In a 1997 interview, Marshall Bennett Connelly cited the attacks on the Church in El Quiché, Guatemala (1980), and the massacres at the Spanish Embassy (1980), in Panzós (1978), and in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala (1989), as the primary influences on his writing Requiem Guatemala. A historical novel set at the close of the thirty-seven year long civil war, Requiem Guatemala follows the affects of a war that left 200,000 people dead, more than 50,000 "disappeared," and 1 million people homeless.  

The following excerpt has been selected from the autobiography of Guatemalan human rights leader, Rigoberta Menchú Túm, recipient of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. It recalls the horrific assassination of her father, Vincente, following his murder in the Spanish Embassy massacre on January 31, 1980, in Guatemala City. A Mayan activist and community organizer, her father had led the first indigenous protest against the seizures of Maya towns and land by the Guatemalan military.  

This passage is offered as additional context or background for better understanding the history of the period from which Connelly develops Requiem Guatemala.  

My mother was kidnapped. And from the very beginning she was raped by the town's high-ranking army officers. And I want to say in advance that I have in my hands details of every step of the rape and torture suffered by my mother. I don't want to reveal too many things because it will implicate some compañeros who are still doing their work very well. My mother was raped by her kidnappers, and after that they took her down to the camp--a camp called Chajup which means "under the cliff." They have a lot of pits there where my little brother was tortured as well. They took my mother to the same place. There she was raped by the officers commanding the troops.  

After that she was subjected to terrible tortures. The first day they shaved her head, put a uniform on her and then they said: "If you're a guerrilla why don't you fight us here." But my mother said nothing. While they beat her, they asked her where we were, and said that if she made a confession, they'd let her go. But my mother knew very well that they did that so that they could torture her other children and would never let her go. She pretended she knew nothing. She defended every one of us until the end.  

On the third day of her toture, they cut off her ears. They cut her whole body bit by bit. They began with small tortures, small beatings and worked up to terrible tortures. The first tortures she's received became infected. It was her turn to suffer the terrible pain her son had suffered too. They tortured her the whole time and didn't give her any food for many days. From the pain, from the torture all over her body, disfigured and starving, my mother began to lose consciousness and was in her death throes.  

Then the officer in  charge sent for the medical team they have in the army and they gave her injections and enough serum to revive her, to bring her back to life again. They gave her medicine, they looked after her well, and found a place for her where she was treated well. When she was a little better, well, of course, she asked for food. They gave her food. Then they started raping her again. She was disfigured by those same officers. She endured a great deal, but she didn't die.  

When my mother was on the point of dying again, they sent us messages by all sorts of methods. They took my mother's clothes to the town hall in Uspantán. They exhibited it to prove to us that she was in their hands. We sent certain people to investigate what was happening to her and they said that we should go, that my mother was still alive, that she was in their hands and they were torturing her. She needed to see one of her children. It was like that, the whole time. We'd lost my little brother, but I didn't know if my little sister had been captured with my mother or if she was doing other things. No one knew.  

It was very painful for me to accept that my mother was being tortured and not to know anything about the rest of the family. None of us presented ourselves. Least of all my brothers. I was able to contact one of my brothers and he told me not to put my life in danger, that they were going to kill my mother anyway and would kill us too. We have to keep this grief as a testimony to them because they never exposed their lives even when their grief was great too. And so we had to accept that my mother was going to die anyway.  

When they saw that none of her children were coming down to collect my mother's clothes, the army took her to a place near the town where it is very hilly. It was my hope that my mother would die surrounded by the nature she so loved. They put her under a tree and left her there, alive but dying. They didn't let my mother turn over, and her face was so disfigured, cut and infected; she could barely make any movement by herself. 

They left her there dying for four or five days, enduring the sun, the rain and the night. My mother was covered in worms, because in the mountains there is a fly which gets straight into any wound, and if the wound isn't tended in two days, there are worms where the fly has been. Since all my mother's wounds were open, there were worms in all of them. She was still alive.  

My mother died in terrible agony. When my mother died, the soldiers stood over her and urinated in her mouth; even after she was dead! They left  a permanent sentry there to guard her body so that no-one could take it away, not even what was left of it. The soldiers were there right by her body, and they could smell my mother when she started to smell very strongly. They were there right by her; they ate near her, and, if the animals will excuse me, I believe not even animals act like that, like those savages in the army.  

After that, my mother was eaten by animals; by dogs, by all the zopilotes there are around there, and other animals helped too. They stayed for four months, until they saw that not a bit of my mother was left, not even her bones, and then they went away.  

Of course, it was dreadful for us when we knew my mother was dying in agony. But afterwards, when she was dead . . . naturally we weren't pleased because no human being is happy about that . . . but all the same, we were relieved to know my mother wasn't suffering any longer. She'd gone through so much torment that the one thing we wanted most was for them to kill her quickly, that she should live no longer.  

(pages 198-200) 

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