"La Revolución es la unidad y la justicia"

Access to land was one of the defining issues, if not the central conflict, during Guatemala's 36-year armed struggle. Hundreds of thousands of people died during this period, and yet even after the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996, very little was resolved. For many rural indigenous people, life is still governed by the rule of the patrón, or plantation owner, who controls everything from wages to access to education. In spite of the many promises left unfulfilled by the government in the wake of the armed conflict, it seems that a quiet revolution in rural land distribution may be within reach. The unlikely agent of this transformation is, in fact, the government itself. Through Fontierras, a land fund whose creation was mandated by the Peace Accords, the government has begun to facilitate loans to indigenous farmers who want to purchase productive land.

This week I worked with the APODIP cooperative in Alta Verapaz, a department in north-central Guatemala. This group has united isolated communities of Q'eqchi' Maya farmers living in the buffer zone of the Sierra de las minas Biosphere Reserve. Over the last couple of years, more groups of ex-plantation workers have begun to join APODIP and to produce organic coffee on their own land. I visited two groups that have worked with Fontierras to buy plantations that were abandoned by their owners during the coffee crisis of the late 1990s.

The manager of one association told me that two years ago, he was living on a large plantation where the owner refused to build a school because he wanted the workers' children to start picking coffee as soon as they could walk. Out of desperation, he and other coffee farmers contacted the patrón of an abandoned plantation to see if he would sell it. With the assistance of Fontierras, the group managed to lower the price from 12 million quetzales to two million, and to obtain a low-interest loan. Now, they are rehabilitating the plantation's lands and processing facilities, and transitioning to 100% organic production.

During my tour of their facilities, the group took me into the attic space above their processing plant. They had obviously had a party the night before, as chairs, beer bottles, and pine needles were strewn across the floor. Above a pile of sacks of coffee they had hung a banner that read: "Welcome to the community...The revolution is unity and justice." In so much of Guatemala, revolutionary dreams have given way to resignation. I felt very moved to see that hope for a better future is still alive in some of the country's remote mountain communities. And, that this revolution holds the promise of a peaceful and just resolution.

My photos from this field visit, as well as the rest of my photos from my last six weeks in Guatemala, are here.