Abstract
This paper examines how civil war in Guatemala created and destroyed community cohesion, which, in turn, influences land use practices in the frontier region of Ixcán today. The impact of civil war on the environment and land use in this region takes many forms. Some communities took refuge in Mexico. Other communities refused to take refuge in Mexico and also refused to submit to military rule. These communities of “people in resistance” formed highly cohesive units in order to evade military detection. The lessons of cooperation and the high levels of cohesion they developed during their years in hiding have carried over to their successful management of natural resources in post-conflict Guatemala. Return refugees accumulated higher levels of cohesion while in refuge because they often participated in workshops organized and funded by outside relief agencies. Higher levels of community cohesion have allowed return refugee communities to better organize and use their land in more sustainable ways. Other communities did not flee and thus endured military rule. They were forced out of their dispersed land parcels into concentrated model villages. Concentration of community members forced intensive use of the environment in the zone immediately surrounding the new settlement. Often, distrust permeated these occupied communities and community cohesion dipped. Today, these low levels of community cohesion lead to a lack of consensus on how to use land and resources in the community. The overall goal of the paper is to point out the community level variation in the relationship between military actions, community cohesion, and the environment.
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Notes
Ladinos in one of the government settlement scheme villages joked about the naïveté of Indians in Ixcán. They told me, “those indios are so stupid and many of them could not even speak Spanish. At the same time they wanted to please the military, so when the troops asked those poor inditos something, the idiots would always agree. For example, the troops would ask the indios if they were comunistas (communists), and because they did not speak Spanish, the indios answered ‘si, si’ (yes, yes). And with that the troops would shoot them.” At the same time, however, these Ladinos realized the extent of the killings in the area and recounted the callousness of the troops, “they were so used to killing that, you know how here there are no rocks to sit on—just mud, they would take their breaks and eat their food sitting on the cut off heads of the indios.”
Cultivation of cardamom and the fuel required to process this valuable cash crop presents many paradoxes. Residents of cardamom growing communities understand the environmental conditions needed for sustaining healthy cardamom plantations, but their very actions often contradict this knowledge. Cardamom grows in the shade, but wood is required to dry harvested fruit before sale to distant markets. The wood used to fire the furnaces comes from areas close to the cardamom dryers and also from the very parcels where cardamom is grown. Farmers recognize micro-climate change (hotter and dryer) through time and its damaging affect on cardamom production. They identify deforestation for agriculture and cattle as the cause of micro-climate change, but take little action to secure the future of this valuable cash crop. Upon inquiring what people did with the earnings from cardamom, I was informed on several occasions that landholders invested in cattle. In other parts of the world, such as Eastern Nepal, Cardamom is seen as a secure investment because it can be grown on marginal land not used for annual crops. Zomer and Menke (1999) report that villagers in Nepal actually reforest marginal or severely degraded areas so that they can cultivate cardamom in the shade of the forests that provide all the wood needs for drying the crop and for household consumption. The Nepalese farmers are in a win-win situation: they do not rely exclusively on cardamom, they grow it on land that is otherwise unproductive, and provide themselves with a secure fuel future.
Although the military forced concentration of dispersed households into village centers, most families have elected to remain in the center because of access to amenities such as schools, stores, and medical facilities that were not available during initial settlement. Families are now free to live on their parcels. Indeed, many farmers, especially those with parcels distant (2–3 h walking) from the center, reside on their parcels for several weeks at a time during periods of intense agricultural work.
Ironically, the army used the same initials (CPR) to refer to this population, but with quite a different connotation: Comunidades de Población Retenida (Communities of People being Retained). The military viewed these communities as non-civilian populations under guerrilla control (CEIDEC 1990).
Of the 380 families making up the CPR, 120 were able to occupy their original parcels because the cooperatives to which the belonged waited for the return of all original inhabitants to occupy their own lands. Repopulation of original parcels was possible because these cooperatives are in the zone that saw sustained and intense conflict and could not repopulated by military-sponsored settlers (Primavera 1999).
All people who live off the land realize that their actions will have consequences for their children. However, many families do not have the power, in the form of social or material capital, to ensure a sustainable future. See for example in Susan Stonich’s book “I am Destroying the Land” (1989) where she illustrates how farmers are fully cognizant of their actions but are powerless to act otherwise.
Most of the land is communally worked. Each member spends three days a week performing community tasks (a reduction from five when the community was first formed). Each household also has the right to 1.5 hectares of land to use as they wish.
The book, written by the community with development funds from Japan (Primavera 1999), occupies a space in every house. The text contains many examples about natural resource use and its consequences on the environment: “maybe there is a part [of the farm] that we are clearing for wood, but it is not large area; and it is only now that people have started to talk about looking after the rest of the forested area. Although, like we say, we are a large community, there are so many people [260 families] and there are some that do not have the same mentality—sometimes they cut down trees for construction wood or just for firewood—they always have to cut down a tree, but in this case maybe their actions are justified because in some sections of the community there are not so many trees that can be used for firewood...it has been discussed and understood by the majority that where we have our sources of water we should not clear the forest because it is this very forest that gives us the water” (page 21). Or more succinctly “we protect the forest because it serves us today, tomorrow and for the future of our children. Also we don’t just think about cutting down a tree, but about planting more, so that they can give life in the future” (page 22). (I translated both quotes from Spanish).
I must refrain from painting a perfect idyllic rural life. When I conducted surveys, families always spoke of other families who cut down wood in inappropriate areas or failed to follow community norms. Life in Primavera de Ixcán is not perfect. Close, but not perfect.
Other regions of the country, such as the Ladino-dominated eastern side of Guatemala, receive little attention in both development plans and academic studies. Eastern Guatemala was less heavily impacted during the latter phases of the war, and, more simply, it does not embody the ethnic diversity and romance of the western highlands and its 22 different ethnic groups that have traditionally been seen as the more disadvantaged group in Guatemala’s dichotomous society.
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Acknowledgements
I thank the reviewers and editors of the journal for their time and constructive comments. Funding for this research was provided by the University of Denver Office of Internationalization. Thank you Ved. I am eternally indebted to the people of Ixcán.