Guatemalan Women Fought for Democracy. Now They Have to Make It Work for Them.

Outside the window, a storm gathers over Lake Atitlan. Inside, more than 50 women activists, including Guatemalan indigenous land defenders, international feminist leaders and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, listen attentively. Mayan ancestral authorities are telling the deep story of how a recent popular uprising mobilized by indigenous organizations held on for 106 days, defying one of the world’s most corrupt and tyrannic elites who were attempting to override the election results.

The triumph of the Guatemalan people’s movement in defense of democracy is all the more extraordinary because it was led by Indigenous peoples, youth, women, workers, urban poor—those who’ve been ignored and oppressed for centuries by the neocolonialist powers they now defeated at the polls.

Luz Emilia Ulario, ancestral leader of Santa Lucía Utatlán, summed up the moment: “We grew up in this racist, discriminatory system. It hasn’t just been 106 days--it’s been more than 532 years that we’ve been resisting. Those 106 days are when we all rose up together, we all spoke out to say what we think. We shed our fear. It was really the culmination of the 532 years.”

Ulario is one of many women ancestral authorities and indigenous community leaders who traveled to the lakeside village of Panajachel to meet with the international delegation “Women for Peace and Democracy,” organized by the Nobel Women’s Initiative of Peace Prize laureates; JASS, an international feminist movement building organization that supports women’s organizing and movements; and the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation.

Defending representative democracy was not the obvious battle for Guatemalan indigenous peoples, and especially indigenous women, in a system rigged to exclude them.

The mobilization began after Bernardo Arevalo, the son of a former president and candidate of a relatively new and small party called Semilla, unexpectedly beat the candidate of the ruling elite, Sandra Torres. The Pact of the Corrupt, as these elite interests are known, controls most courts, and had twisted the laws and regulations to eliminate candidates it considered a threat, but Arevalo flew in under their radar. His surprising first-round win, confirmed in the second round, sent the elites into a panic.

Led by Attorney General Consuelo Porras--sanctioned for corruption, obstruction of rule of law and anti-democratic acts by the United States, Canada and the European Union—corrupt judges and conservative members of Congress attempted to annul the elections, criminalize Arevalo and other party leaders, and block the transition of power. For years, this group of politicians and justice officials had been coopting democratic institutions in the legislative, executive and judicial branches and persecuting land and rights defenders. The historic grassroots mobilization stopped them from consolidating authoritarian rule in what could have spelled the demise of democracy in Guatemala.

Defense of democracy

In many ways, neither the electoral upset nor the mobilization was surprising. For decades Guatemalans had watched the slow strangulation of their fledgling democracy while the world paid little attention. There were moments of breakthrough hope, like the historic recognition of genocide against the Mayan people in the Rios Montt trial in 2013 (despite being later overturned by the court on procedural issues), the resignation and imprisonment on corruption charges of former president Otto Perez Molina following widespread protests, and charges leveled against corrupt officials by the UN International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala together with a small group of honest judges.

But mostly the hope resided in the people themselves, in the local acts of resistance—against attacks on basic freedoms, against extractivist projects that take their land and resources, against violence, and in defense of human rights and democracy.

Isabel Matzir, a leader of the community-based defense of the Cahabón River in Alta Verapaz against a hydroelectric project and partner of Bernardo Caal, Cahabón leader imprisoned for four years for defending the river, described this longstanding resistance:

In spite of the repression, corruption and impunity of part of the Guatemalan State, the Mayan people have resisted forever. Our values and principles motivate us to defender our mother earth, our territory, our collective rights, our natural goods and especially our life. We’ve developed a form of activism with deep conviction, even with the risk that we’ll be criminalized or killed.

Matzir addressed the Vice President, ministers and the international delegation. Perhaps for the first time in the nation’s history, the words of an indigenous woman activist were within the walls of the National Palace.

The 2023 protests united these daily acts and catalyzed broader resistance. The crack in the system that opened up when the Pact of the Corrupt lost the presidential election became a floodgate. Traditional forms of indigenous organization that evolved despite centuries of neocolonial rule provided the strategic and logistical backbone--and the moral authority--to convoke broad swaths of society sick of elite pilfering and repression. Alongside the demand to defend the vote, a deeper movement emerged that goes beyond party politics and challenges the pillars of colonialism and neoliberalism. Within this deeper movement, women shown as leaders and support systems, for sustaining the protests and the spark of hope for a better future.

This hope, at a time when authoritarian forces are gaining strength in other parts of the world, was what drew the international feminist delegation to Guatemala. Shereen Essof, executive director of Just Associates--an international organization that supports women’s organizations--placed it in a global context. “Democracy is under threat around the world. There has been a real erosion of democratic institutions by electoral processes, by cooptation of state mechanisms over the last years, so here today the defense of democracy led by indigenous peoples in Guatemala gives us hope. There are great opportunities, but we also know there are great threats in relation to the democratic transition.”

A centuries-old resistance

It’s impossible to understand Guatemala’s 106 days of resistance without taking into account the Indigenous power structures that have existed since before the Conquest and erupted into view during the mobilization. Forty-five percent of the Guatemalan population is Mayan according to official figures, probably more. The 1996 Peace Accords recognize four peoples—Maya, Xinca, Garifuna and Mestizo—in the country the largest being the Mayan. The Mayan population has won recognition of numerous “indigenous mayorships” made up of ancestral authorities throughout the country. These leaders issued the national call to action, organized on the local level and in regional associations, such as the 48 cantons of Totonicapán, which played a key role in the mobilization.

Without this organizational frame, the cross-sector protests could not have come together as quickly and as powerfully as they did. Patricia Ardon, Guatemalan activist who works in feminist popular education with JASS, attributes the ability to break through the racist context and organize a nationwide movement to the long history of indigenous resistance and organizing.

She writes, “Indigenous authorities—Guatemala’s formally recognized Indigenous Mayorships and those whose legitimacy stems from their history of service to their communities and ancestral practices—said ‘Enough is enough!’ and called on the people to mobilize. They marched to the capital city to stand in front of the office of the Public Ministry and demand the resignation of the Attorney General and respect for democracy, symbolized at this juncture by respect for the citizens’ vote.”

Mayan organizations were able to catalyze the movement because of the power and cohesion derived from centuries of conscious effort to preserve culture, historical memory, and territorial rootedness. The mobilization came to be called “the uprising of the ruling staffs.” Feliciana Herrera, Ixil leader and ancestral authority of Nebaj, explained: “The Ixil people have maintained our resistance, our identity, against the constant efforts to undermine us. We’ve maintained our language, our culture and our practices… There is power in the ruling staff—this staff is not just a stick, it is sacred to us because it’s a symbol, the insignia that listens to our problems, that listens to everything we seek to resolve.”

Whose Democracy?

The inauguration of the new president and vice president caused jubilation among the indigenous and citizen groups that mobilized, but they didn’t stop questioning the system itself or lose focus on ongoing issues of access to land and territory and basic human rights. Defending representative democracy was not the obvious battle for Guatemalan indigenous peoples, and especially indigenous women, in a system rigged to exclude them.

Luz Emilia explained, “Many people ask: Why do you defend democracy if everyone knows we don’t live in a democracy, we’re never taken into account? Because democracy is broad. For the government, it’s asking people to go out and vote, that’s democracy for them, then they forget about us in governing… and we’re back to being obedient and receiving what they say. We mounted this defense and we organized because the people have given this government a vote of confidence, we’re defending ourselves from going back to being a country run by a dictatorship.”

In a joint statement delivered to the new government during the delegation, 24 Guatemalan women’s organizations wrote: “In Guatemala, the recently elected progressive government presents a historic opportunity to deal with problems that women face and the impact these have on our communities… We celebrate our victories and the resistance of innumerable women who have struggled for profound change. As opportunities come up, we also prepare to face the challenges and ensure that our voices are heard.”

“Now we succeeded in defending our country, but we’re going to continue to organize to show that we are capable of defending our rights."

The women water and land defenders, persecuted judges and journalists, indigenous authorities, students, representatives of LGBTQ+ and Garifuna Afro-descendent communities told the delegation that the electoral victory is a window. They have no illusions regarding the challenges ahead. Arevalo’s party does not have a majority in the legislature, the party is inexperienced, and his government faces a justice system captured and controlled by the ruling elite. Luz Emilia stated, “Now we have a president who understands the peoples, and is willing to work with the peoples, but if the legislation and judicial branches don’t contribute, we’re still living in a nation of impunity.”

Abigail Monroy, Maya Kaqchikel and ancestral authority of Chuarrancho, also noted that this is only a turning point on a long road. “The Guatemalan people initiated this resistance to defend democracy in the country. But we women say we still a lot of work to do. We don’t know how this government will do, so the struggle continues… we want a free democracy for our peoples, with us-- the women who have been part of this fight for national justice, for local justice, who seek the right to the common good. The state says ‘Here come the women, they don’t know how to read or write, they don’t even know what the State is.’ Of course we know what the State is, but who chooses it, who runs it? They do.

“Now we succeeded in defending our country, but we’re going to continue to organize to show that we are capable of defending our rights,” she concluded.

The power of women working together

The delegation promised to carry the words of Guatemalan activists into international forums. The last day, Nobel Prize winner Jody Williams told a prominent group of Ambassadors and heads of multilateral organizations,

The women we talked to are extremely interested in seeing the law changed. They worry about the megaprojects. They want studies of ecological impacts and consultations. They don’t want promises without results, words without actions, they want the state to provide resources for women… and a world where women do not have to worry every time they walk out of their houses that they might be raped or killed.

Guatemalan organizations note that they played the leading role, but that the international community played a supporting role in the defense of democracy. Countries, including the United States, which has historically supported coups and upheld genocidal dictatorships in Guatemala, immediately congratulated the president-elect and denounced the pseudo-judicial moves to prevent him from taking office. The OAS and European Union called for respect for the vote and many nations issued stern declarations and imposed sanctions against Attorney General Porras and her cohorts. When it became clear that the ruling regime was isolated in both the national and international sphere, it could not block the transition of power. Civil society organizations around the world also mobilized to pressure their governments to firmly reject all efforts to undermine democracy in Guatemala, and to support the nonviolent resistance.

More than solidarity, women are building a relationship of mutual benefit in difficult times.

International vigilance and solidarity continue to play a role. “This isn’t struggle for foreigners, it´s a struggle for here—to open the doors for dignifying our lives, for the defense of human rights by our own means, but the upholding the legitimate role of the women leaders, of the social organizations, must be on everyone’s agenda,” Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu said at the delegation’s closing press conference.

More than solidarity, women are building a relationship of mutual benefit in difficult times. While Guatemalan indigenous leaders seek global alliances to face down the economic and political forces against them that are more threatening than ever, the international feminist activists know that Guatemalan women have set an example for the world that holds important lessons for confronting rising authoritarianism and patriarchal violence everywhere.

Months after the historic inauguration, the conservative forces of the Pact of the Corrupt have launched a series of actions that directly threaten the new government’s hold on power. The people continue to hold high expectations for real change, but that demands round-the-clock vigilance to hold back the offensive from the right, and to strengthen the ties and commitments forged in the 106 days of resistance.