Ixil people

Ixil

Ixil people at a festival in Nebaj, Guatemala.
Total population
95,315[1]
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Ixil, Spanish
Religion
Catholic, Evangelical, Maya religion

The Ixil (pronounced [ɪ̆ʃɪ̆l]) are a Maya people indigenous to Guatemala. The Ixil live in three municipalities in the Cuchumatanes mountains in the northern part of the department El Quiché. These municipalities, also known as the Ixil Triangle, are Santa Maria Nebaj, San Gaspar Chajul, and San Juan Cotzal.

In the early eighties, the Ixil Community was one of the principal targets of a genocide operation, involving systematic rape, forced displacements and hunger during the Guatemalan civil war. In May 2013 Efraín Ríos Montt was found guilty by a Guatemala court of having ordered the deaths of 1,771 Ixil people. The presiding judge, Jazmin Barrios, declared that "The Ixils were considered public enemies of the state and were also victims of racism, considered an inferior race'.^[2] According to a 1999 United Nations truth commission, between 70 and 90% of Ixil villages were razed and 60% of the population in the altiplano region were forced to flee to the mountains between 1982 and 1983. By 1996, it was estimated that some 7,000 Maya Ixil had been killed.^[3] The violence was particularly heightened during the period 1979–1985 as successive Guatemalan administrations and the military pursued an indiscriminate scorched-earth (in Spanish: tierra arrasada) policy.^[4]

In 2013, General Efraín Ríos Montt, who served as President of Guatemala from 1982 to 1983, was found guilty of genocide against the Ixil people.^[5]

See also

• Ixil language

Notes

1. "XI Censo Nacional de Población y VI de Habitación (Censo 2002) - Pertenencia de grupo étnico". Instituto Nacional de Estadística. 2002. Archived from the original on 12 June 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-27.
2. 'Guatemala's Rios-Montt found guilty of genocide,' at BBC News. 11 May 2013
3. Laura Myers, 'View from Chajul: The Rios Montt Genocide Trial,' at The Globalist, 15 May 2013.
4. See the section "Agudización de la violencia y militarización del Estado (1979-1985)" of CEH's report (CEH 1999, ch. 1). In particular, see para. 361, which records of the Guatemalan governments at the time that "...le dio continuidad a la estrategia de tierra arrasada, destruyendo cientos de aldeas, principalmente en el altiplano, y provocando un desplazamiento masivo de la población civil que habitaba las áreas de conflicto."
5. Malkin, Elisabeth (10 May 2013). "Former Leader of Guatemala Is Guilty of Genocide Against Mayan Group". New York Times. Retrieved 10 May 2013.

References

CEH [Comisión de Esclarecimiento Histórico] (1999). Guatemala, Memoria del silencio = Tz'inil na'tab'al (online reproduction by the Science and Human Rights Program of the AAAS) (in Spanish). Guatemala City: CEH. ISBN 99922-54-00-9. OCLC 47279275. Retrieved 2008-12-12. Check |author-last1= value (help)

Colby, Benjamin N. (January 1976). "The Anomalous Ixil - Bypassed by the Postclassic?". American Antiquity (Menasha, WI: Society for American Archaeology) 41 (1): 74–80. doi:10.2307/279043. ISSN 0002-7316. JSTOR 279043. OCLC 1479302.

Colby, Benjamin N.; Lore M. Colby (1981). The Daykeeper: The Life and Discourse of an Ixil Diviner. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-19409-8. OCLC 7197630.

Colby, Benjamin N.; Pierre L. Van Den Berghe (1969). Ixil Country: A Plural Society in Highland Guatemala. Berkeley: University of California Press. OCLC 23254. Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)