A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Model Village

After the destruction of Rio Negro, some of the survivors fled into the interior. Those who remained were forced to resettle in Pacux on the outskirts of the town of Rabinal.

Pacux represented the government's offer of compensation to the Rio Negro survivors. It was also another element in the government's campaign against subversion, under which villages were torn down and replaced by "model villages" that could be strictly controlled by the military.

Poor Quality: The houses in Pacux.

Pacux was one such model village. It was situated in the lee of a military base and under constant surveillance. According to Cristobal Sanchez, a survivor, many of the inhabitants were tricked into returning to Pacux after the Guatemalan government declared an amnesty in 1983:

"Some were then beaten and mistreated, and sent to Pacux under compulsion. Some of them were forced to participate in the paramilitary activities of the PACs in 1983."

As late as 1998, men and boys from Pacux were still being regularly detained, according to one March 1999 investigation on Chixoy by the organization Reform the World Bank Campaign (Italy). Sometimes, the inhabitants of Pacux went without food and water for as long as 12 days.

The first campaign by the survivors of Rio Negro had as its goal the improvement of conditions in Pacux. A committee of seven was elected in 1984, under the presidency of Cristobal Osorio Sanchez:

"The government did not want to give us houses at that time, because they were still accusing us of having supported the guerrillas. We (the members of the committee) were threatened but we kept up the pressure and received some houses in 1983. But there are still over 40 families whose rights to restitution have not been recognized by INDE. They are living in houses with other families."