Join the Guatemala Accompaniment Project
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Introduction to G.A.P.

The Guatemala Accompaniment Project (G.A.P.) is one of NISGUA’s most called-for programs in Guatemala. Through G.A.P., NISGUA recruits and trains about a dozen U.S. accompaniers each year. We accompany: (1) witnesses involved in national and international legal cases charging former officials with genocide and crimes against humanity; (2) community groups, leaders, and activists working to defend their rights in the face of natural resource extraction; and (3) other threatened human rights defenders (individuals, communities, and organizations) on an as-needed basis.

Read on to learn more.

What is accompaniment?
NISGUA is one of many organizations around the world that employs accompaniment as a vital tool in the global struggle for the respect of human rights. In the Guatemalan context, accompaniment creates a non-violent response to the threats, harassment, and violence faced by survivors of Guatemala’s 36-year-long civil war and grassroots organizations working for justice and human rights. To this end, NISGUA’s Guatemala Accompaniment Project (G.A.P.) places long-term volunteers side-by-side with people in rural communities and with organizations in an effort to deter human rights violations. The dissuasive physical presence of these volunteers, known as accompaniers, provides a measure of security and creates space for Guatemalan communities and groups to organize in defense of their rights. Accompaniers also monitor and report on the human rights situation and alert the international community to abuses. In the U.S., ten G.A.P. Sponsoring Communities are committed to immediately responding to abuses and providing ongoing support to accompaniers.

Whom does G.A.P. accompany?

Association for Justice and Reconciliation: In 2000 and 2001, a courageous group of war survivors filed charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against former military dictators Efraín Ríos Montt and Romeo Lucas García and their military high commands in the Guatemalan court system. The witnesses in these cases formed the Association for Justice and Reconciliation and requested international accompaniment. G.A.P. has responded to this request with accompaniers in the Ixcán, Ixil, Rabinal, Chimaltenango and Huehuetango.

Groups organizing against resource extraction and mega-projects: In the last few years, in an intensifying climate of criminalization of social movements, imposition of mega-"development" projects, and growing grassroots efforts to defend economic, social, and cultural rights, G.A.P. has increased its accompaniment of community groups, organizations, and leaders under threat for their work defending socio-economic rights and environmental justice.

Other at-risk organizations, communities, and individuals: Since the beginning of 2000, threats and direct attacks have increased against Guatemalan labor unions, indigenous groups, exhumation teams, and other organizations working for justice and human rights. In response to this situation, G.A.P. initiated a team based in Guatemala City, with previous experience, to respond to short-term requests for accompaniment by organizations and individuals.

Why is accompaniment necessary?
In the early 1980s, the Guatemalan military combined urban repression with a rural counter-insurgency campaign that uprooted more than a million people – many of whom fled to neighboring Mexico – and led to an estimated 200,000 dead and disappeared. According to the independent Historical Clarification Commission, these actions constituted a campaign of genocide against Guatemala’s indigenous population.

In 1993, organized groups of refugees began returning home and internally displaced groups started to come out of hiding. Two years later, G.A.P. formed in response to requests from these returnees for trained international observers to accompany communities as they rebuilt after 36 years of violent civil war, which formally ended with the signing of peace accords in 1996.

As the returned communities grew stronger, the need for accompaniment diminished. At the same time, more individuals and organizations began stepping forward to denounce the atrocities of the past. In a deteriorating human rights climate, their actions put them at a high level of risk for human rights violations. Recognizing the dangers, members of communities and organizations involved in such efforts requested accompaniment, and G.A.P. responded by shifting our mandate to accompany them.

A continuing climate of impunity for crimes of the past combined with the impacts of imposed "development" projects and resource extraction have created a delicate human rights situation for the indigenous and rural areas that suffered the harshest impacts of the civil war.  In areas where G.A.P. has predominantly accompanied communities involved in the genocide cases, accompaniment has adjusted to better respond to requests for international presence as local communities organize against the threats of today.