October 23, 2011

By Jean-Marie Simon

When I arrived in Guatemala in the early 1980s I was a volunteer with Amnesty International, documenting human rights violations in Nebaj, part of the indigenous Maya and rural Ixil Triangle region of Guatemala. I arrived as many people fled the country – escaping the beginning of three decades of civil war, disappearances, mass murders and a scorched-earth policy that would lay waste to the lives and villages of thousands of indigenous people. I was one of the few people at the time taking pictures of the violence, the army garrisons, the guerrillas and their encampments, the empty villages, the dead and displaced people. Little did I know that with every photo I was creating a historical memory of the armed conflict from a period in Guatemala’s history that many would not talk about, many still do not acknowledge -- and those who remember are still, thirty years later, reluctant to discuss.

My photographs of Guatemala's civil war were first published as “Guatemala: Eternal Spring Eternal Tyranny” (WW Norton). The book sold 20,000 copies. The images in the book now comprise the only complete set of photographs of that period in Guatemalan history. In 2010, I published a Spanish language edition of the same book in Guatemala, which was first on the bestseller list and sold out in six months. 

In November, I am publishing a new student edition of my book to teach Guatemalan schoolchildren, especially rural and semi-literate schoolchildren, about the war in a more visual way.  There is a need to distribute this book to Guatemalans, especially schoolchildren, who have little information about the war.

The need for a photography book to accomplish this is especially urgent in Guatemala, where 70 percent of the rural population is illiterate or semi-literate and where the predominance of Mayan languages adds an extra challenge in disseminating important information. Photographs break through linguistic and poverty barriers. Funding will go towards publishing and distributing the book to offset printing costs, and for teacher guides, press packets, and travel funds to take the book into the Guatemalan countryside where it is most needed.

This is the only book of photographs that covers Guatemala’s brutal war. It is important to make it accessible in towns that need it most and for people who will use it for teaching the history of Guatemala’s armed conflict.

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