海角大神

An easy smile spreads over lawyer Edwin Canil鈥檚 face when he talks about the satisfaction of helping build the genocide and war crimes case against former Guatemalan strongman Efra铆n R铆os Montt over the past decade. But Mr. Canil鈥檚 eyes water just as quickly when he remembers witnessing the massacre of his own Mayan family at the hands of Guatemalan troops when he was just six years old.

Canil, a legal advisor with the Human Rights Legal Action Center (CALDH), is part of a team that helped find witnesses to testify in the landmark case against Mr. R铆os Montt, who ruled Guatemala in 1982 and 1983. That period has been called the most brutal in the country鈥檚 36-year war, which ended in 1996.

But Thursday, just as the trial appeared to be coming to a close after a month of often wrenching testimony from survivors of brutal massacres, country experts, and former military officials, a judge pronounced the proceedings null and void due to procedural concerns. However, prosecutors challenged the judge's ruling and asked the Constitutional court to rule on the matter.聽聽

鈥淚t鈥檚 blow to humanity and a blow to the victims,鈥� says Canil, referring not just to the specific victims named in the case, but to all those who suffered atrocities at the hands of security forces, including himself.

'What about us?'

Of the 200,000 estimated killed during Guatemala鈥檚 decades-long civil war, the majority were indigenous Guatemalans. The case brought against R铆os Montt is focused on just one of the many indigenous communities believed to have been wiped out in the scorched earth campaign during his rule. This case focuses on the Ixil ethnic group, of which at least 1,771 were executed or disappeared during his聽17-month reign.

Human rights lawyers seeking justice for crimes during the war chose to focus on the Ixil community case, Canil says, because it was the best documented and had all the hallmarks of genocide.聽聽

The strategy to focus the legal battle on the Ixil worked. Rios Montt and his former intelligence chief Mauricio Sanchez Rodriguez were charged with genocide and crimes against humanity in January 2012.

Victims from other regions of Guatemala who also suffered often ask him 鈥淲hat about us?鈥� he says. Canil asks them to support the Ixil people and to see themselves聽reflected in their story; as he does.

First hand experience

Canil was just six in February 1982, when the army came burning down villages in the region of Ixcan near the border with Mexico. Two people escaped the massacre in the town of La Trinitaria and warned people in the surrounding villages that the soldiers were on their way. Canil鈥檚 family and neighbors ran from their village and hid in the forest.

鈥淲e hid in a hut my father had built in the forest with my mother and father, my brothers and sisters, my grandmother and three cousins,鈥� he recalls. 鈥淲hen the soldiers arrived in the village they didn鈥檛 find anyone. They burned it down.鈥�

聽When they heard shots fired nearby, Canil鈥檚 father and older brother went off to check on the army's whereabouts. Just minutes later, the soldiers found young Canil and the members of his family who had stayed behind.

鈥淚 remember running, my parents had told us what to do if the soldiers came so I ran,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 turned and saw one of my sisters running behind me but when I turned again she was no longer there.鈥�

Canil hid behind a tree trunk and peeked out once he heard no more gunfire. He says he saw that his mother had been struck in the face by a bullet. She had fallen with his eight-month-old sister in her arms. He watched from his hiding place as a soldier came, picked up the crying baby and cut her open with his knife.

When the soldiers left, he ventured from his hiding place and went to where the soldiers had placed the bodies of their victims in a circle. 鈥淎t first I didn鈥檛 understand. I went there and said to my mother 鈥楪et up, let鈥檚 go鈥� I told them all to get up,鈥� he says. He began to understand what had happened when he saw one of his sisters with her head destroyed by bullets.聽

It wasn鈥檛 until the following day that he was able to reunite with his father and the brother who had left before the soldiers came. 鈥淸My father] was so happy when he saw me and asked 鈥榃ho else is alive?鈥� 鈥楴o one,鈥� I said.

鈥淭oday I have a hard time understanding how I survived.鈥�

A homecoming

Canil, his father, and brother spent the next seven months living in the mountains, on the run,聽with other survivors. They decided to cross the swamp that marked the border with Mexico, where Canil spent the next 12 years of his life. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 where I learned Spanish because before I didn鈥檛 speak Spanish,鈥� he says, adding that his native language is K'iche, one of the more than two dozen indigenous languages spoken in Guatemala today.

He returned to Guatemala in 1994 and began studying law. A human rights organization documenting cases of atrocities invited him to give testimony about his case, and eventually he joined the effort to document cases of other human rights abuses.

While working in his home village he met his wife, a Massachusetts native who was working with local communities.

Canil has not sought the spotlight in the case; in fact he has maintained a low profile. He describes himself as 鈥渢he person who lights the fire鈥� but then stands back.

Despite the setback in the trial Thursday, Canil is confident that a conviction of R铆os Montt is still possible and is what Guatemala needs to begin to heal its wounds. 鈥淎ny victim anywhere in the world, independent of his or her ideology, wants justice,鈥� he says.

鈥淏ut we still have a long way to go.鈥�