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The
peace agreement in 1996 was supposed to end the atrocities. And things
began looking good. "A lot of changes were made. For example, every
Guatemalan with a high school education must by law now teach three
people how to read and write. We need this in Guatemala. The literacy
rate used to be under thirty percent. It's now over sixty. But when
Alfonso Portillo was elected president in 1999, things began to go downhill
again."
Army
and police officers in Guatemala have begun a new campaign of abuse
to cover the tracks of their past. Although from the left-wing that
supported the demands of the Indian insurgents, Portillo has been unwilling
to take steps against the new bloodshed. But all Guatemala's killings
and bombings seem silly for a country of farmers. Who needs an anti-communist
Gestapo when it's all mostly a matter of cutting sugar-cane and sifting
coffeebeans?
"So
what does it take for your family to be safe?" I asked.
"The
people at Tikal watch out for me. This is because I coached their soccer
team to win nine years in a row. They have no choice, I am their hero."
"So,
how exactly did you get across to Belize?" I asked, "it's
impossible to get through the jungle."
"It's
the old highways of Central America. I swam the rivers."
Guatemala's
vicious history complements its ancient history - the history of Mayan
civilization is a bloody one; city-states endlessly battling each other.
Alongside all this battling, one year, a drought hit Central America.
Drought and battle could be harnessed by other civilizations, but the
Maya had also overfarmed their crops; creating one of the first environmental
disasters; spoiling their soil. The multiple tolls destroyed the civilization
quickly; squashing priesthoods and dispersing the Mayans into the jungle.
The
grades at Tikal slope more and more. "All of this is not a mountain.
Tikal was a structure created by man," Miguel tells Vance. "Everything
was engineered to precise measurements."
At
the peak of the sloping grades stand five temples. From the tops of
these buildings, you can see the lowlands of Guatemala; now just jungle.
Once those lowlands were the streets of the real Mayan civilization.
One
of the triplets kept tugging at my shirt. "A fake," he said.
"Bullshit," of a priesthood carving of a King. I asked him
why he thought that all of Tikal was a scam. "Come on," he
said, "wake up."
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