Welsh-Latino Extravaganza
| June 30th, 2007
Archive for June, 2007
Mapping our global reality
| June 23rd, 2007Enter the world of map metrics- where maps truely speak louder than words. Contrast a couple of maps courteousy of Worldmapper.
Violent deaths -the violent deaths shown here are homicide (murder and manslaughter), but exclude deaths due to war. In 2002 over half a million people died violent deaths.
…and patents granted -in 2002, 312 thousand patents were granted around the world. More than a third of these were granted in Japan. Just under a third were granted in the United States.
Inequalities such as security and ownership between North and South, however used to living with their conceptual existence in the North- they're a bruising reality in the South. These maps convey this undeniable fact in an unmistakable and justifiably remorseless way.
I'm converted. I'm a believer.
Written by Kimberly Kern
Dear friends and family,
These last four months living in Guatemala and working as a human rights accompanier with the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) has already been an amazing experience. The relationships I have formed, with other accompaniers from around the world and especially the families of Santa Maria Tzejá (SMT) have opened my eyes and my heart. I hope that the stories, history and current political information that I send in these letters inspires y’all to action in the fight for justice, not just globally, but in your own communities where you see blatant injustice.
The Story of Marta
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with Marta about children and childbirth. The average age for a woman to become a mother here is 15, so obviously, a 27 year-old woman with no husband or children is very strange. Nine times she has experienced the excruciating pain of giving life, but today she only has seven children. When I asked what happened to them she told me her story¦one of many similar stories:
When the army came that day in 1982, we ran for our lives though the jungle¦ some people had no shoes¦ we couldn’t see anything in the dark¦ the branches tore our skin¦ but we couldn’t stop, it was life or death so we kept moving, she remembers.
For months and months, Marta and the group she travelled with roamed blindly through the mountains of northern Guatemala, escaping many close encounters with the army which was constantly hunting them. Most of the time, they had no idea which direction they were going.
After wandering for weeks and months, she remembers being at an encampment of people who saw the army coming and they decided to move the group, yet again. She was so weak, she couldn’t go.
I decided that I wouldn’t walk anymore¦ I couldn’t walk anymore¦ I was starving. I sat down on the ground with my two babies and said this is where I’m going to die, me and my babies.
She doesn’t know exactly what it was that made her lift herself up and keep moving, but she suddenly found the strength to keep going. The decision to flee to Mexico was a point of conflict among the wandering group. Many people thought the war would end soon or the army would give up searching for them. Many people suffered terribly and two of Marta’s children died in the mountains of malnutrition during those months of indecision.
Her strength to move forward, not just that day in the mountains, but her constant positive activity in her community, is an inspiration to me. She is a woman who was never given the opportunity to receive an education, so she cannot read or write. But she broke away from her expected role as a soft-spoken woman and mother and became a leader in her community. She says, I have a lot of opinions and think they should be heard. She is inspiring to other women in the community as well because she isn’t afraid to stand up and speak, something which she, as in indigenous woman, has worked to overcome her whole life.
Before the massacre, she was married to a man who was physically abusive and never let her get involved outside of their house. He was killed the day of the massacre and as a refugee in Mexico, Marta was introduced to a woman’s organization called Mama Maquin. From this experience, she brought back a wealth of knowledge to SMT and is a strong force in the woman’s union there. In Mexico, she also found a man who is extremely supportive of her community activity and she created a new life and a new family with him.
Rios Montt runs for Congress¦again
Unfortunately Rios Montt, a man who currently has an international genocide case against him in the Spanish Courts, registered to run for the Guatemalan Congress on May 18th. This, of course, is major news here on the ground and work will continue around the national cases against Rios Montt and his military high command. If you have not signed this letter to move the case forward, please take a moment of your time and sign it here.
If you have already signed, it would be helpful to send this link to five people that you think would like to support the people who suffered terribly during a brutal civil war and are fighting for justice.
Another interesting piece of news came out in the national newspaper, Prensa Libre, which undeniably links Rios Montt to several massacres that took place in 1982. This link, called Plan Sofia, is a military document that outlines the plans for the eradication of indigenous communities in the Quiché region of Guatemala. “The documents detailing Plan Sofia clearly illustrate an explicit chain of command, with Rios Montt at its head, through which orders of mass extermination were communicated at the height of the conflict” said Catherine Norris, an organizer with the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) in Washington D.C.
“Since the demands for justice from survivors have yet to compel the Guatemalan judicial system to prosecute those responsible for genocide, we hope such brazen documentation of planning and responsibility for atrocities will prove impossible to ignore and bolster the survivors' case,” Norris told Upside Down World. Another accompanier wrote a detailed article about this plan and the effects of this news on the case.
Consulta Comunitaria (Community Referendum)
On April 20th, a very interesting and exciting action took place here in the Ixcan region of Guatemala: a vote concerning the construction of new hydro-electric dams (namely the Xalala Dam) and the exploration and exploitation of oil by foreign interests. Since a majority of land is owned and utilized by indigenous communities in the Ixcan, a popular vote was taken to see if the people that would be most directly affected by these projects were in favor of them or not. After many information sessions and talk throughout the region, a vote was taken and 91% of the region said NO to the projects.
The day of the Consulta was an inspiring day for SMT. Everyone was very excited to be part of this historical process and have their voice heard. In Guatemala, the government never asks their opinion on anything, so this vote made them feel very empowered. I felt privileged to be present as an observer.
Semana Santa (Holy Week)
Semana Santa is extremely important here in Guatemala. In SMT, the students that are usually away studying high school or college all return for this one week festival extraordinaire. At first, when everyone was talking about Semana Santa, I thought it was going to be more of a party, but with religion so deeply intertwined in the local culture, I should have known better. I went to Catholic mass more times in the last month than in the last ten years. Other than going to mass and participating in processions of the Stations of the Cross, the two main traditions here in SMT are making bread and spending a day at the river. These two traditions also mirror the traditions of the church. Bread is made early in the week to eat during the time between Good Friday and Easter (many people in the states fast during this time). On Thursday (the Last Supper), everyone goes to the Tzeja River all day with their families and cooks enormous amounts of food.
On the Tuesday of Semana Santa, I was invited to make bread with a family. The bread is prepared in small portions with unique swirls or other decorations. At 7am we stared a fire inside a huge cob oven. It is about 10 feet high with a diameter of about 6 feet. While the oven heated, we mixed large amounts of flour and sugar in a wooden box about 8 feet long. The process, as many of you know, is a long one¦ the dough rises and gets kneaded again and again.
At 8am we started making little balls of dough that eventually turned into little decorative creations with the help of many women. By 10am the wood had become ash and coals inside the oven which was swept to the side to keep the heat in. The bread was put on metal pans and placed into the oven for about ten minutes. From the batch, we produced about 200 portions. The smell of fresh bread is only slightly beat by the taste. While we were outside baking the bread, another family had come to mix their own batch. Only three families have cob ovens, so they are shared with the neighbors.
The tradition is to eat the bread with honey, but there is also another topping called panela which is derived from sugar cane. I prefer the honey, myself.
On Thursday, we packed three horses with pots, pans, watermelons, food and hammocks and headed to the river to relax. When we got there around 8am, we gathered firewood and started making soup which cooked slowly all day. Until then, people ate bread and watermelon, fished in the river, swam and bathed, played games, listened to music and caught up with family member’s home for the holiday. I definitely missed my family a lot during this week, seeing all the smiling, laughing families together. But I am feeling more and more comfortable in SMT and have found people I consider friends to talk to about anything. I miss you all very much and talk about home considerably more than I should. Everyone just loves to hear about Texas¦ which they say, casi es Mexico(it’s basically Mexico.)
Peace,
Kimika
Background information
-Listen to Central America After The Wars – “Tale of One Village – Santa Maria Tzeja“
-Read more about the history of Santa Maria Tzeja in the book by Beatriz Manz, “Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror and Hope”, published by Berkeley 2004.
Photographing Guatemalan Personalities…
| June 17th, 2007This is just a brief post to herald the return to the blogosphere of Rob 'El Canche' Mercatante. It's great to see him posting again and has some great new photos from his work with the exciting new magazine project in Guatemala 'Este Pais'. In particular I really like the section on the Guatemalan personalities.
This is a recent press release from CIFCA about the current trade negotiations between the EU and Central American governments.
The European Union wants to accelerate the negotiation of an WTO Plus agreement with Central America
Oxfam International, the International Federation for Human Rights -FIDH-, the Coalition of the Flemish North-South Movement/-11.11.11-, the National Center of Cooperation for Development -CNCD/11.11.11-, Grupo Sur and the Copenhagen Initiative for Central America and Mexico -CIFCA-,
…we consider that the European Union doesn’t fulfill with its foreign relations duties that consists in promoting sustainable economical and social development for developing countries, fight against poverty – including the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)- established in the Article 177 of the Treaty on European Union and the European Consensus on Development of November 2005.
The European Union, on the initiative of the German presidency, has invited the Central American -CA- vice Ministers for Trade to come the next 15th of June in order to establish a dialogue with the European Commission, putting aside the previous requirements to establish a Central American trade and tariff barriers union, it seems that the EU would be satisfied with a mere framework agreement between the Central American Governments, to announce the starting of the negotiations of an EU-CA Association Agreement and a biregional Free-Trade Zone.
The EU, following its Global Europe: competing in the world strategy, includes through these Agreements the issues of investments, competition and government procurement – the so-called Singapore Issues-, as it has been made obvious with the exclusion of the explicit reference to the ILO Agreement n°169 on indigenous people that guaranty their autonomy and the obligation to consult them on policies or investments that could affect their rights, during the approbation by the Council of the EU of the negotiation mandate the last 23rd of April.
The E.U. is prioritizing the expansion of its own economic interests, setting apart an adequate acknowledgement of the asymmetries that would retain a correspondence with the reality of poverty and inequality that prevail in Central America. By this way, the Association Agreement will not contribute to reach Social Cohesion, considered as a priority for the EU cooperation strategy for the region.
The inclusion of the so-called Singapore Issues, excluded from the negotiations in the WTO since 2004, entails strict restrictions for each country to define its own development pattern, grants the European companies with the possibility to operate with the same equality conditions as local companies, putting the latest at a vulnerability level that brings effect on the development and the right to work at a national level ; shrinks the governmental capacity to guarantee the right to an healthy environment, the right to food and to ensure the right to health.
Moreover, the EU, with this kind of agreements would infringe the right to development of CA, and the adequate protection of its natural resources, it would affect the enjoyment of their rights by indigenous and afrodescendant people: it would affect the right of self-determination of the peoples to determine their own model of development.
In any case, and if the Agreement was to be negotiated, it should allow Central American countries and communities to preserve their sovereignty over their natural resources, including the continued use of restrictions on exports, investments and intellectual property rights claims. Therefore, legitimate domestic laws, regulations, policy instruments and standards aimed at protecting the environment and biodiversity, at promoting the sustainable use of natural resources or at preventing or mitigating global warming, should be excluded from the negotiations on ˜non-tariff barriers’.
For these reasons, as signing organizations, we urge the public opinion to ASK for the negotiations to be carried on in total transparency, substantial and relevant information, open participation of all the sectors that can be affected by the issues negotiated and reject contents and mechanisms that can violate human rights.
Local Referendum Rejects Mining in San Marcos, Guatemala
| June 14th, 2007Municipio de Ixchiguán, San Marcos – COMUNICADO
El pueblo Mam, somos uno de los pueblos mayas más grandes en cuanto a población y territorio, llevamos en nuestras tierras más de 5123 años, en los cuales hemos mantenido nuestra identidad y cosmovisión, que se refleja en el equilibrio en la relación armónica como personas humanas y todos los elementos de nuestra madre tierra.
En los últimos 514 años de nuestro caminar, hemos sufrido de prácticas de explotación, sometimiento, discriminación, racismo y exclusión constante, dando como resultado la situación actual de empobrecimiento en que nos encontramos. Esta situación se ha venido agravando con la implementación del modelo neoliberal, impuesto por los gobiernos de los paÃses industrializados a través de los tratados de libre comercio y los organismos financieros multinacionales como el Banco Mundial. El colmo es que el gobierno guatemalteco está implementando este modelo a través de polÃticas entreguistas como es el caso de la minerÃa quÃmica de metales, en donde grandes extensiones de nuestros territorios están concesionadas a empresas transnacionales mineras bajo el pretexto de inversión para el desarrollo.
Nosotros sabemos de los graves impactos que la minerÃa quÃmica de metales está provocando para los pueblos hermanos en muchas partes del mundo, en donde no solo se está saqueando su patrimonio natural sino también se está contaminando el aire, el agua, el suelo, las plantas y los animales.
Habiendo conocido las licencias mineras que el Ministerio de EnergÃa y Minas otorgó y sigue otorgando en nuestro territorio, nosotros, como personas comprometidas con el bienestar de las futuras generaciones, decidimos organizar la Consulta Comunitaria. El objetivo de este evento democrático es el ejercicio de nuestro derecho para hacer saber al gobierno de nuestra decisión conciente y libre sobre la actividad minera que se promueve en nuestro municipio.
El dÃa de hoy, 13 de junio de 2007, cuarenta y tres comunidades llevamos a cabo la consulta comunitaria, en donde participamos mujeres, hombres, niños, niñas, ancianos y ancianas. Con el resultado de la consulta dejamos patente nuestra decisión de NO aceptar que se desarrolle en nuestro municipio ningún proyecto de minerÃa quÃmica de metales. Por otro lado aprovechamos esta ocasión para exigirle al gobierno central que en lugar de su polÃtica insostenible pueda impulsar proyectos de desarrollo sostenible y sustentable.
IYOLIN, IQANIN KYXOLX EX IXIMIN, B’ANT TI’J KYYOL EX KYNAB’L
Hablaron pues, consultando entre si y meditando; se pusieron de acuerdo, juntaron sus palabras y su pensamiento.
Pop U´j – Popol Vuh
Comité organizadora de la consulta comunitaria en Ixchiguán
Ixchiguán, 13 de junio de 2007
Femicide still unpunished in Guatemala
| June 10th, 2007
Jorge Velasquez speaking at Amnesy International UK in London in May 2007 Photo: Amnesty International UK
FEMICIDE – so much pain in just one little word, says Jorge Velásquez, father of Claudina Velázquez PaÃz, a 19-year-old lawstudent murdered in Guatemala in August 2005. Jorge visited Britain in May to share his experiences of the impunity still enjoyed in Guatemala by perpetrators of violence against women. It was incredibly moving to hear the courageous story of his family’s struggle to come to terms with Claudina’s brutal murder and to ensure her killers are brought to justice.
Claudina’s case was brought to prominence around the world by Amnesty International and the BBC documentary ˜Killer's Paradise’. In November 2005, the head of the Special Prosecutor's Office on Crimes against Life recognised the inadequacies of the murder investigation and reopened the case. Blood samples of five suspects were sent to Spain for DNA analysis. While this was a positive step, it is likely that critical forensic evidence has been lost because of alleged errors during the autopsy, negligent conduct at the crime scene and failure to interrogate potential witnesses. So far no significant progress has been made.
In London, Jorge spoke of how his daughter had been drawn to study law because she saw it as an important means of redressing injustice. It is a bitter irony that Claudina’s death has so effectively demonstrated how the current criminal justice system falls far short of the ideal she sought to pursue. Her father’s words brought home the humanity that so often gets lost when the fight against such human rights abuses is discussed in public. In many cases, the cloak of darkness surrounding the perpetrators and the state’s opportune inaction combine to obscure the true impact on those involved.
Jorge evoked the horror of Claudina’s death with a resolute dignity, recounting the shot to her head that ended her life and initiated the pain that has never left him. He described the contempt endured by his family at the hands of a plodding and insensitive police investigation. Officers even insisted on taking Claudina’s fingerprints during her funeral service.
Between 2001 and 2005, 2,200 women and girls were murdered in Guatemala, an average of 10 per week. Yet hardly any of the perpetrators have been brought to justice. According to police reports from 2005, the year of Claudina’s death, formal charges were presented in only 3.8 percent of these cases and only 1 percent came to trial. This poor record has convinced Jorge that the Guatemalan government cares little about the thousands of women who have been killed. With so many murders languishing in obscurity, Jorge hopes that Claudina’s death, which has attracted national and international attention, will not be seen as one terrible injustice but as representative of thousands of similarly tragic cases. He appealed for people in Britain to join him in denouncing the authorities’ failure to pursue the perpetrators.
Jorge doesn’t expect much from the crop of candidates for September’s upcoming presidential election, but believes the Guatemalan authorities cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the femicide that is causing so much pain. I hope one day there will be politicians who truly love their country and tackle the issue of violence against women as a matter of substance.
Send an appeal, by post or fax, to the Guatemalan authorities calling on them to ensure that the investigation into the murder of Claudina Velásquez is conducted in a coordinated, full and effective manner. Further information: www.amnesty.org.uk
Benetech Update: Police Archives in Guatemala
| June 8th, 2007
PHOTO: Benetech Tamy Guberek/Ann Harrison
This is the latest comprehensive update from Benetech's Ann Harrison on the work being carried out to analyse and record the information stored in the national police archives.
“The documents, which numbered in the tens of millions, were revealed to be the historic archive of Guatemala's National Police. The National Police were disbanded after country's 1996 Peace Accords and were replaced by the National Civil Police.”
Ann Harrison gives a flavour of the progress afoot:
“In early 2007, funds donated by a German organization expanded the 141-person archive staff to 206 workers. The scanning team now works sixteen hours a day in two eight-hour shifts from 7:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. five days a week. The formerly crumbling archive building has been transformed into a hive of activity where workers scan half a million documents each month. By April 2007, Villagrán's team had scanned more than 2.5 million archived documents and 2,000 books. The warren of once dark and damp rooms is now a series of brightly lit, immaculate storerooms of crated and shelved records.”
