Throughout the description of the climate of violence In this chapter, war has been repeatedly mentioned. In those countries where warlike conflicts occur, population is directly or indirectly involved, even when fighting is mostly concentrated in rural areas. War is lived through actions of death squads, governmental regular army, "contra"-revolutionary5ia groups, and the popular military forces. But it is also felt through national budget restrictions to support the army, damage to infrastructure, economical strain due to the decrease in the productive apparatus, etc. As it has been mentioned in the first chapter, Latin America is under a "total war" sustained by the doctrine of W ar of Low Intensity, which covers the military, economic, political, ideological, and religious fields.
50 Alicia Partnoy, editor: You can^t drown the fire - Latin American Women Writing in Exile, Cleis Press, San Francisco, 1988.
51a The m ilitaiy forces financed and advised by the United States to pull down the Nicaraguan government are called "contras", or
"contrarrevolucionarios", which means contrary to revolution.
For the purposes of analysis, reference will be made here to warlike actions, in order to estimate the consequences on children. Many aspects have been already mentioned, especially in the sections of imprisoning and exile. The intention is to determine with precision particular aspects of this kind of violence.
Warlike conflicts are present with greater intensity in Central America, Colombia, Peru, Haiti, and Bolivia. War has caused in small countries of Central America around 200.000 casualties, two million refugees and an economic setback to standards of living of the 50's or 60's.5ib in Guatemala alone, a country with approximately eight million inhabitants - 3 .8 million of them children under 16 year-, estimations of orphans resulting from the violence are around 200.000 for the period between 1976-1986.52 In El Salvador, the war has caused in the last five years casualties near to 50.000, economic losses of about 1.200 millions of US dollars, and 90.000 homes destroyed. In Nicaragua, in the war to overthrow the dictatorship (between 1977 and 1979), around other 50.000 people died. In the new war Nicaraguans are fighting, other 32.290 casualties have occurred, and economic losses of about 1.979 million US d o l l a r s . 5 3
In Guatemala, a country predominantly i n d i g e n o u s , 5 4 life has
completely changed for children living in the highlands, by reason of the destruction of their towns and the massacres led by governmental military forces, especially during 1981-1983. The military offensive, denominated "Operation Ashes" has been
61b a Raul Vergara Meneses, et. al.: Op» C it, p. 11. 52 Roger Plant, Op» Cit., p. 4.
53 Gabriel Aguilera: E l Fusil y el Olivo - La cuestiôn militar en Centroamérica. DEI-FLACSO, San José., 1989.
54 Guatemala has 22 indigenous ethnic groups descendant from ancient Mayas, a well developed civilization when Spaniards arrived in America. After five centuries, these groups have been able to conserve their cultural traditions and different languages.
described as ethnocidal, because beyond the criminal objectives, it had the intention of destroying the habitat which is very Important for indigenous culture, and altering social life, and cultural and religious beliefs of the people that they have tried to keep so carefully for centuries. The military government created what have been called "Polos de Desarrollo" (Poles of Development), which are sorts of concentration camps, where a sector of indigenous population was slowly transferred. The rest of the affected population fled and hid in the mountains. The population crowded in these camps receive a systematic Ideological, cultural and religious indoctrination, changing indigenous language, clothes and habitat into Western style.55
The ethnocidal activities that the Guatemalan government are handling is another face of the war. Indigenous children are no longer allowed to inherit their parents' culture which has a marked collective way of living. A sample of this is that orphan indigenous children (who are the majority) are taken up by relatives or the community and brought up as members of their own family.56
Displaced children reside temporarily with their families in the corrugated iron huts of relatives until they construct a similar hut in a vacant plot nearby and enter the informal urban economy. These shanty-towns lack the most fundamental services. Even when this migration phenomenon to urban areas is shared in all Latin America for economic reasons, In countries where warlike conflicts prevail, its occurrence is enormous. This is mainly seen in Guatemala and El Salvador.
The secondary consequences of war have no comparison with the immediate experiences that children have experienced in the war front. The cruelty perpetrated by regular military forces is
55 Raul Veigara Meneses: Op. Cit., p. 57-60. 56 Roger Plant, Op. Cit., p. 5.
Intolerable. Horrendous eye-witness describe deliberate slaughter of children, or slaughter of parents in front of their children. In Guatemala children have been used for practice shooting to targets. In other circumstances babies have been killed striking their heads on rocks in order to avoid bullet wastage. Others are savagely tortured, mutilated or burned.
Respect for human rights in Guatemala and El Salvador have not improved in despite of the governm ents reports. Disappearances occur daily, bodies of kidnapped and murdered people are left on the streets, youngsters are kept in prison without trial, etc. Indiscriminate bombing of civilian occupied zones are still practiced, although if reached its peak as in 1982 to 1984 in El Salvador, and 1981-1983 in Guatemala. On the other hand, both regular army and popular forces are blamed for recruiting young boys.
It is impossible to untie the specific consequences of war on children, because this is a collective problem. But among all individuals affected, defencelessness of children emerges and places them again in the priority order. Psychological works that have being performed in El Salvador and Guatemala report that the damage is greater in elder children. What they have seen and lived is a nightmare that will come back for many nights. Yet these are traumas at the personal level. The drama of thousands of children living in deplorable conditions for because of the war will reflect in the coming years.
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The above description of the climate of violence where Latin American children live covers an ample spectrum of the term violence. There it is referred to as "the lack of... for the good of...", or "the aggression by... for the bad of...". Violence is considered as all that which attempts to work against a healthy human development of children: it could be total lack of, scarcity, deprivation of, despoilment of, marginalization from, etc. All these terms could be connected with the most essential basic needs children demand for the complete development of their potentiality. So, violence here is not only interpreted as an act of commission but as an act of omission as well.
It could be asked what are they, these essential needs for a plentiful human development. Indeed there are many definitions for this question. But from the perspective of the Latin American context, the essential needs are the basic ones, which can be condensed in one word: life. Not only the right to exist in some extreme cases, but a human quality of life.
There is no pretension to make an accurate analysis on how violence develops and affects children. This would require a prolonged longitudinal study of a given sample. Attempts will be made to highlight some characteristics of the life of Latin American children that certainly affect their development, in a way that they become objects and subjects of violence.