WAR IN PEACE
by corinna milborn

In the first ten minutes of "Evolution of Violence" several murders are shown. One crime scene after another: A young man, a child, a young woman: Nothing but corpses or shapes in body bags behind striped tape are visible. A journalist, after reporting on murders throughout his career, has become a victim himself. Demonstrators for increased public safety turn into a lynch mob. This is too much for the police to handle. The first part of the film is like a news report from Guatemala, a country where murder is an everyday occurrence and rarely results in consequences, a normal part of daily life. The victim's family and friends at the crime scenes cry and wail, while everyone else goes about their job, unimpressed, or looks on indifferently. A mother watching a body being removed must be told to take her children away. She merely moves a few steps to the side, and the youngsters with her continue to stare at the body. The journalist who had just interviewed some of the bereaved says to the camera with smile, "This is a great job." And then, "If you study journalism, you know what you're getting into."
In the density of "Evolution of Violence", a portrait is painted of a society rife with violence, every day and everywhere. The initial reaction it produces is stunned disbelief. Then digging for the roots begins: In therapeutic workshops for women, in the words of lawyers who fight for the punishment of violent crime, and finally in interviews with members of the indigenous population in the mountains and former members of the army, the source of this violence becomes increasingly clear. In a society with centuries of repression and a 36-year civil war in its past, human life is not worth a great deal.

The deepest wounds were made during the country's recent history. The USA has exercised a great amount of influence on this small Latin American country since it won its independence. The United Fruit Company, which controlled large portions of the country, treated the government like a personal servant. For the short span of ten years the company's power was interrupted: In 1944 a coup brought democracy and civil rights. The new government wanted to initiate sweeping land reform, in which unused plots were to be confiscated and given to landless farmers. But this period came to an end in the spring of 1954: The CIA and the United Fruit Company orchestrated a second coup, which was followed by military dictators, persecution and finally a civil war. From 1960 to 1996 four groups of leftist guerrillas fought the military dictatorships, which were increasingly brutal. The climax of the violence occurred in the early 1980s when dictator and sect leader Ríos Montt practiced scorched earth warfare on extensive areas of the country. Hundreds of thousands were butchered, and similar numbers fled into the mountains or to Mexico. The guerillas were never defeated, and the fighting ended after a peace accord in 1996. The violence, however, continued: At present more people die violent deaths annually than in some years of the civil war. And the violence can now come from anywhere: former soldiers, police officers who fatten their salaries as gang leaders, sexual violence, murders of women, kidnappings and spontaneous murders - no one is truly safe, nowhere and at no time of day. The violence has deep roots in the country's society - and it's being passed on to the next generation.

The reason for this most probably lies in the inconceivable brutality of the conflict, which has never really been brought to a close. The Catholic Church's report entitled "Memoria Historica," which includes reports from victims and perpetrators put together in the late 1990s, provides a partial look at what the country has been through: Not only the victims have been seriously traumatized by the massacres they witnessed, or experienced brutal torture. Many perpetrators suffer from serious post-traumatic disorders also. Both sides are given a chance to tell their stories in "Evolution of Violence": A weeping Maya villager talks about the day his parents were murdered, when he and his brothers and sisters were shut up inside a hut - which was then set on fire by soldiers. A former member of the army also

speaks, describing how, as a young recruit, he was forced to cut out an alleged rebel's heart. He tells us about the present he was given after completing his basic training: a 15-year-old girl that the troops were permitted to rape.
What's left is a society with an enormous collective trauma that was never worked out after the war ended. The government in place during the final years of fighting remained in power. The next elections, while fairer than the one that preceded them, were still far from true democratic standards. Even the horrors of the civil war were never really scrutinized officially: While eyewitness accounts of the massacre were taken down, mass graves were exhumed and ceremonies were held, all that was done by civil-society organizations and the church. The perpetrators were never held responsible for their actions. Human-rights activists who protested disappeared and were later found dead. The lives of government critics were in just as much danger as during the war - although the guerrillas had reformed into a normal political party. The dictators and generals of the past remained honored members of society: Ríos Montt, the strong man who had 400 villages destroyed and their residents exterminated in the 1980s, ran for public office again and is currently a member of Congress.

These traumas and the general atmosphere in which violent crime goes unpunished are at the root of the violence depicted so dramatically in "Evolution of Violence." Interviews and critics will sum up an analysis of the issues - and individuals engaged in a struggle against the situation will also be portrayed: such as a social worker who represents victims and their families in court. And a therapist who works with groups of traumatized women - and also deals with the country's past. They don't offer a solution: Collective trauma therapy would probably be necessary, rebuilding the government from the ground up, initiating legal proceedings against those responsible for the massacres, and thoroughly weeding out corruption. But none of that will happen soon - and the film offers no reason for high hopes: Near the conclusion
two journalists talk in view of Guatemala City's dump and the hundreds of garbage pickers there, discussing cases of unidentified bodies being unceremoniously disposed of on piles of trash. Then they go to the next murder scene while loudly singing "Funky Town." They're accustomed to the violence - which is part of everyday life in Guatemala.