When the Mountains Tremble (1983)

When the Mountains Tremble
 http://video.pbs.org/video/2248970541/

This documentary was filmed in 1982 at the height of Guatemalan Army's repression against the Maya indigenous people.

1954 -- opportunity for democracy away from the colonial dependence -- alarm in Washington -- problem is United Fruit a forcing corp. that owned the best last -- ships, train, land owned by the country and has paid not taxes -- but gov't cannot support communism --

• organized small cooperatives, Christian 
• movement for national liberation -- communists arrested, all United Fruit land seized by the gov't is returned -- overthrow of Arbenz -- presidents since -- 10?
• Mayas had so little land, they could not survive on what they could grow, had to migrate from highlands to the southern plantations -- sugar, cotton -- land oligarchy
• majority Indian -- unity of the peasants from the 70s in the city and countryside -- 1977 -- highland workers marched in Guatemala city -- peasants coming down from the mountains to support them
• pressure from the mass movement brought the country to a tension -- military attacked the movement rather than negotiating socialist changes chosing repression -- union members would disappear; no more open organization destroyed by terror, so the movement went underground;  Mayas in the highlands forced Mayas off their land plots, speaking Spanish, so many went to the Spanish embassy to protest in 1980 to protest land ownership issues and the disappearing persons in the hopes media would help; protesters trapped in a fire in the embassy
• 38 died, army stepped up repression in the  entire country; soldiers told they were looking for subversives but were not sure why; peasants had to witness the torture of the "guerrillas" but some were peasants in the cooperative and were being accused of being guerrillas;
• religious leaders became community leaders -- teaching literacy to read the bible, starting schools -- religious leaders persecuted under the onus of communism; gov't saw priests as leaders of the guerrillas, but priests say the taught them how to think for themselves and organize and so many priests fled and the Catholic Church was problematic making space for evangelicals to work in Guatemala with General Rios Montt; bank of the army developed because the military ran the country and made investments for itself; US investment controls argi, pharm, banking and tourism in Guatemala; many parts of the country are living in abject poverty but when they organize for change, they are intimidated by the gov't and portrayed as subversives. some went to the mountains to make their own villages with lookouts for soldiers when they would move on;  others joined the armed guerrilla resistance to learn to use weapons and learn what they are fighting for Guatemala National Revolutionary  Unity -- Indios and non indios treated equally; guerrillas went to the villages to talk about their goals and recruit support and to ask for food ; the army says they killed guerrillas but they kill peasants;and when the army goes to the villages they say they are guerrillas; army is sending pamphlets to the peasants saying the guerrillas are lying to them and to not help the guerrillas;
• guerrilla needed the people, so the gov't wants to not only kill the guerrillas but the people who support them; gov't implemented permits for carrying food, for property, etc -- they have a list of people who are registered and stamped who are okay -- if they carry too much food it might be for the guerrillas and so if they are not on the list they are killed; army forced peasants to go to strategic hamlets to control them; only permitted to move with permission; act like they came voluntarily; Reagan, during this time, asked for reprogramming of funds for economic support in Guatemala; they aided the gov't like helicopters, training, guns; to maintain the political structure of the country because of economic structure; this contributed directly to the massacres;

A project by Pamela Yates, director of Granito, to collect memories using When the Mountains Tremble -- awakening memory in the youth and resurrecting memory in the elders.  70% are 30 or younger, so they were not alive during the violence of the 1982 genocide. So, the young people will use technology to recreate, to represent using the image of a "granito" (a grain of salt) or a pixel. This is an act of memory but also an act of justice to teach the young people about the genocide that was never taught to them in school.