Man we called Juan Carlos: filmmaker Heather MacAndrew looks at the remarkable life of a Guatemalan peasant turned Mayan activist and priest

New Internationalist, April, 2000 by Heather MacAndrew

A few months after the 1976 earthquake in Guatemala my partner David Springbett travelled to one of the hardest-hit villages to shoot a documentary for Canadian television.

In San Martin Jilotepeque, a town in the Guatemalan highlands, David visited a project begun four years earlier by a small development agency called World Neighbors. The initial goal of the project was to improve soil and grow better maize. And on that level it was a resounding success: in just his second year with the program, one farmer, Wenceslao Armira, harvested 16 times more maize from his field than his family had ever grown before. But the ultimate goal was to help eliminate poverty. Classes in nutrition, literacy and maternal and child health followed. Gradually people began to take more control of their lives, to work their way out of poverty and malnutrition. Some of the teachers became community leaders. Wenceslao Armira was one of them.

As word of the program's success spread, development workers from around the world visited. Some even sat in on Wenceslao's classes. Then in 1974 World Neighbors purchased 60 hectares of local land and sold it on credit to landless families in the community. With improved harvests the former landless peasants could now repay their loans. They became independent farmers rather than dependent farm labourers. Life was changing in this mainly Mayan part of rural Guatemala -- conflict with existing power structures was growing as was resentment I from local elites who benefited from a landless labour force to work their vast plantations.

We came to Guatemala to make a film that would distinguish between emergency relief after the earthquake and long-term development efforts. People respond emotionally to the drama of a televised natural disaster. But the concept of long-term development is not as easy to explain or to sell. We quickly found the San Martin project, and Wenceslao Armira was suggested as a good person to interview.

He was reluctant at first, uncomfortable because of the attention his participation in the film might draw. But, after some explanation of our goal, he eventually agreed. The community asked only that we change his name, along with the names of other key people. As later events showed, they had good reason to be nervous.

In the film Wenceslao was known as `Juan Carlos'. He had a presence, a quiet confidence and intelligence that made him stand apart. If there is such a thing as a natural leader he was one. His community recognized this and so did the Canadian television audience who saw the film. And, inevitably, so did the Guatemalan authorities.

We eventually sent a print of the film to San Martin. We didn't know until much later that Wenceslao had used it in his work. Showing films, awkward as it was without electricity, was a way to attract audiences to his classes. For local people it was a revelation to see people in a film speaking their language, Kachiquel. But some of the ladinos (wealthy land owners of European descent) resented the fact that a local Indian was in a foreign film. The film raised Wenceslao's profile considerably.

As political oppression grew in Central America in the 1980s we read and heard reports about Honduras and E1 Salvador, and occasionally about Guatemala. The news was not good. Eventually we began to get detailed news of San Martin and Wenceslao -- stories of violence and murder.

In the winter of 1984 friends of Wenceslao called to tell us that he had joined one of the guerrilla groups and was living in exile in Mexico. Despite the risk he wanted his side of the Guatemalan conflict told and he was willing to talk on camera. Unlike the obvious damage of an earthquake, the devastation of Guatemala's civil war was largely invisible to the rest of the world.

When we met him in Mexico he was heavier, greyer and older. Seated in a chair, using straightforward language, he talked to our camera about poverty and power as he and his community felt it. He was a Catholic, a development worker and teacher. But in the face of increased brutality from the Guatemalan army, he felt that taking up arms was the only option. It was a painful decision, one he agonized over and discussed at length with his family. And the personal price was high. It meant separating from his wife and five children, putting them in a `safe house' in Guatemala City and living from a backpack in the Peten jungle for 15 long, tough years.

Back at our home in Toronto we tried to combine the Mexican interview with our nine-year-old footage into a new film. Despite the obvious drama to us, it was a hard sell. Neither broadcasters nor development agencies were interested and in the end we were unable to raise enough money to finish this film.

Fast-forward ten years to 1994. We made contact again. Wenceslao was alive and in hiding, but two of his children, Juanito 12 and Quirina 15, had been tortured and killed by the Guatemalan military. His wife Guaya, blaming Wenceslao for their deaths, had broken off their relationship.