Access to Justice for Victims of Sexual Violence: The Case of Sepur Zarco

19/06/2023

Written by Hanna El Arrasse

Translated by Yeliz Inci 

TW: Sexual violence 

“Ni las mujeres ni la tierra somos territorios de conquista!^[1]“Neither women nor the land is up for appropriation [loose translation]””

This slogan was coined by the Bolivian feminist and anarchist group Mujeres Creando^[2]“Women who create”, Bolivian anarcho-feminist collective fighting poverty through propaganda, street theatre, TV programmes and direct action and illustrates the intersection of the exploitation of both natural resources and of women’s bodies, embodying the multiple discriminations that Indigenous women face. 

According to the United Nations’ definition, Indigenous peoples have “in common a historical continuity with a given region prior to colonisation and a strong link to their lands^[3]« en commun une continuité historique avec un territoire donné avant la colonisation et [qui] entretiennent un fort lien avec leurs terres ». Nations Unies (n. d.). Peuples autochtones. … Continue reading [loose translation]”. Indigenous peoples have their own political, economic and social system to preserve their tradition and cultural, linguistic and land heritage. 

In 1995, Guatemala ratified the Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous People which is considered to be unique for Latin America, offering innovative recognition to Indigenous peoples. However, before the said ratification, Indigenous peoples faced long years of repression and the Sepur Zarco case is one striking example. This Indigenous community is based in Izabal, East Guatemala and during the dictatorship that lasted from 1960 to 1996, their community experienced great violence. The main target of this violence were Indigenous women as they were victims of sexual aggression and rape, for that reason this case raises the issue of women in armed conflicts, and more specifically  women from ethnic minorities. 

Guatemala caught up between the struggle of both Cold War’s blocks 

Just like several States in Latin-America, Guatemala has been through years of dictatorship and civil conflicts between the military government and its opponents. In 1954, President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was overthrown by a coup d’état, he pursued anti-capitalist policies to address inequalities which included measures in favour of Indigenous peoples and land redistribution. 

With the support of the CIA and major landowners, the coup d’état led by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas aimed to serve the interests of large economic groups such as the United Fruits Company, while fighting against a supposed communist revolution^[4]Dasso É. 2015. Aux origines du coup d’État de 1954 au Guatemala : le rôle de la United Fruit Company dans la préparation du soulèvement contre Jacobo Arbenz, L’Ordinaire des Amériques, … Continue reading. In the midst of the Cold War, the United States deemed communism as their biggest threat^[5]Grestle P. 2009. Le règlement du conflit entre les Etats-Unis et le Guatemala (mars-juin 1954), Relations internationales, n°137, pages 77 à 89, https://doi.org/10.3917/ri.137.0077. At that time, all the socialist governments in Latin America suffered from this perception of communism, with in mind the Cuban Revolution and its links with the Soviet regime. Guerrillas progressively rose up in opposition to the dictatorship. As Indigenous peoples were particularly affected by the overthrow of the government, they formed alliances with revolutionary groups and peasants and that marked the beginning of a 36-year-long civil war from 1960 to 1996. 

Indigenous peoples were deeply motivated by both the preservation of their lands and their identities. They were key actors in this civil war and as such they also were its first victims as the majority of the 200 000 deaths or disappearances were from Indigenous communities^[6]Hickey D. 2013. Les Mayas, victimes de l’histoire dans la guerre civile du Guatemala, 1954-1996, Amerika, 8 | 2013, https://doi.org/10.4000/amerika.3880. The large-scale abductions underline the use of forced disappearance as a means of repression. Amnesty International shed light on how much terror-forced this method can induce, it engenders insecurity and fear as it does not only affect relatives but also all communities and society as a whole^[7]Amnesty International (n. d.). Disparitions forcées. https://www.amnesty.org/fr/. This method used to counter insurgency was particularly used by dictatorships in Latin America, notably during the Condor operation^[8]The Condor Operation was a military strategy supported by the CIA that is at the root of dictatorial regimes in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile. The goal of the Condor Operation was to fight … Continue reading. In 1977, Argentinian mothers and grandmothers decided to act and created Las Abuelas de la Plaza Mayo^[9]“The Grandmothers of the Place of May[loose translation]” to look for their children and grandchildren victims of abduction during the Jorge Raphael Videla dictatorship. As of today, this method still occurs and its first victims are climate activists from Indigenous communities as UN Secretary-General António Guterres recalled during the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances ever since 2017^[10]Nations Unies. (2020). Disparitions forcées : António Guterres exhorte les États à renouveler leur engagement à éradiquer ce fléau. https://news.un.org/fr/.

Sepur Zarco: a lawless area for Indigenous women

Sepur Zarco is a relevant example of the persecution of Indigenous peoples, to which is added another fundamental dimension: the different forms of repression used against women and men.

A lot of Indigenous communities, mostly Mayas, used to live on Izabal Sepur Zarco’s land to escape the dictatorship violence. The military decided to base itself on this land during the civil war to control the opposition. The Q’eqchi leaders^[11]The Q’eqchis are part of the Mayas and represent the second largest Indigenous community in Guatemala were fighting for their rights to this land and in return the military decided to torture and murder men, loot their homes and rape their women. Some women succeeded to flee their land risking their children’s lives and found solace in the mountains while the 71 remaining women were enslaved in Sepur Zarco. For six years, from 1982 to 1988, these women were forced to work for military officers and were victims of repeated sexual and physical abuse. On top of the persecution led by the military, these women were also rejected by their community even though they were forced as Maria Ba Caal states “We were forced to go through it, one by one… They said that if we did not do as told, they would kill us themselves^[12]« Nous étions obligées d’y aller à tour de rôle… Ils disaient que si nous ne faisons pas ce qu’ils nous ordonnaient, ils nous tueraient ». Organisation des Nations Unies Femmes. (2018). … Continue reading [loose translation]”.

Women’s body, a new way for men to conquer political power

Colonial dynamics are the actual source of such horrible events. In colonial empires, power was asserted by both sexual domination and the appropriation of lands. Although it is rarely mentioned in historical accounts, the use of sexual assault and rape during colonisation was a very common practice: it is a matter of political domination through the possession of the bodies of the enemy’s women. Gilles Boëtsch Director of the International Unit on Environment, Health and Society at the French National Centre for Scientific Research explains that “Taking possession of the woman’s body of the “Other” is a way to win against him, to delegitimise him^[13]« Prendre la femme de « l’Autre », c’est marquer des points sur lui, le délégitimer ». Testard-Vaillant P. (3 décembre 2019). De la domination sexuelle dans les empires coloniaux. CNRS … Continue reading [loose translation]”. Sexual abuses are not restricted to colonial empires and gradually became a component of every system of oppression: “The sex tourism committed – vastly by men – in former colonies (Sénégal, Thaïlande, Haïti…) is the extension of the sexual abuse that colonists used to perpetrate on Indigenous peoples^[14]« Le tourisme sexuel – très majoritairement masculin – à destination des anciennes colonies (Sénégal, Thaïlande, Haïti…) est le prolongement de la violence sexuelle exercée autrefois … Continue reading [loose translation]”.

Armed conflicts are also dominated by the use of such practices, the UN Security Council indeed qualifies rape and sexual abuse used in armed conflicts as a war crime or crime against humanity and also as a criterion of the crime of genocide^[15]Résolution 9364 Assemblée Générale de l’Organisation des Nations Unies, du 19 juin 2008. Historian and professor at Paris I University Raphaëlle Branche stresses that “during wartime, rape is inflicted as a weapon to assert domination^[16]« Dans le cadre de la guerre, le viol est utilisé hors du registre sexuel comme une arme de domination ». Renard C. (13 décembre 2017). Viols de guerre : une journaliste, une historienne et … Continue reading [loose translation]”. However, because of the men’s domination of both military and diplomatic fields, one cannot overrule the influence of patriarchy^[17]Women amount for only 21% of the employees working for the defence sector and only 9,3% of the generals in 2020. Herouart M-H. (14 mars 2021). La longue et délicate féminisation des armées. Radio … Continue reading. Women’s bodies are seen as the personification of a nation and as such became a battlefield for male domination. 

Indigenous women are doubly discriminated against because of their gender and their race or ethnicity^[18]By race, we mean the social construct to qualify racialised people and victims of racism. The Sepur Zarco case is the perfect example of this double discrimination as the Guatemalan military treated differently Indigenous women from Indigenous men. Even though violence against women and Indigenous peoples remains in Latin America, the law still lacks an intersectional approach. Indigenous peoples had to take into account globalisation and decided to arm themselves to protect their ancestral land from States’ and companies’ desire to use it for economic purposes. Despite the Inter-American Court of Human Rights alerts^[19]Comité pour les droits humains en Amérique Latine (n. d.). Belo Monte, Brésil. https://www.cdhal.org/ and its legal obligations, Brazil recently conducted its Belo Monte dam construction project without first consulting the Indigenous peoples who live in the region. 

The cry of Sepur Zarco’s women against impunity before the Guatemalan courts

On March 2^nd, 2016, an unprecedented decision was ruled by the Supreme Court of Guatemala for 15 out of the 71 women who were victims of sexual abuse in Sepur Zarco during the armed conflict, but also for all the victims of sexual abuse during armed conflicts.

Just like many States experiencing years of dictatorship, impunity has gradually grown in Guatemala. However, despite this impunity, a group of women decided to take legal action since they desired to overcome the State’s inaction and more broadly to be the voice of all the silenced racialised women victims of violence in the context of armed conflicts. Las Abuelas de Sepur Zarco^[20]“The Grandmothers of Sepur Zarco [loose translation]” are 15 victims out of the 71 Indigenous women who remained in Sepur Zarco during the conflict, they brought to court the perpetrators that committed sexual abuse on them and enforced disappearance of Indigenous men from their community. With the support of local women’s rights NGOs and UNWomen, Las Abuelas de Sepur Zarco won the case as the Supreme Court of Guatemala sentenced Esteelmer Francisco Reyes Giron, former lieutenant-colonel, and Heribetro Valdez Asig, former auxiliary officer. Both of them were found guilty of crimes against humanity, enforced disappearances, and premeditated murders and respectively sentenced to prison for 120 and 240 years. For the first time in Guatemala, rape committed by military officers during armed conflicts was qualified as a war crime. This decision made history and represented a major progress not only for Indigenous women of Guatemala but also in international law, the Supreme Court of Guatemala being the first court to rule that the actions committed in the context of military dictatorship can be qualified as war crimes.

To fight against impunity and the repetition of such methods, especially related to crimes, remembrance is essential. During armed conflicts, sexual crimes against women are specifically silenced which then leads to the constant perpetuation of such criminal behaviours. More broadly, a common practice of States was to cover war crimes committed during dictatorship with amnesty laws to move on without facing their past. For instance, the Argentinian government passed the Ley de Obediencia Debida^[21]“The law of due obedience [loose translation]” in 1987 which provides amnesty to all Argentinian military for crimes committed between 1976 and 1983^[22]The Ley de Obedencia Debida was repealed in 2003, allowing the reopening of trials for crimes against humanity committed during the years of dictatorship in Argentina, from 1976 to 1983.

Even though Guatemala did not pass such a law, the voice of the victims of crimes committed during war times had to wait until 2016 to finally be heard, for that reason this year marked history and the legal world. In addition to all the financial compensations that the Sepur Zarco’s women obtained, their real goals were the recognition of the crimes they suffered from and symbolic compensation.

The gradual empowerment of women from ethnic minorities

The Sepur Zarco case is a historical, legal and social milestone, leading to the rise of several feminine and feminist decisions.

The Mamá Marquí NGO is composed of exiled Q’eschi women and was founded in 1990 to fight for the conservation and access to land for Indigenous peoples. For a long time, men from this community dominated the leadership positions in all initiatives to conserve Indigenous peoples’ rights. However, the women of this associationdecided to take over the activist space. Both the State’s legal system and Indigenous communities’ structures lack support for victims of violence and thus are harmful to Indigenous women^[23]Dagna S. 2020. Redéfinition des pratiques de justices par les femmes autochtones au Guatemala. Cahier des Amérique Latine, n°94 | 2020, pages 83 à 110. https://doi.org/10.4000/cal.11343. When such racist and patriarchal forms of oppression overlap, it brings up the need for justice with an intersectional focal point. The Movimiento de Mujeres Indigenas Tz’ununija’^[24]A movement created by the Indigenous women of Tz’ununija in 2008 that gathers 80 local NGOs (MMITZ) NGO is a great example of an intersectional approach as they advocate for environmentalist, feminist and anti-capitalist decisions. MMITZ are conscious of the paradox in which Indigenous women are caught up, in fact Indigenous women want both the conservation of their land and traditions and to dismantle the patriarchy that is part of it, so in that regard MMITZ draws a parallel between the attacks they are victims of and the ones that the motherland experiences. President of MMITZ Juana Sales Morales asserts that “Abusing the motherland equals to sexually abusing women. Because consent is not asked for. It is a matter of entering entrails and destroying everything inside^[25]« Outrager la Terre-mère, c’est comme abuser sexuellement d’une femme. Parce qu’on ne lui demande pas la permission. On pénètre dans ses entrailles, et on détruit tout ce qu’il y a à … Continue reading [loose translation]”.

Indigenous women deserve close attention to the discrimination they face be it in times of peace or during wartime. Sasha Koulaeva, an expert on Human Rights and civil society and professor at SciencesPo, also underlines that “war exacerbates patriarchy… Domestic violence, rape, human trafficking – these issues do not disappear in times of war, they increase^[26]« la guerre aggrave les structures patriarcales existantes… La violence domestique, le viol et la traite des êtres humains – ces problèmes ne disparaissent pas avec la guerre, ils augmentent … Continue reading [loose traduction]”. That is why including women in humanitarian responses and diplomatic processes seems to be the solution. Women must become actors in not only activism but also in politics and the military, even more so for women from ethnic minorities. In 2007 and 2011, Rigoberta Menchu, an iconic figure of the Guatemalan Indigenous communities, decided to run for the presidential elections. She founded the political party WINAQ^[27]In K’iche’, the native language of the Guatemalan Mays, Winaq means people that gathers multiple Maya movements in the country and is also part of the committee that drafted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, on top of that she is the first Indigenous woman to stand in the Guatemalan presidential elections. She found the drive for political commitment in all the horrors her relatives and members of her community experienced during the war.

Another dimension needs to be taken into account as Indigenous women are particularly affected by poverty.  The UN noted their precariousness in the Report on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous people of 2005. This great poverty among Indigenous women is a major issue discussed by international organisations. This is why on March 25^th, 2006 during the Reunión de negociación sobre derechos de pueblos indígenas con avances en atención del problema de la mujer indígena, the permanent representative of Guatemala to the Organisation of American States (OAS) Juan León Alvaro voted for the adoption of an article providing States’ responsibility to guarantee the respect of Indigenous women’s rights^[28]Meeting for the negotiation on Indigenous peoples rights and a focal point on Indigenous women.

The significant double discrimination Indigenous women are victims of is greatly illustrated during armed conflicts. The Sepur Zarco case unveils the patriarchal and colonial heritage of our societies, alongside all the other cases related to sexual abuse committed against ethnic minority women in wartime. To go beyond financial compensation and sentence the perpetrators to such crimes, it seems like there is still a long way to go and that requires the recognition of systemic malfunctions. Intersectionality is key to overcoming the limits of political and legal systems. The Sepur Zarco case is inspiring and encouraging for all women, it shows that even within a system that is at the root of their oppression, victory is still possible through intersectionality.

To quote this article: Hanna El Arrasse (2023). Access to Justice for Victims of Sexual Violence: The Case of Sepur Zarco. Gender in Geopolitics Institute. igg-geo.org/?p=14015&lang=en

The statements in this article are the sole responsibility of the author. 

Bibliography:
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Avocats Sans Frontières Canada. (2016). Le procès Sepur Zarco: un cas emblématique pour la justice des femmes autochtones victimes de violences durant le conflit armé interne. https://asfcanada.ca/

Comité pour les droits humains en Amérique Latine (n. d.). Belo Monte, Brésil. https://www.cdhal.org/

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Herouart M-H. (14 mars 2021). La longue et délicate féminisation des armées. Radio France. https://www.radiofrance.fr/

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