ABSTRACT
Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC) was born in southern Quiche, around the department capital of Santa Cruz. The idea was to revitalize long-neglected parishes by weaning Mayas from folk Catholicism and training them to be catechists. But soon catechists became involved in organizing cooperatives and running for political office. In February 1980, just after the Spanish embassy fire, CUC set off an unprecedented wave of strikes on the Pacific coast. The cotton and sugar harvests were stopped in their tracks. However, Vicente and his family were involved with other organizations to which Rigoberta Menchu does not refer, apparently because they would be difficult to reconcile with her version of events. The reference to “some Europeans” sounds like a veiled reference to a program in which the Menchús were enthusiastic participants. Dr. Carroll Behrhorst was a Lutheran medical missionary from Kansas, so well known that he was regarded as Guatemala’s answer to Albert Schweitzer.
