Communal strategy drives Indigenous-led uprising in Guatemala

Indigenous Authorities march in Guatemala on November 4, 2023. Photo © Simón Antonio Ramón.

Opinion • Gladys Tzul Tzul • December 4, 2023 • Leer en castellano

Over the past 10 weeks, the communal political system in Guatemala has turned party politics on its head. An energetic Indigenous rebellion has shaken the government to its core by mounting a challenge to the Public Prosecutor's Office, which has used arcane and irregular investigations to facilitate dispossession, impunity, war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as the criminalization of Indigenous communities and authorities.

The national strike has had a massive impact. Communities have years of firsthand experience with the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP, in its Spanish initials). As a result of its "investigations," communities have had their leaders criminalized, been evicted from their lands and suffered legal processes against their communal actions. The interference of the MP in the recent elections, which has included the theft of ballot boxes and other actions, are examples of ongoing acts of aggression against Indigenous communities.

The main demand of the Indigenous uprising is the defense of democracy and the constitutional order. From a communitarian point of view, the defense of democracy means respect for the will of the people, which implies not allowing dictatorship or governments imposed by the military, drug traffickers and businessmen. 

Concretely, the Indigenous Authorities who called the uprising are demanding the resignation of Consuelo Porras, who is Attorney General and head of the Public Ministry; of prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche and of judge Fredy Orellana.

The uprising was called by Authorities from the 48 cantons of Totonicapán, the Indigenous Municipality of Sololá, the Allied Communities of Chichicastenango, the Indigenous Municipality of Santa Lucía Utatlán, the Indigenous Municipality of Nebaj, the Indigenous Municipality of San Cristóbal Totonicapán and the Xinka Parliament. It has grown like maize planted in a field, which sprouts and gives birth to different types of corn. 

The people have mobilized in villages, in public squares, in churches and in cities. The struggle has been adopted by and relaunched from marketplaces, by workers, folks active in food delivery, students, as well as migrants living in cities abroad.

A detail from the mobilizations in Guatemala. Photo © Cristina Chiquín.

Indigenous strategy in action

Since October 2nd, different Indigenous strategies have emerged, which combine a national strike with protest encampments and the concentration of thousands of people on the Inter-American highway and across most of the country. 

Since October 20, the mobilization has relied on the use of rotation, a strategy typical of the Indigenous communal government system. One day each week, members of a village show up to hold down the peaceful sit-in in front of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the Gerona neighborhood of Guatemala City. The uprising has become a turning point in the political life of the country.

On November 3rd and 4th and December 7th, communities organized huge marches into the city, led by the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán and other Indigenous Authorities. In addition, on November 21, a massive caravan of transportation workers arrived from different routes, led by those from Sololá. 

Throughout all of this, the Indigenous Authorities began taking legal action in national and international courts, and held meetings with different sectors of society, including business groups.

Over these months of mobilization, this people’s rebellion, operating through Indigenous Authorities, has exposed how a small group of economic and political elites govern Guatemala and use the Public Prosecutor as a weapon of containment and repression. The Public Prosecutor has managed to subsume the three branches of government.

More than 60 days have passed since the uprising began. As a society, we have witnessed the strength, energy and capacity of Indigenous communal strategy. City dwellers have been called upon to participate, and popular and middle classes have mobilized to fight for the common good. In addition, Indigenous Authorities managed to link their fight with those of other peoples, allowing the ​​movement to expand. 

The remarkable events that we have experienced in Guatemala since October 2nd are unique in at least three ways.

Members of thousands of communities and cantons showed up to demonstrate their support for the demands of the communal authorities in the capital city. Turning out in such large numbers has helped prevent violence on the part of the National Civil Police. This was demonstrated on October 19, when the Constitutional Court ordered the eviction of the encampment in front of the MP’s office.

The festive assemblies held on the highways at at least 200 points throughout the country, as well as in front of the MP’s office, created forums for political debate and denunciation, which are at once playful and celebratory. When Indigenous rebellion takes place, it resembles a party.

Finally, there is the emergence of a distinct form of coordination between Indigenous peoples and their authorities. "Among peoples we have autonomy, and may not always reach consensus, but we remain united," said the Vice President of 48 cantons. 

The autonomous nature of communal governments is revealed in how Indigenous Authorities set in motion a communal uprising that does not defend the interests of any political party. When they enter into dialogue with government authorities or businessmen, it is on equal footing and not as a subordinated group. "We aren’t here for personal gain, but to represent our communities, who have delegated us to fulfill their wishes and to defend them," said Luis Pacheco, President of the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán.

In regards to the numerous legal motions filed in the different government offices, we see how Indigenous Authorities have moved the legal machinery of the state, as if it were a chessboard, making moves and counter-moves in the context of a political structure that presents obstacles to the popular demands for the dismissal and resignation of public officials. 

This strategy has effectively upended the chess board, thanks in large part to the use of national and international courts by Indigenous Authorities.

Today, the game is wide open. The communities are operating from a position of strength, while being mindful of the need to defend against attacks. 

"As communities, we have many strategies, there’s no reason to lose hope, let's keep on fighting," said one of the Mayors of the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán.

Indigenous Authorities march in Guatemala City on November 4, 2023. Photo © Simón Antonio Ramón.

The geography of mobilization

As dawn broke on October 2nd, large assemblies of K'iche', Ixil, Kaqchikel, Mam, Xinca peoples and other communities were held at dozens of strategic points along the Inter-American highway. Their mobilizations meant to show support for their authorities, who were traveling to the capital to demand the resignation of the repudiated officials.

For more than 20 days, thousands of women, men, girls and boys marched along the highways, giving and listening to speeches that analyzed social reality and the exploitation and exclusion that Indigenous peoples and society as a whole experience. They spoke of the material power that communities possess: their food, their rivers, waters and forests. Together, these elements form the base upon which the lives of community members rest.

This uprising is a clear example of the expansion of communal politics beyond communities. It flies in the face of arguments that communities can only intervene on an extremely local level. 

Geography can help us understand this. Although the call for the uprising came from Totonicapán, Sololá, Chichicastenango, Santa Lucía, Nebaj, Ixcán and San Cristóbal, the force that has sustained it comes from the cantons and hamlets. A canton is a territorial delimitation with a political system that organizes collective life through committees and rotating authority structures. Villages are composed of cantons, and cantons in turn are made up of hamlets. What, then, is the importance of cantons in these mobilizations?

The cantons have played a decisive role in facilitating the expansion of the movement and helped to make it possible for diverse forces to join, as each canton has produced mechanisms to sustain daily life and its own political structure.

In Totonicapán there are 48 cantons, Chichicastenango has 91, there are 15 cantons and villages with 83 hamlets in Sololá, and San Cristóbal has 14 cantons. There are four cantons and 54 communities in Santa Lucía and, in the case of Nebaj, 104. 

Local geography has an importance that transcends republican geographical divisions. It is a structural element that allows us to understand how Indigenous territories have produced strategies that enable so many diverse peoples to work together. 

This brings us to a historic moment of strategic coordination and agreement. "Each people is autonomous, and we don’t always come to agreement, but we stay together and fight for the same thing, although in different ways," said Basilio Puac, the Vice President of 48 Cantones.

What Puac mentions was demonstrated in 2016, when Indigenous Authorities stood up to fight for the right to have their own justice system recognized. A key principle of that coordination was: "no authority shall rule over another in order to come to an agreement."

People in the cities responded to the call to rise up to defend democracy that emerged from the cantons. The mobilizations in Guatemala City occurred in at least three phases. 

The first was led by Indigenous people from western Guatemala who live in the capital. They coordinated the reception and support of their communal authorities beginning on October 2nd. Large numbers of K'iche's merchants and laborers from Totonicapán and Chichicastenango live in the capital, in addition to Kaqchikeles, and they turned out to support their authorities. Various religious groups also got involved at this stage. 

A second moment began on October 18, when 105 markets heeded the call of the authorities. They agreed to strike for several days in front of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in support of the actions and demands of the Indigenous Authorities. 

In this constellation of mobilized markets, other workers within the popular economy joined the strike, including tortilla sellers, shoe shiners and people who work at corner stores. Eventually, several working class neighborhoods joined the strike. Colonia Bethania, as well as residents of Zone 5 and Zone 18, rose up and organized their own encampments in Guatemala City. 

A third moment began around October 20 when city residents, including the middle classes, joined the uprising en masse. This included members of Trans Collectives, doctors, students, artists, organizations of the children of the disappeared, and car stereo technicians, among many others. All together, they brought the country to a standstill.

"History always tries to divide us between brothers, between Kaqchikeles and K'iches," said Misrahi Xoquic, Sololá’s Indigenous Mayor, on November 1st. "But here we are together, with our heads held high, and we will not bend. We won’t betray the people. We invite the city to continue to join the struggle."

The strategies of the authorities were read and understood by the general population, and were transformed into collective intelligence.

On the night of October 5th, masked armed men appeared at the MP’s office to attack the resistance. They were looking for Luis Pacheco, the President of the 48 Cantones of Totonicapán. The masked men identified themselves as vendors from the La Terminal Market. 

Communal authorities stopped this act of intimidation by initiating dialogue. The following day, on October 6th, vendors from La Terminal showed up and declared their support for the actions of the communities. 

On October 9th, the total closure of the markets was declared. As the days went by, members of 105 markets of the capital city held marches. In the face of intimidation, the population rallied behind the communal authorities. 

On October 10, riot police tried to evict the protest encampments. Residents in the Bethania neighborhood held fast, without using violence. Bethania adopted the slogans that this was a peaceful protest and that the blockades would come down only if Prosecutor Porras resigned. 

A scene from the Indigenous uprising in Guatemala. Photo © Cristina Chiquín.

A communal chess game

"We have a surprise in store for them. Just as they surprised us, we’ll surprise them," said the Indigenous Mayor of Sololá, when they were evaluating the evolution of the strike. The mayor said that the people have always had their own timing and strategies and are able to write their own history. 

In a November speech, Pacheco, the President of the 48 cantons, echoed Sololá’s Xoquic. "We have changed our strategy, but this doesn’t mean that we’re weakening. We have just reorganized our strategies, which are peaceful and public."

As I understand it, Pacheco and Xoquic’s comments can be read as a reference to a game of strategy, much like chess, in which each move is discussed and decided upon in assemblies.

One outcome of this collective process of reflection is that legal actions were taken in all possible forums. That is, injunctions were filed in the Constitutional Court, memos sent to Congress and complaints made in the courts. Analyzing the totality of the activities of the Indigenous Authorities helps us see how they expanded in all directions, combining direct action with intense legal activity. 

The rules of chess are rigid. Players seek first to eliminate bishops and rooks to get to the king and queen. The strategies of the Indigenous Authorities go beyond chess, subverting the board and the pieces, and using the force of the mobilizations to reshape the entire game. 

"We are demonstrating against the current government, and if the new government betrays us, we’ll rise up against it as well, we have changed our strategy to reorganize," said Pacheco from the 48 Cantons on November 4 in the central square of the capital.

As they say in Totonicapán, "La vara manda" (the talking staff rules). This embodies the communal will of the assemblies. The assembly grants communal authority to individuals, but they don’t act alone: they serve the collective will. Talking staffs do not belong to a specific person, but to the entire community.