I have just carried out my most difficult interview ever. I don’t quite know how I will ever be able to write the article I am supposed to – and then at the same time I can’t avoid writing at least something down right away.
I am in Guatemala. A beautiful country with a violent history – and a violent present. Twice a day, a woman is murdered somewhere in the country, and the murderers are seldom brought to justice. Today I was granted an interview with a remarkable woman, whom I for safety reasons will name Clara. She once had a daughter, whom I will call Sarah.
One Thursday, when Sarah was 19 years old, she came back from the supermarket, smiling. She had just received her paycheck, done some shopping and had met a friend of a friend, who had asked her to join him down the street, because he “had a surprise for her”. As a good, Guatemalan daughter, Sarah asked Clara for permission to see the boy, and Clara first frowned at the request. It wasn’t safe, she considered, but when a neighbour passed by to see some clothes that Clara had fixed, Sarah once more requested permission to go – and Clara said yes. That was, as Clara herself explained through tears today, the very last time they saw her.
When Sarah didn’t come back, several search teams were sent out, but in vain. The police didn’t want to issue a search warning until 24 hours had passed, which meant sometime after office hours on Friday. As a consequence, the warning wouldn’t be issued until Monday.
On Sunday, a bloody, female corpse was found some five kilometers from Clara’s home. The victim had been violated, beaten to death, had one breast cut off, and a broken arm. The face had been cut beyond recognition by a knife.
It wasn’t until Monday that Clara and her husband by accident heard about the corpse. Just in time, as the mutilated body would have been buried under the name of XX the following day; unknown victim. The only way Sarah’s father was able to identify his daughter, was because her heels were fissured in a particular way, after years of walking barefooted in the poor house at home.
For three years nothing happened. The devastated parents were left alone with the grief, the neighbours’ gossip and the fear that more was to come. A couple of times a suspect was taken into custody, but then set free. As the parents insisted on continuing the fight for justice, friends and neighbours retracted from the humble home, fearing that the murderers’ families might try to harm them as well. The couple was left alone, and the two faithful churchgoers even felt the rejection from follow worshippers and retracted further into isolation.
It wasn’t until Clara was contacted by a local women’s group that things changed. After a thousand days of suffering, she finally entered therapy and received the legal assistance she needed. She felt stronger, a new trial was set, in which a young man was charged with murder, rape and robbery. After six months of trial, he was found guilty of murder and condemned to 35 years of imprisonment.
The verdict has helped a bit. Some justice has been done – not enough, but some. Life has to go on, and even if the wounds cannot be healed, the verdict at least makes it easier to live with the pain left behind by the murder, the dysfunctional and corrupt legal system, and the gossip and talk of the neighbours.
Things will never be the same for Clara and her husband, and they are well aware that the verdict may some day lead to more violence from the convicted’s friends and family. But as Clara said during today’s group therapy: “This might cost me my life some day. But then at least I will die with my head held high, because I have created justice.”
Posted by Christian Korsgaard
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