We have learned that change cannot come through war. War is not a feasible tool to use in fighting against the oppression we face. War has caused more problems. We cannot embrace that path.

The media and politics have never allowed our people to speak through them. The absolute marginalization of the indigenous peoples is a fact, as is sophisticated militarization. These have been the most significant ingredients in the silent war.

I think that nonviolence is one way of saying that there are other ways to solve problems, not only through weapons and war. Nonviolence also means the recognition that the person on one side of the trench and the person on the other side of the trench are both human beings, with the same faculties. At some point they have to begin to understand one another.

... our reality teaches us that, as Christians, we must create a Church of the poor, that we don't need a Church imposed from outside which knows nothing of hunger.

The inaction of the international community towards Guatemala is injustifiable. The community should play an active role with concrete measures and sanctions imposed, as was the case in South Africa, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Haiti. Why for us no? Why legalize death in one place and somewhere else no? This is clear in our memories.

I wish that a conscious sense of peace and a feeling of human solidarity would develop in all peoples.

Not even anthropologists or intellectuals, no matter how many books they have, can find out all our secrets.