Historic facts

Construction of the society- state
For the indigene towns in Guatemala, particularly the Mayas, the conquest and colonization were very violent, but the resistance to maintain the life of the town and the culture too. From the Conquest starts the discussion of the statue of the indigenes, a problem not resolved, known as “the problem of the indigene” in the colonial time and until the 20th century. Today, it’s still of actuality with the modern version, which signify that the state think that the indigenes are guilty of the sub development of Guatemala.  This vision justifies the racism practise against the indigene towns, which are the exploitation and exclusion by the government, and the non respect of their human rights.

Democratic transition
The democratic transition started in 1985. From this date, Guatemala started to construct its version of the democracy, the transition from a military government to a civil government, democratic election, and creation of institutions. In the New Politic Constitution of the Republic, the indigenes acquire the Guatemalan nationality, men like women independently of his/her education.

From the democratic transition, the indigene towns began to participate at the electoral processes through the politic parties, but it never means for these parties to permit the participation of the indigenes as a politic subject. The postulation of an indigene as a candidate for a popular election was the only form to secure the sympathy of the indigene towns and the vote of the indigenes.
This practise of the politic parties towards the indigene towns represent the vision from which was constructed the version of the democracy in Guatemala, and the women indigene are the ones who were ignored in the process during the first 10 years (1985-95) of the democratic transition, even if they were necessary in the electoral processes for the emission of the vote.

Social and politic reconstruction from the Peace agreements.
With the signature of the peace agreements started a new period in the history of the country, the conversion of the process and the peace agreements in a national project to configure a new state or nation.
For the indigene towns, it represented a favourable period to organize themselves and the opportunity to institutionalize their representation at the local, regional and national levels; and secure their free participation in the process to take decisions.
Begin to emerge the organizations of indigene women and women leaders in a more open way, breaking the ideological, political and social circle.

This tenacity from the indigene women to fight against the politic system and machismo of the Guatemalan society was an inspiration and reference for the agreement of Identity and Rights of the Indigene Towns.

From this date, indigene leaders coming from different indigene communities began the fight against the government to create the Defender of the Indigene Woman. It was created finally in 1999 by the Governmental Accord 555-99.

During the process of the negotiations of the peace in 1995, for the first time indigene women were candidates for the Congress of the Republic, and were elected.
Actually there is a reconnaissance of the leadership of the indigene women, at a professional level, in the management of organizations communitarian and especially organizations of women, in the country.
In this case, there is the example of the organization of indigene women which is called Movement Politic of the Maya Women (MOLOJ) and has indigene women members of differences politic parties. This organization fights to make recognized the experience and knowledge of leader women, as an example for the youngster.

Complement on making decision inside and outside the community
Complementary and duality in the Cosmo vision Maya.

The conception philosophic of the relation “man- woman” in the thinking Maya, is articulate from the principles of duality and complementary. That means that the complementary between men and women is the element from which start the mutual help and development of a life, the common history. Popol Wuj illustrated on a paper a woman and a man when he was referring to the creation of the world. In the other way, the essential element of the duality and complementarily is the equality and respect between women and men, not like a simple speech, but like an ideal which is materialized in the development of the society, “all must stand up and nobody should stay behind”.

This philosophic conception of the life represents a form of “be and do”, which persist like a way of life in lots of the communities Mayas. For example, in the rituals of the wedding Maya, the councillor and authority is represented by a couple of old people.  

Nerveless, with the destruction of the social traditions in the indigenes communities during the colonial conquest and the civil war, theses practises and others are in danger to disappear for many reasons, like thanks to the politic of integration and assimilation which is changing the way of thinking of the new generation; particularly the effort to gain space in the ladino society- officially, it has implicated the negation of the cultural identity for many years, practice that is still of actuality. But, all the process of reivendication of the cultural identity started during the last century, and it’s the opportunity to recuperate the cultural practises which have a signification in the development social, political, economical, cultural and spiritual in the indigene towns.

Application in taking the decisions.
In the history of the Mayan towns, there were feminine and masculine gods, who were part of the creation of the universe. In the different pieces of art of wood and rock, mural painting and in ceramic figures too, those were founded in different cities Mayas in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras represented men and women. That means that not only men were governing but women too in the different centuries. For example, the Senora Ah-Po-Katun, mayor of the town Piedras Negras, or the Senora Ah-Po-Hel, mayor of the city Palenque.

The same way, during the colonial period, lots of indigene rebellions were organized and leaded by women, in some of the cases against actions that affected them exclusively, like the rebellion in 1755 against Al Alcalde Governor of Comalapa who demanded that the indigene women gave more and more to the colonial government, like blankets and cotton fabric.
The history showed too that the indigene town didn’t escape of the machismo vision on which the colonial and modern societies were based. That involves that the principles of duality and complementarily in their strict signification were the conductor threads in the normal relation and comportment between men and women in the indigene communities, but there are some exception.

Like in all society, in the indigene towns and communities there is the belief that the man is the “boss and head of the family”, so that means that it’s him who takes the decisions inside the family or within the community. That’s why today, it’s frequent to hear the community leaders say that “we have to change this situation, if we really want to talk about complementarily, it’s time to share our responsibilities and our work so to transform into a solitary organism where the representation of men and women are the base of the cultural and philosophic principles of the Cosmo vision Maya.”

Tensions between the reality of the family and the reality collective.
In the indigene communities very few are the women who has succeeded to conciliate in the couple the vision and practise of the complementarily. It’s due to the functions that are assigned to the women in the family circle, looking after the house, educate the kids and taking care of the animals domestics.

When a woman participates at the collective activities, it’s seen badly by not only the men but too by the others women and they say that the husband is lacking of authority. When a woman, a leader, gives a hand at the organization of women she is seen by the men of many communities like “someone who has nothing to do”. So we have to recognize that the tenacity and permanent fight of the women are changing the mentalities and comportments of the men but women too. 

The grand mothers and midwives are the ones who are respected by the communities by men and women, fundamentally for the strategic function they have in the community life, in the respect of the transmission of their knowledge ancestral, in the care of the health of the women and kids.

Participation of the woman in the management and control of the territory
“To leave the land, they will have to take my life, because the land is my life” Florinda Sorino

The history registered that the indigene women took an active part in the war against the Conquest and not more than 500 years ago, the indigene women were real heroines, pillar of the cultural and political resistance.

During the colonial period, the republic and during the 36 years of the civil war, the women participated in the fight for their rights, for their life, for their lands like the men.  When the dependence was declared, the first decision by the new administration was the abolition of the ethnic authorities, and appeared the equal management for men and women.

Use and administration of the land- historic territories
From the point of view of the political theory, the territory is an indispensable element which allows the construction of the identity, the configuration of a town and its political, economical, social, cultural and spiritual development. So it’s impossible to have the development of a town, nation and state without the territory.  The control of the territory is a piece of jewellery used to destroy and exploit the people all over the world.
In the case of the Guatemalan, during all the process of colonization of the territories until 1980’s, the Mayas and Incas towns lost their right of propriety on the lands and so lost their territories.

Until 1998, the National Institute of Agrarian Transformation was the entity who validated the decisions of the different governments to destroy all relation, vision, use and communal administration of the lands in the indigene communities of the country. It was this institution who had to recognize legally the communal lands, but was too the one who divided in small parcels or private proprieties the same lands, with the result that the widow women lost their rights on the land if they didn’t have a son who assumed the paternal figure in the family.  

According to the Institute of the Human Development in Guatemala, “the concentration on the land is very high”, and its distribution according of the ethnic and gender has increased the polarization socio economic of the Guatemalan society. The same institute indicates that only 23.6% of the total of the land in the coffee plantations are in the hands of the indigenes, and around 6.5% of these plantations have an owner who is a woman.  The weight of the land in the hand of the indigenes is inferior at half of their weight in the national population, in virtue of the history of expropriation that this population suffered from. De same, the weight of the women, representing less than 7% of the land, can be attributed at the cultural landowners, proper of the patriarchal domination presents in the Guatemalan society. 

Peace accords, land, territories and indigene women
With the signature of the Peace accords, were opened some doors to help to find a solution regarding the rights on the land of the indigene towns.

In this feeling, in the Accords of the Identity and Rights of the Indigene Towns, were established that “the rights relative at the land of the indigene towns include sometime the community o collective property, like the individuals, the right of property, of possession and others rights, like the use of the natural resources to benefice the communities, without prejudice on its habitat.” By recognizing the particular vulnerability of the indigene communities, the government commits to engage some processes to solution the demands regarding the communal lands written by the indigene communities, and to redistribute or compensate for the loss of the lands.

And for the rights of the land regarding the women, was established a specific point, the elimination of any legal discrimination against the women to make more easy the access to the land, to the credit and to the participation in the projects of development.

But 10 years later, no clear actions were done to resolve the agrarian problem in Guatemala.
Certainly, with the creation of the National Fond for the Land (FRONTIERRA) and the National Commission of the Land (CONTIERRA), it reduced the process of colonization and disarticulation of the communitarian social textile. Never less, 8 years later the institutions haven’t showed much interest to assure that the indigene towns can enjoy their rights relative to the land. These institutions, like others, have been affected by corruption of the politic parties, and that means that the problem agrarian is not resolved in Guatemala.

Woman and indigene rights
The demands of the rights of the indigene towns in the international plan help the development of actions in the national plan. In general term, the rights of the indigene towns include the universal, political, economical and social human rights.
In this feeling, the development of the machismo society not only made the women invisible, particularly the indigene women, but forbad them the access to their human rights, developing a conception of “object no subject” and “value of property” and not the “value to be” with dignity and rights.

Identity and rights

The rights of the indigene towns implicate in first place the respect and the reconnaissance of their identity.

For the indigene towns, the identity has been a juridical and political fight of transparency. The state denied this possibility at an intern level, but too to international institutes (United Nation) or regional (organization of American states).

In this fight to convert the identity in human rights, the indigene women have a determinate place in the transmission of know ledges from a generation to the other generation, contributing that the indigene towns conserve their social, cultural, economical and political characteristics. These juridical and political revendications have a place in the Accord of Identity and Rights of the Indigene Towns, signed by the government on March 31st 1995, where it is written that “this present accord have to create, increase and reinforce the structures, conditions, opportunities and warranties of the participation of the indigene towns, in the respect of their identity and the exercise of their rights.”. 10 years after the signature, there is still a debt from the State to the indigene towns, situation that increased the vulnerability of the indigene women, who sometime suffer the double discrimination as woman and as indigene, aggravated by a social situation of extreme poverty and exploitation.

The organization, instrument for the conquest of the rights
Form the democratic transition in 1986, the indigenes appeared as politic actors, and started to create and reinforce their proper organizations.  These organizations, considerate like “the Maya movement”, which help the revitalization of the ethnic, have modelled a distinct perception of the indigene in Guatemala.

From the 90s, the indigene organizations promoted the “positive revalorization, the to be Maya” which talked about the meeting between different races, mobilization, defence of the interests, revendications cultural and political as Mayas.

With the signature of the Peace in 1996, the indigene organizations got more power in the political fight for the conquest of their rights like towns and specifically as Mayas. In parallel of the revendications like a Mayan town, the organizations of Maya woman started too some actions which beneficed the indigene woman in particular. Apart from their fight oriented in the dignity of the woman and to conquest their proper space in the Guatemalan society and in the indigene towns, the Mayan women are not fighting in a isolated way, because they know the necessity of finishing with the oppression, racism and discrimination against the indigene towns and to work too against the segregation of the woman in the society.

In the last years, were created Mayan organizations of women which are promoting concrete actions, some more for publicity than others, but they all fight in 3 fields:

1. the defence of the rights of the indigene towns nationally and internationally
2. the conquest of the social, economical and political spaces as women
3. Actions oriented in the transformation of the family and community practises to ameliorate the dignity and rights of the indigene woman in general.

Representation in the democratic processes
Historically, the Guatemalan woman and particularly the Mayan and Garifunan women have been discriminated, marginalized, and excluded from the more elementary rights that all human has the right to enjoy.

The political history of Guatemala indicate that “the alphabet women got the right to vote in the Constitution of 1945 and in the Electoral Law of 1946, and the women in-alphabet had this right only in the Constitution of 1965”; but this right was cancelled by the military government by the promulgation of a new Constitution.  

It was not before the Constitution of 1985 that the in-alphabet women acquired again the right to vote; but the knowledge and exercise of the civil and political right of voting and being elected was only known in the 90s.

Communitarian Level  

In the communities, have always existed indigene leaders that participated to its development, but this contribution was always anonym. Fortunately, the progressive changes mean the respect of the participation of the indigene women in the communitarian life, especially in positions of responsibilities representing a level of authority and in the position of interlocutor with the organizations, institutions and local, regional and national authorities.   

1. Mayor in the community

This position was created during the colonial period to exercise a function of control in the indigene communities, but from 1985 this communitarian instance de authority was transformed positively for the communities.

Now, the communities are the ones which elect its Mayor from a communitarian assembly, supervising in this form the interests of the municipal authorities.

The year 2000 marked an historic date. For the first time, a woman leader of the community of San Juan Chamelco (department of Alta Verapaz) was elected as communitarian Mayor. In the same time, it’s in this municipality that for the first time was opened a municipal office for the woman. These two facts represented advancements for the indigene women, especially in this municipality where 98% of its population is indigene- Maya Q’echi’.

These historic facts in this municipality were a motive the next year, for others municipalities and indigene communities to elect women at the function of Mayor, which was a privilege reserved to men for many centuries.

1. Communitarian Boards of Development.

They were created in the reform of the Law of the Boards of Development Urban and Rural in the decree 11-2002, like a permanent instrument of participation and representation of the Mayas and Garifunas towns in the population non indigene.

One of the principles of this law is “the equality of the genders, which means no discrimination against the woman and participation of the men and women”. Only a principle, no indigene women had been yet president of the Communitarian Boards. To access to this function has implicated a double force to demonstrate the capacities and the permanent compromise in the communitarian life.

It is difficult to establish with precision the quantity of indigene women who exercise these functions of authority. But the women in the communities started to emerge and demonstrate that in the processes of social, political and economical changes, they have a lot to bring; like said the indigene leader Q’eqchi, “The collective decisions have to come from the thinking and esprit of the men and women”.

Municipal level
Inside the circumscription municipal are developing organizations and institutions which represent the power to institutionalize, like traditional institutions of the indigene towns. 

1. Indigene Mayors

The indigene Mayors who are exercising the power of an institution, only exist in few indigene towns, like in Chichicastenango, Solola, Santiago Atitlan, Totonicapan.

The representation and exercise of the traditional power are assumed by men under the figure of responsibilities or authority of principle.

In 2004, in Solola, they decided to stop the discrimination against the woman. For the first time, the indigene communities of this municipality elected a leader woman to occupy the responsibility of the indigene mayor. What resulted is the process of change and transformation which started in the attitude and mentality of the indigene communities about the participation of the women. This is a step forward against the discrimination against the women and leaders in the communities and indigene towns. This is an example where the Maya women showed tenacity and capacity to make things change, to open new roads.

1. Municipal Boards of Development

In the new Law, the municipal board of development is an institution where men and women take the responsibility in the process of democratic plans of development at a municipal level.  
If it’s right that in the majority of the towns of the country are organized these boards, it’s where the law stops to be effective because of a lack of vision due to the lack of politic willing of the municipal authorities. 

In the majority of the municipals where exist these boards, its functions are formal and not functional, but there are some exceptions. It’s precisely in this level of social and political organization that the indigene woman not only began to be confronted to difficulties for her participation, but too to a diminution of her quota of participation.

1. Municipal Government (Municipal board)

At the local or national level, the participation of the indigene towns in the political life in the country is really low.  The famous sentence that “the town is the closer space to the habitants for the exercise of power”, depend of who has the possibilities and opportunities to enjoy and exercise his political rights.

For the indigene towns, they still haven’t been given a real change to have a participation in the political life of the country, specifically in the electoral process. The political parties come to the indigene towns only to gain votes
The political parties and traditional sectors consider the indigene as habitants of second class who are useful only like electorates. Especially, the indigene women are the ones in the towns and society in general who are suffering systematically from exclusion and discrimination. From the democratic transition to the last electoral process (2003), the figures show that the political participation of the women as to elect and being elected doesn’t exist in the municipalities. This situation doesn’t respond at a lack of interest or capacity of the women, but at an attitude and practise of the political parties that don’t allow to the women participation equal in conditions and opportunities as the men.

Results of the last 5 elections at a municipal level.

Guatemala is divided in 22 departments, 11 of these departments have a population with a majority of indigenes descendants Mayas, which represents 197 municipalities.

The table shows that the politic parties are not disposed to allow the indigene towns to have indigene representatives in their proper municipalities.

In Guatemala, 52% of the population is women. But in the last general election realized the 9th November 2003, was elected only one indigene woman as mayor, in the municipality of Tactic in Alta Verapaz. Sam Colop said that it’s “the mirror of the exclusion”, not only against the indigene women but too against the indigene towns.
Until today, we haven’t any numbers of indigene women who are in the municipal corporations. In the majority of the cases, the women have a position of trade unionist, who have very or no power to take any decision.

National Level
Historically it is demonstrated that the political parties don’t want to give space for the participation of the indigenes in key positions, neither responsibilities in the electoral process. The control of the power in the economic sector and the traditional political parties, exclude the indigene towns.
It is admitted that actually the participation of the indigene women in the instances of power of the different state organisms, is a very remote possibility.

1. the executive organism

In the actual cabinet of the government there is no indigene woman occupying the function of minister. Since the creation of the Guatemalan State in 1823, only one indigene woman occupied a ministerial function, as Minister of the Culture and the Sport, between 2000 and 2004.

This is an unequal reality that exists in many key positions in the executive power, except for Dra Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Ambassador of the good willing for the Peace Accords, Norma Quixtan, Secretaria of the Peace and Rosalina Tuyuc, President of the National Program of Research.  

And in the 22 departmental governors, none indigene, man or woman, has ever occupy this responsibility. In the accord on the Identity and Rights of the Indigene Towns, the commitments to facilitate the participation and representation of them in the positions of responsibilities have been forgotten.

1. Congress of the Republic

One of the main problems of the democracy in Guatemala is the political parties who are not accomplishing their function of intermediary between the demands of the society and the State. In the Guatemalan case, the political parties are meeting a crisis of credibility on how they are working and functioning.
The table shows that there is still a long way to include the indigene towns in the political life of the country. This reality is a reflection of the political, social and economical structure problem.

Result of the elections

This table shows that since the democratic transition and the accords of peace, the comportment of the politic class in the country hasn’t changed much in relation with indigene towns. The politic parties go on with an attitude of exclusivity and racism.

For sure, the presence of the indigenes in the politic life inside the congress of the Republic is reduced and their capacities of do something is surely limited. As said Gloria Tujab “the fact that we have deputies indigene in the Congress doesn’t mean that the indigene is participating to decisions because these are taken by the party and is not the representation of the line of the ideological thinking of the indigene.”

The figures of the election of 2003 illustrate the little possibility that allow the political parties to the indigene participation, and especially of the indigene women. In the 686 candidates, only 216 were indigenes Mayas and only 37 were women.

This historical reality affected and is still affecting the indigene towns, denying the full exercise of their rights as persons, and changing the configuration of a national unity.