2010-02. In Memory of our Martyrs and the Bloodshed in Comalapa

San Juan Comalapa. Chimaltenango, Guatemala.
February 24th, 2010.
Issue: Postwar / Historical Memory

The National Coordination of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA) inaugurates a small memorial chapel in the former military garrison of San Juan Comalapa, as part of the commemorations held during this year’s National Day for the Dignity of the Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict. The structure, named Nimajay or big house in the local Maya Kakchiquel language, will serve as a place to honor the victims of the State-perpetrated genocide.

Multimedia presentation with photographs and music recorded during the commemoration.

Between 2003 and 2004, CONAVIGUA organized 49 exhumations in Comalapa’s former military garrison. This long and arduous process gave way to the retrieval of the remains of 179 wartime victims.

For more information, please view the following photo essay:
Day of the Dead in Comalapa

Born and raised in Comalapa, CONAVIGUA’s director Rosalina Tuyuc (right) endured the forced disappearance of her father Javier Tuyuc in 1982. Three years later, her first husband, Rolando Gómez, suffered the same fate as her father.

Thirty years later, it is still painful for Filomena Cúmez to remember her son Álvaro Adolfo Cúmez, disappeared on July 26, 1980.

Angelica Chalí displays a photograph of her grandfather Benedicto Chalí, victim of an extrajudicial execution on April 24, 1981.

Griselda Kiná holds an image where Felipe Chalí, her disappeared father in-law, appears.

Alberta Osorio holds a photograph of her father Agustin Osorio, abducted and disappeared by the Guatemalan Armed Forces on July 23, 1983.

The Poyón Cúmez family with an image of the late husband, father and grandfather Felipe Poyón Saquiquel, forcibly disappeared by the Armed Forces on May 8, 1981.

Julia Cúmez, daughter of Felipe Poyón Saquiquel, states: “Even though the remains of many of the victims, including my father, were not found in the former military garrison, this Nimajay is a symbol in honor of all those who were forcibly disappeared and executed. Now we have a little place where we can bring them a flower and remember them.”

“In memory of the dignity of the victims of genocide. CONAVIGUA is present”

Version en español aquí.