wfn.org | Guatmalan weavers attempt to reach U.S. markets

[PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org]

01-July-1996 
 
GA96027 
 
    Guatemalan weavers attempt to reach U.S. markets 
 
ALBUQUERQUE--An observer watching Josephina Martinez calmly weaving at the 
SERRV International booth in the Exhibit Hall would never imagine that 
she's been living with death threats for about a year now. But she has. 
 
    In June of last year that her husband, Lucio, a pastor in 19 Guatemalan 
mountain communities began protesting the government's failure to arrest 
Victor Roman, a local military commissioner accused of torturing and 
killing the Rev. Manuel Saquic, coordinator of the human rights office in 
Martinez' presbytery, Kaqchiquel. 
 
    And it wasn't long until the death threats began, filling out a list 
that only started with Martinez and expanded to include about 10 other 
Presbyterians.  All of the threatened people are Mayans and all are tied to 
the presbytery's human rights and development work or to the protest about 
Roman. 
 
    "The last threat came in March," said Martinez, 54, whose four 
daughters live at her Chimaltenango home that has been guarded by local 
police for the last year.  "But my family still worries ..." 
 
    But the girls, she said, fear that retaliation might be taken out on 
them because it would hurt Martinez and the presbytery. 
 
    Martinez arrived in the United States just as a presidential panel in 
Washington released a 53-page study implicating the CIA in torture, 
executions and other human rights abuses in Guatemala in its more than 
three-decade civil war  -- a charge that has long been  leveled by U.S. 
religious communities. 
 
    But Martinez says she knows little about the CIA or about international 
affairs.  She said she's heard that the U.S. -- and other governments -- 
send Guatemala money for arms.  "That doesn't help," she told the Office of 
the General Assembly Newsroom.  "I agree the U.S. needs to help, but it 
needs to help people who need help ... people who need food and houses. 
 
    "Not guns." 
 
    That's why Martinez and her companion, 35-year-old Cathalina Buch of 
San Jacinto are here:  to widen the market for goods woven by San Jacinto's 
50-member co-op, a group that includes 15 widows and orphans and borrows 
its operating monies from Kaqchiquel Presbytery.  The presbytery has also 
purchased property for community gardens and for small pig farms in 
communities too poor to buy land or livestock. 
 
    "Because this Assembly is focusing on Latin America, we wanted to use 
this opportunity to bring our issues into focus," said Laurie Spangler of 
Baltimore Presbytery, Kaqchiquel's U.S. partner that has been looking for a 
way to market the women's goods here and to call more attention to the 
killing of Saquic." 
 
    Brian Backe, SERRV's marketing director, said marketing products 
crafted in 40 of the world's developing countries -- and the U.S. -- is 
just a prelude to telling the stories of the people who made the goods. 
"The story," he said, "is what it's all about." 
 
    Baltimore Presbytery executive, the Rev. Herb Valentine, says the story 
in Guatemala is one that ought to concern churches -- and that it has been 
churches who've held the U.S. and Guatemalan governments accountable for 
atrocities that killed more than 140,000 Guatemalans, including many 
civilians accused of backing left-wing guerillas against a series of 
right-wing governments. 
 
    "The church has been saying this sort of thing [CIA involvement] for a 
long time.  And there are powers in the Presbyterian church who say this is 
none of our business -- and they get away with it," Valentine said 
incredulously.  "But it's always been our job to stand over against and to 
do the critique from ethical, moral and biblical perspectives ... 
 
    "If the church does not speak to moral and ethical issues, who has the 
right to?" 
 
    Martinez says letters and accompaniers sent by the international 
community -- including the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- garnered respect 
from Guatemalan authorities. 
 
    "The international solidarity makes the authorities responsible.  They 
can't touch these people now, or [the international community] will come 
after them," she said.  "Yes, its worth it. 
 
    "Please keep at it.  Don't get tired helping them." 
 
    SERRV is already marketing at least six other Guatemalan groups and is 
not going to contract permanently with San Jacinto's weavers -- but wanted 
to grant space to the women for this Assembly.  It markets goods in over 
3,000 churches and through a catalogue. 
 
    New Mexico's Zuni weavers will be making silver jewelry in the booth 
later this week. 
 
 
Alexa Smith 

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