Document #1137555
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
Information on the Cakchiquel linguistic
group can be found in the attached documents. These attachments
show the general distribution of Cakchiquel groups in Guatemala and
briefly describe their society.
An excerpt from the New Encyclopaedia
Britannica provides the following information:
Cakchiquel, Mayan Indian people of the
mid-western highlands of Guatemala, closely related linguistically
and culturally to the neighbouring Quiché and Tzutujil. They
are agricultural, and their culture and religion are fusions of
Spanish and Mayan elements. The sharing of a common language does
not provide a basis for ethnic identification among the
Cakchiquels; the Indians themselves, like other Mayan peoples of
the region, are organized into municipios (communities, or
counties), and the people identify themselves with their own
municipio. Each community usually speaks its own dialect of
Cakchiquel, which is mutually intelligible with other dialects of
Cakchiquel and is partly intelligible with Quiché and
Tzutujil. Each community also has its own political and religious
hierarchy, local costume, patron saints, and economic specialty.
Often, marriage outside the municipio is considered improper
(1989 Vol. 2, 728).
One section of the New Encyclopaedia
Britannica refers to the Cakchiquel calendar (1989 Vol. 20,
652-53), while another discusses the Quiché people, language
and region (ibid. Vol. 9, 857). Another attachment mentions the
political, religious and educational development of indigenous
people in Guatemala, including the Cakchiquel, since the 1970s
(Harvest of Violence 1988, 177-79). The latter states, in
its only specific reference to the Cakchiquel, that
as a result of these developments, by 1976
more and more young Indian men and women were making the jump from
the thatched hut to the university. Cakchiquel Indians from
Tecpán were employed as high school principals and as
accountants with IBM... (ibid., 177).
Numerous sources report various abuses
carried out by the armed forces against members of indigenous
communities over the years. Given the extent of the available
literature on human rights in Guatemala, only information
pertaining to 1995 was researched for this Response. Although the
sources consulted describeas "indigenous" or "indian" many of the
victims of abuses attributed to members or units of the armed
forces, no specific references to members of the Cakchiquel
linguistic group could be found. The Human Rights Watch World
Report 1996, describing the victims of abuses (not necessarily
perpetrated by members of the armed forces), states that "the
victims included students and teachers, trade unionists, human
rights workers, peasant activists, individuals resisting
participation in army-organized civil patrols, and common
criminals" (1996, 94). This and the other sources consulted (see
list below) do not refer to the Cakchiquel linguistic group as a
whole being targeted for a particular treatment by the armed forces
in 1995.
This Response was prepared after
researching publicly accessible information currently available to
the DIRB within time constraints. This Response is not, and does
not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular
claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below a list of
sources consulted in researching this Information Request.
References
Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians
and the Guatemalan Crisis. 1988. Edited by Robert M. Carmack.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Human Rights Watch (HRW). 1996. Human
Rights Watch World Report 1996. New York: Human Rights
Watch.
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica.
1989. 15th ed. Vols. 2, 9, 20. Edited by Philip W. Goetz. Chicago:
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Attachments
Barry, Tom. 1992. Inside
Guatemala. Albuquerque, New Mex.: The Inter-Hemispheric
Education Resource Center, pp. 220-31.
Cultural Survival Quarterly
[Boston]. Vol. 13, No. 3, 1989. Will V. Davidson and Melanie A.
Counce. "Mapping the Distribution of Indians in Central America,"
pp. 38-39.
Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians
and the Guatemalan Crisis. 1988. Edited by Robert M. Carmack.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pp. 177-79.
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica.
1989. 15th ed. Edited by Philip W. Goetz. Chicago: Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Vol. 2, p. 728; Vol. 9, p. 857; Vol. 20, pp.
652-53.
Wearne, Phillip and Peter Calvert.
December 1989. The Maya of Guatemala. London: Minority
Rights Group, pp. 7-25, 27-29.
Additional Sources Consulted
Amnesty International Report.
Yearly.
Central America NewsPak [Austin,
Tex.]. Fortnightly.
Central America Report
[Guatemala]. Weekly.
Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices. Yearly. U.S. Department of State. Washington: U.S.
Government Printing Office.
Critique: Review of the Department of
State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Yearly. New
York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
Guatemala Human Rights Bulletin
[Washington, DC]. Quarterly.
Guatemala Human Rights Update
[Washington, DC]. Weekly.
News from Human Rights
Watch/Americas [New York]. Monthly.
Latinamerica Press [Lima].
Weekly.
Latin American Weekly Report
[London]. Weekly.
Latin American Regional Reports:
Central America & the Caribbean [London]. Monthly.
Material from the Indexed Media
Review (IMR) or country files containing articles and reports
from diverse sources (primarily dailies and periodicals) from the
Weekly Media Review.
Newspapers and periodicals pertaining to
the appropriate region.
Comisión para la Defensa de los
Derechos Humanos en Centro América (CODEHUCA), San
José.
Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA,
Washington, DC.
IRB, USINS and UNHCR databases.
On-line searches of news articles.
Note on oral sources:
Oral sources are usually contacted when
documentary sources have been exhausted. However, oral sources must
agree to be quoted in a publicly available Response to
Information Request. If they refuse, the Response will read "no
information currently available." Contacting oral sources is also
subject to time constraints; for example, there are periods of the
year when academics are unavailable.
Note:
This list is not exhaustive.
Country-specific books available in the Resource Centre are not
included.