion, but without having the penetration and strength that we currently observe. In other words, power and elites, where exclusion and racism, classism and conservatism combine, have refused any type of reform that goes in the direction of the rights of indigenous peoples.
That is why the idea that we are a multicultural, multilingual and multiethnic country sometimes remains only a declaration, but empty of content. It is like almost everything in Guatemalan society, the predominance of appearances over real facts that are verifiable. That is why the national uprising of indigenous peoples marks a before and after in our country. The point is that today society and its sectors of whatever type can no longer deny the existence of half of the population that organizes itself in ways that were unknown. That has a culture, a worldview that gives it coherence, that articulates it, and that now says with full rights, here we are.
The fundamental difference is that now, the emergence of indigenous peoples with the strong defense of democracy, has been installed in the national imagination as the qualitative force that results in the failure of the coup attempts, which seek to ignore the electoral results that the indigenous peoples have seen it as an opportunity to advance both their agenda, which has been postponed for years, and the more general agenda of liberal democracy, and in this case, the electoral results. Here is a fact that deserves some reflection. Social mobilization, converted into the battering ram of democracy, left political parties unable to articulate words, ideas or positions, which turned out to be good for nothing in this founding situation. And of course, as in everything, there are always some exceptions, but the norm is that the parties revealed themselves as the weakest part of the idea of democracy that we have in the country.
Because of these issues seen from a bird’s eye view, which, of course, require further study since there are many absences, it is no coincidence that there is now a higher level of participation by organized indigenous peoples. Now it is not about asking with an attitude of waiting and sometimes resignation, but rather we are facing a change in national life in which the people demand, with force, with belligerence, respect for the democratic order that has been proclaimed for some time. years by the elites, but in reality they do not respect and do the opposite as we already know. That is why for some time we have stated that the elites are terrified of democracy and horrified of the political participation of the majorities of this country. And the October uprising more than tells us about the new reality that is being installed in our country.
