A Rare Visit With Guatemala Guerrillas Offers Glimpse of Life in Clandestine Camp

Guatemala’s leftist guerrillas allowed Associated Press correspondent Anita Snow and photographer Scott Sady to visit a clandestine camp--something few outsiders have ever seen. During five days, the rebels offered them a glimpse of life in the field, their views on taking up arms and reflections on the prospect that the longest war in Central America may finally be coming to an end. The rebels asked that their full names not be used, saying they fear for the lives of their families.

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The skinny teenager with the high cheekbones and almond eyes of the highland Maya Indians cautiously approached our table at the coffee shop.

As instructed by the rebel comandante in Mexico City, we had placed a Time magazine and camera equipment on the table.

“Are you for the Bulls?” the boy asked.

“We really like their new record,” was the password we were instructed to give.

The boy grinned and stretched out his small hand in greeting. We had made contact with the elusive guerrillas of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity.

Thursday

“Welcome to our camp,” Comandante Santiago said with a smile as we stumbled into the clearing surrounded by leafy trees and lush ferns. We had just marched for more than an hour along muddy trails to reach the camp.

Wearing an olive-green uniform and billed cap, the bearded commander sat on a log amid lean-tos of black nylon tarps and carved branches.

“You’ll have to forgive us because we are more accustomed to guerrilla warfare than public relations,” he said. “But we are trying to learn.”

Santiago, a basketball fan, said that the exchange about the Bulls was his idea.

Now 40, Santiago is a physician with a soothing voice and expressive hands who was born into a comfortable Guatemalan family. He said he joined the insurgency in the late 1970s because “I wanted to do more than cure sick people. I wanted to cure a sick society.”

But in recent years, Santiago has concluded that armed struggle against the government is destined to become a peaceful political movement. The war, which began three decades ago, has claimed 140,000 lives.

Santiago married a non-rebel several years ago and now has three small children. For their safety, the family lives outside Guatemala. He said he longs for a normal life.

“It has been very hard not being able to watch the children grow,” he sighed.

Friday

If the peace accords are signed, Jans wants to become a dentist.

The younger rebels roll their eyes when the earnest 28-year-old Chuj Indian lectures them on the importance of brushing their teeth at least once a day. “Twice a day is very recommended,” he said, seriously. “To prevent tar buildup.”

Jans had a hard time persuading his comrades to let him put fillings in their decayed teeth using a new portable dental drill powered by an air pump. “I have a lot of experience,” he insisted.

He was 13 when he joined the guerrillas in the northern mountains. Years later Jans descended for a brief family visit to find his village in Huehuetenango province had been leveled during the army’s scorched-earth campaign. Its 170 residents were massacred.

“They put all the women and children in one house and lit it ablaze,” he said. “They lined up the men on the ground and shot them all once in the head.”

Saturday

“What do you think of the Zapatistas?” asked Maria, a 26-year-old supply officer. “They don’t have very good arms, do they?”

The guerrillas are curious about the Mexican rebels who rose up in the southern state of Chiapas in January 1994. They think it odd that the movement focuses mostly on one man, Subcomandante Marcos, and wonder aloud about the group’s ability as a fighting force.

Maria is one of four Mexicans at the camp who joined the Guatemalan guerrillas after completing college and becoming disillusioned with Mexican politics.

Another Mexican friend from college, Emiliano, is the camp’s intelligence officer. The tall, light-skinned former science student took his nom de guerre from the Mexican revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata. He spends much of his day monitoring the news on a shortwave radio and writing reports.

Maria, a slender woman with enormous dark eyes, said that she and Emiliano were contacted shortly before the Zapatista uprising and invited to join. “But we were already committed here,” she said.

Maria said her family thinks she lives in southern Mexico, teaching impoverished Indian children how to read and write.

Sunday

The camp’s 50-some rebels giggled and joked like high school students on a field trip as they started the hourlong march to the closest village.

Because the rebels had visited the village before, residents appeared unimpressed when they marched in with AK-47 rifles and several bazooka-like rocket launchers.

Antonio, a senior rebel, addressed several hundred residents from the steps of a church, telling them about the ongoing peace negotiations, encouraging them to report human rights abuses.

The tomas--or “takeovers”--are part of a rebel campaign to win public support as they consider replacing armed struggle with a political one. The rebels said the army is conducting a similar public relations campaign.

“Tomorrow is a very important day for us,” Antonio told the villagers. “It appears that the accords on socioeconomic and agrarian issues are very positive for people who have no land, no resources.”

In Mexico City, rebel and government negotiators would sign an accord a day later that would be hailed as the first breakthrough this year on the road to peace. The agreement commits the government to increased social spending for the poor and rural development.

“Much of what they say makes sense,” said a 78-year-old villager, Abel Chiquita. “Much help is needed in the countryside.”

After marching most of the day and visiting a second town, the weary rebels asked a local bus driver to give them a ride part of the way back to camp.

Crowding into the seats with their rifles, the rebels laughed and sang along to tunes by the Mexican ranchero group “Los Tigres del Norte” blasting on the radio.

Except for the guns and the uniforms, it could have been a group of kids returning from summer camp.

Monday

Fifteen-year-old Noemi cooked a breakfast of long-grained rice, black beans and sugary coffee over an open wood fire.

To their metal bowls, some added saltwater crabs and fish fetched from a nearby river, orangey brown bananas plucked from trees or big, white mushrooms pulled from the forest floor.

Rebel boys flirted with Noemi, a perky teen with dark, shoulder-length hair who stands about 4 feet 9 inches tall in her oversize combat boots. She pouted when they called her “Chiquita,” Spanish for “Little One,” a name she recently decided is undignified.

Noemi said she misses her mother, a rebel fighter jailed for the last year after being captured.

“You have no idea how happy it was in the camp when my mama was here,” she whispered, her dark eyes growing moist. “So very happy.”

Later that morning, Noemi joined the other young warriors as Lt. Morazan taught them three different firing positions: standing, kneeling, lying on the ground.

Tuesday

The hike back to civilization began at 2 a.m. on a rocky trail illuminated by the flashlights of six young rebels.

Along the way, 22-year-old Manuel told of how he and his family barely escaped with their lives when the army wiped out their village in the north.

“The military commissioner warned us the night before. We left everything behind, taking only the clothes on our backs.”

The day after he and his family fled for Mexico, Manuel says, soldiers massacred some 40 villagers, including Manuel’s paternal grandparents. Manuel’s father joined the guerrillas, rising to comandante before retiring several years ago.

Meanwhile, Manuel, his three siblings and mother settled in a refugee camp in southern Mexico. After completing his first year of high school he decided to become a rebel like his father.

Now, Manuel looks forward to the war’s end.

“They signed some important accords yesterday, accords that could lead to peace,” Manuel said, smiling, as we arrived at the town where we would catch the first of several buses for the journey back.

“And that’s a good thing. Isn’t it?”