Both in Guatemala and in El Salvador, the late 20th century was marked by bloody wars between authoritarian regimes and guerrilla groups, leading to many civilian casualties. In Guatemala, the army used the scorched-earth tactic – destroying anything of value as they retreated from an area. ‘Due to the vast amount of indigenous people that were killed, it has been called a genocide,’ explains Marileen La Haije, postdoc at the Radboud Institute for Culture and History and lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures.
These and other atrocities have come to the fore in truth commission reports about the Central American wars. These reports make it clear that although the war is over, people still live in fear and mistrust. And yet, the reports do not tell the whole story, because the perspective of the perpetrators is not always included. ‘It’s only right that the primary focus of the truth commission reports is the victims’ perspective, but at the same time, they don’t always do justice to the complex situations in El Salvador and Guatemala.’
For her PhD, La Haije analysed the role of madness in novels about the wars. Literature is an ideal medium to reflect on the complexity of post-war societies, in part because it allows readers to experience the perspective of war criminals. ‘In a story with a war criminal as a first-person narrator, you can follow someone’s thoughts as they occur and, by doing so, you can develop some kind of understanding for this character, even if he commits atrocities,’ says La Haije. ‘The novels in no way condone the violence, but they do show in what kinds of situations it can arise.’
Recycled violence
La Haije mentions El arma en el hombre (The Human Weapon) by Salvadoran author Horacio Castellanos Moya. This is a novel about an ex-military from an impoverished background. During the war he is trained to become a ‘máquina de matar’, an efficient, unfeeling killer. After the war, he is demobilised and forced to reinvent himself. His skills are first used by drug gangs, and later on he ends up working for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). ‘The war may have ended, but the violence has been recycled. Many parties are eager to use trained killers, like the main character of El arma en el hombre, for their own purposes.’
As a result, people in El Salvador and Guatemala remain on their guard, always ready for unpredictable violence. La Haije perceived this herself during her stay in Guatemala. ‘I was advised not to take a red bus, since these were often attacked by gangs. For similar reasons, people often carry two phones. A fake one to give away if they are robbed, and a real one, better hidden. People have developed all kinds of behaviour that show certain similarities with paranoia as a survival mechanism.’
Flight
Literature makes the atmosphere of threat, extreme mistrust and cautiousness in these societies palpable. At the same time, writing about the war, precisely because the marks they left are still present, is in itself a dangerous exercise. Castellanos Moya had to flee to Mexico after receiving threats. ‘Being a novelist isn’t a rewarding profession in Guatemala and El Salvador, as Guatemalan author Eduardo Halfon describes very poignantly in an essay in The Guardian. Guatemala is dominated by a culture of silence. The genocide of the 1980s, the extreme racism and high incidence of femicide aren’t spoken about openly. And authors like Halfon, who dare to speak up, face intimidation and threats.’
And yet their efforts do have an impact. Novels by authors like Castellanos Moya and Halfon are widely read internationally, and they help shed light on the persistent violence in Central America. Within Guatemala and El Salvador a shift is also taking place, despite the persistent problem of illiteracy: not everyone can read these novels, let alone purchase them. ‘When El arma en el hombre was first published, some people responded by saying that the portrayed violence was exaggerated. Now people acknowledge that these things are really going on in post-war El Salvador, and slowly but surely they are being discussed as well outside of literature.’
Photography: A memorial plaque in El Salvador. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
