Technologies of Telling: Discourse, Transparency, and Erasure in Guatemalan Truth Commission Testimony

Abstract This paper offers a "critical epistemological reflection" on representations of survivor testimony in the Guatemalan truth commissions. As is commonly the case with TRC work, a good deal of effort was dedicated to the recuperation of victims' voices whose experiences of violence and suffering were brutally silenced in official Guatemalan state and public discourse. In this kind of "postconflict" context, the collection of survivor testimony is presumed to give new power to the victims and to create conditions for progressive social change in the aftermath of state-sponsored violence. However, my analysis problematizes these assumptions by elucidating multiple discursive forms, functions, and transformations in survivor testimony that are unrecognized in most truth commission reports. Examining these erasures in the representation of survivor testimony enables me to argue that the truth-telling process and analyses in truth commission efforts may well replicate dominant power relations that continue to tacitly disempower victims in unintended ways. Brigittine French earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Iowa in 2001. She is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Linguistics Concentration at Grinnell College. She has conducted ethnographic and linguistic research among Maya communities in the Guatemalan highlands since 1992. Her book, Maya Ethnolinguistic Identity: Violence, Cultural Rights, and Modernity in Highland Guatemala is forthcoming with the University of Arizona Press. French's articles have appeared in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology (2000), Pragmatics (2003), and Journal of Anthropological Research (2005). I offer my sincere appreciation to a number of people who provided invaluable support for this project. Members of the Grinnell College Genocide Studies Faculty Development Seminar, Todd Armstrong, Dan Reynolds, Leslie Gregg-Jolly, Kent McClelland, Katherine McClelland, Mark Levandoski, George Barlow, and Nancy Hayes created a committed interdisciplinary context that enabled me to crystallize my ideas for this project. Victoria Sanford, Mary Hardy, and Ignasi Clemente provided me with opportunities to present this work in its earlier stages at the Latin American Studies Conference held in Montreal, Canada (2007) and the Annual Meeting of American Anthropological Association held in Washington, DC (2007). I thank Chuck Goodwin for his enthusiasm for and response to this project from a linguistic anthropological perspective different than my own and I thank Jennifer Reynolds whose keen scholarly eye supported and challenged my ideas. I am indebted to Richard Hiskes for his careful editorial response to my arguments and to the anonymous reviewers for the Journal of Human Rights who pushed my analysis in ways I hope they recognize. Notes 1. On December 31, 1996, the Guatemalan government signed peace accords with the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG), the umbrella organization for the leftist guerilla movement. The armed conflict had its direct origins in the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup that was committed to stifle a perceived "communist" threat of land reform under the presidency of democratically elected Jacabo Árbenz Guzmán. The coup put in place a series of repressive military dictatorships that dominated the national political order for several decades that were intent on stifling all facets of perceived "subversive" social reform in the country (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1999 Schlesinger, S. and Kinzer, S. 1999. Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, Cambridge: Harvard University Press and David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. [Google Scholar]). While there was a guerilla response to the coup, the vast majority of Guatemalans killed during the state's persistent and brutal efforts turned out to be over two hundred thousand civilians—men, women, and children along with at least another one million of their fellow citizens who were displaced from their homes, families, and communities during the armed conflict. Among the most controversial issues on the table during the United Nations-brokered negotiation was the question of how these past human rights abuses under authoritarian rule would be addressed during the transition to peace (Hayner 2002 Hayner, P. B. 2002. Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenge of Truth Commissions, New York: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 45). As Hayner recounts, the idea of a truth commission attracted intense interest from various segments of civil society and victims groups. In fact, the heated struggles over the terms of proposed commission came close to derailing the peace talks altogether (2002: 46). 2. "La represión política le quitó a la gente su derecho a la palabra… Entonces, los testimonios recogidos tienen el valor de esa palabra de las víctimas…. Se puede aprender de esta memoria colectiva, que reivindica la dignidad de las víctimas y las esperanzas de cambio de los sobrevivientes" (REHMI 1998 Recovery Of Historical Memory Project. 1998. Guatemala: Nunca más [Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala, Guatemala: Odhag. [Google Scholar]: 23–24). 3. There are other social and political aspects of narrative that one may consider that are outside of the purview of this analysis. For example, Veena Das (2006) has written on the performative aspects of language, meaning the ways that language functions as a form of action that constitutes social worlds, more broadly in relation to human suffering. The performative aspect of language as discourse that human actors and institutions use to transform their life worlds is largely assumed in this paper as it is a central tenant of truth commission work. 4. "Las víctimas de los hechos más graves son, en su inmensa mayoría, campesinos indígenas, muchos analfabetos que se expresan en su lengua materna y con dificultad en castellano y cuyo estilo narrativo no incorpora una serie de categorías necesarias para establecer o calificar con mayor precisión los hechos, de acuerdo a la metodología deseñada por la Comisión" (CEH 1999 Commission For Historical Clarification (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico). 1999. Guatemala: Memoria del silencio, vols. 1–12, Guatemala City: United Nations. [Google Scholar]: 60). 5. There are 21 academically defined indigenous Maya ethnolinguistic groups in Guatemala that include: Achi, Akateko, Awakateko, Ch'orti, Chuj, Itzaj, Ixil, Kaqchikel, K'iche' Mam, Mopan, Popti', Poqomchi', Poqomam, Q'anjob'al, Q'eqchi, Sakapulteko, Sipakapense, Teko, Tz'utujiil, and Uspanteko. These languages belong to a larger group of Mayan languages also spoken in Mexico, Honduras, and Belize. Currently there are around five million speakers within these four Mesoamerican countries (England 2003 England, N. 2003. Mayan language revival and revitalization politics: linguists and linguistic ideologies. American Anthropologist, 105(4): 733–743. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).

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