Macalester College



Georgia Gempler10/25/14Latin American PoliticsAnalytic Paper - GuatemalaA Blessing and a Curse Liberation Theology’s Unifying Power in Guatemala and El Salvador IntroductionThe terrifically violent civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1970s and 1980s were socially destructive conflicts that required long peace processes to bring to an end. Thousands died in these wars both characterized by insurgent guerrilla organizations fighting against a repressive military state. Simultaneous to this violence the two countries saw the development of liberation theology. Liberation theology is a progressive Catholic doctrine that emphasizes the power of the individual to solve social and economic injustices, and is therefore seen as uniquely beneficial to and representative of the struggles of the poor in Latin America. I assert that liberation theology successfully furthered the revolutionary cause in Guatemala and El Salvador by serving as a mechanism for unity among previously isolated and unorganized groups, but that this unity also enabled violence against these groups by assigning them a collective identity as the ideological ‘other’ to the state. Successes of Liberation TheologyLiberation theology (LT) helped to form a united base of state opposition in both Guatemala and El Salvador. In Guatemala, liberation theology experienced the height of its popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. Guerrilla groups such as the Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP) were inspired by the message of LT, and they formed their base of support among indigenous Guatemalans in isolated countryside villages (Vanden & Prevost 2015: 267). Part of the ideology of LT involved consciousness-raising to make communities aware of the root causes of their oppression (ibid.145). The EGP augmented its forces by adopting consciousness-raising techniques that made indigenous Guatemalans aware of the political causes of their repression, thus making them more likely to fight on the side of the guerrillas. The ideology of LT thus began to unify indigenous peoples in the initial stages of the Guatemalan civil war. We can see future manifestations of this indigenous unity in the Guatemalan movement to end impunity in the 1990s. Afflito and Jeslow argue that the formation of a pan-Mayan movement began in the 1970s, as Mayans used the “environmental card” to connect their struggles with government repression to an international audience. This linkage afforded their fight against repression some safety because it brought an international eye to the human rights violations against their people (2007: 107). Before the pan-Mayan movement, indigenous peoples in Guatemala operated under individual group identities and had no need for a collective identity. Afflito and Jeslow’s discussion of the formation of the Mayan base for the impunity movement in the 1990s is also dependent on previous decades and the development of liberation theology, as this was the first time that many communities began to identify their commonalities with other groups. In order to attract international attention to their struggle, indigenous peoples first had to unite under a common goal, which was facilitated by LT. Thus, LT aided the creation of a collective indigenous identity in Guatemala and supported the goals of guerrilla groups. In El Salvador, liberation theology created unity in two ways: by resonating ideologically with a large base of the population, and through popular emotional responses to highly visible acts of repression. LT was already significantly popular in El Salvador among civilians who opposed the military regime of the 1970s and 1980s - mainly poor Salvadorans. LT’s message of economic equality as an issue of social and religious justice resonated with poor Salvadorans, as did an explicit connection between their suffering and that of Jesus (Peterson & Peterson 2008: 520). This popular ideology formed a base of support for Salvadoran guerrillas who fought for social justice, though all civilians were not guerrillas. Guerrilla units like the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) were separate entities from the general civilian population (ibid. 522). Essential to the spread of LT among civilians were Church leaders, members of the clergy that had become more progressive in their interpretation of Catholicism. In his study of the role of priests in Salvadoran social movements, Peter Sanchez argues that strong leadership was fundamental to the development and success of LT in El Salvador in particular (2014: 638). While the social conditions for rebellion already existed, Church leaders worked with poor Salvadorans to connect the lessons of Catholicism to their daily lives, prompting the linkage between religion and the desire for social justice. LT clergy further unified civilians by training individuals to take leadership within the Church and their communities, thus ensuring that the desire for justice would be sustained and hopefully acquired by civilians themselves (ibid.) 48006001501775Rutilio Grande (Jesuitas Centroamérica) 00Rutilio Grande (Jesuitas Centroamérica) 49149005334000LT clergy also contributed to civilian unity by becoming martyrs. Acts of repression targeted at specific individuals - mainly LT clergy - turned them into martyrs for the Salvadoran people, facilitating “continued activism as well as the emotional survival of those who remain,” (Peterson & Peterson 2008: 513). One salient example of this kind of martyrdom is the 1977 assassination of the priest Rutilio Grande. Grande, a popular figure among poor Salvadorans and a promoter of LT, explicitly and publicly connected anti-government activists to Jesus and the military government to Cain. “Dear brothers and friends, I am fully aware that very soon the Bible and the Gospels will not be allowed to cross the border.?All that will reach us will be the covers, since all the pages are subversive—against sin, it is said.?So that if Jesus crosses the border at Chalatenango, they will not allow him to enter.?They would accuse him, the man-God, the prototype of man, of being an agitator, of being a Jewish foreigner, who confuses the people with exotic and foreign ideas, anti-democratic ideas, and i.e., against the minorities.?Ideas against God, because this is a clan of Cain’s.?Brothers, they would undoubtedly crucify him again.?And they have said so.” – Rutilio Grande, quoted in Report on the Situation of Human Rights in El Salvador, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.The government assassinated Grande shortly after he expressed these views, cementing these connections as valid in the minds of LT followers and making “beloved pastoral agents as part of a larger historical process in which good, and God, would ultimately triumph” (ibid. 523). Thus, LT experienced wide support in El Salvador because its message connected with oppressed civilians, and acts of state repression against representatives of the movement served to strengthen this base of support even further. Failures of Liberation TheologyWhile liberation theology and leadership from the Church helped to unify state opposition and create a collective identity, the collective identity itself turned opposition groups into targets for state repression. In addition, LT was itself labeled as a threatening force that “must be countered through a strategy of continental security measures that include the coordination of military intelligence and operations” (Nelson-Pallmeyer 2001: 33). The Conference of American Armies imagined LT to be a manifestation of communism within the Church. Military documents and actions from both Guatemala and El Salvador show that this U.S.-backed rhetoric was put into place as military policy, and supported by U.S.-trained members of the national militaries (ibid.) The unification of groups into collective identities in Guatemala and El Salvador through the ideology of LT therefore ensured their labeling as an ideological ‘other’ to the interests of the state. In the case of Guatemala, LT enabled guerrillas (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca - URNG) to form their base among the indigenous groups of the countryside, which conflated the two groups in the mentality of the state. Military leaders in Latin America who graduated from the School of Americas (SOA) were trained to treat progressive religious ideologues as “possible guerrilla sympathizers” due to their philosophical similarities to communism (ibid, 61). Thus, civilians united by the philosophies of LT were seen as communists in the minds of the most effectively violent military leaders, SOA graduates. Communism is the ideological opposite to the neoliberal model the Guatemalan military attempted to uphold. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer elaborates that in Guatemala in the 1980s, “the army realized that the insurgency enjoyed significant support from the civilian population” and thus began to kill indiscriminately in civilian areas in order to kill possible guerrillas (2001: 38). ?Hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans, mostly indigenous, were massacred by the military. Therefore, through a series of transformations in the government perception of civilian identity - from supporters of LT to communists to guerrillas - civilians became an ‘other’ to the state and thus a major target for state repression.Similarly, the Salvadoran military used a strategy of generalization that converted civilian followers of LT into direct targets for violence. Due to the FLMN’s wide base of support among civilians, the military adopted the strategy of draining the sea (civilians) to kill the fish (guerrillas) (Peterson & Peterson 2008: 521-22). LT facilitated the fusion of civilians and guerrillas in the view of the state partially because members of both groups believed in LT, but also because the Salvadoran military saw progressive religion as a direct ideological threat - a threat which happened to align with the goals of the guerrillas. As previously mentioned, LT clergy were seen to epitomize communism within the Church. As in the case of Guatemala, the U.S. encouraged connecting the guerrillas, civilians, and the progressive church with the ideological thread of communism. The U.S. also aided the destruction of these ‘communists’: the U.S. School of the Americas trained “more than two-thirds of the more than sixty officers cited for the worst atrocities in El Salvador’s brutal war” (Nelson-Pallmeyer 2001: 32). Civilians unified by LT (as well as LT clergy) were thus perceived as ideological opposites to the state, and duly became targets of state violence. ConclusionTable 1 summarizes the key relationships between liberation theology, unity, and state repression in Guatemala and El Salvador. LT facilitated mass unification in both Guatemala and El Salvador. Unification in Guatemala was amongst previously separate indigenous groups for whom LT served as a means of consciousness raising in the realm of social justice. The new indigenous collective identity would later help indigenous Guatemalans successfully fight for justice. Similarly, LT facilitated the unification of poor Salvadorans as its ideology connected with their desire for economic justice, while providing them with a mechanism for weathering targeted acts of repression and thus ensuring the continuation of the anti-military movement. In both countries, the collective identities created by the adoption of LT made the adopters ideological opposites to their respective military governments. Due to the influence of U.S. military training and foreign policy, the Guatemalan and Salvadoran militaries saw LT as a manifestation of communism, which justified the targeting of LT followers and the ideologically similar guerrillas for acts of state repression. Thus, LT enabled similar processes of collective identity formation and the subsequent perception of these identities as a threat to the state in both Guatemala and El Salvador. Table 1: Key Effects of Liberation Theology in El Salvador and GuatemalaEffects of Liberation Theology:El SalvadorGuatemalaFacilitated the creation of a unified resistanceLT clergy organized poor under pro-guerilla ideology, and served as revolutionary martyrs LT unified isolated indigenous groups through consciousness-raising, forming guerrilla support-base.Unified communities became the ideological ‘other’ to the stateState views guerrilla supporters (the poor) as communists. Opposite of state-promoted model. State views indigenous LT followers and guerrillas as communists. Opposite of state-promoted model.State violence/repression against followers of liberation theologyAssassinations of LT clergy. Military targeted civilians to reduce guerrilla base. LT martyrs made repression less effective.Military targeted civilians to reduce guerrilla base. Hundreds of thousands killed, most were indigenous Mayans.ReferencesAfflito, Frank. M. and Paul Jeslow. 2007. “The Social Movement to End Impunity.” In The Quiet Revolutionaries: Seeking Justice in Guatemala. Austin: University of Texas Press. Jesuitas Centroamérica. 2014. “P. Rutilio Grande, SJ.” Photo. Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jack. 2001. School of Assassins: Guns, Greed, and Globalization. New York: Orbis. Organization of American States. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Report on the Situation of Human Rights in El Salvador: Chapter II – Right to Life. (December 14, 2014). Peterson, Anna L., and Brandt G. Peterson. 2008. “Martyrdom, Sacrifice, and Political Memory in El Salvador. Social Research 75 (Summer): 511-542. Sanchez, Peter M. 2014. “Ideas and Leaders in Contentious Politics: One Parish Priest in El Salvador's Popular Movement.” Journal of Latin American Studies 46: 637-662. ?Vanden, Harry E. and Gary Prevost. 2015. Politics of Latin America: The Power Game. (Fifth Ed.) New York: Oxford University Press. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download