Exploring Volunteering

Durante este gobierno se ha dado una oleada de desalojos violentos, asesinatos y persecución de los dirigentes de las comunidades que luchan por la recuperación y defensa de la madre  tierra.
 
La política de desagrarización de la conflictividad Rural no se resuelve con la creación de otros fondos como el caso de la reactivación de la economía campesina, la compra de fincas rápidas sin profundizar en la certeza jurídica de la propiedad, los programas de arrendamiento de tierras,  por parte del MAGA; por otra parte está la política de créditos individuales por parte del Fondo de Tierras, la creación de los centros de arbitraje agrario que sólo vienen a generar dispersión y gastos innecesarios para evadir de fondo la crisis agraria.

Por otra parte, la compra de tierras improductivas, la sobrevaloración de tierras, la falta de capital de trabajo, la facilitación de los medios de producción que han accesado  a la tierra ha agudizado más  pobreza y extrema pobreza en el campo y la ciudad. Por lo anteriormente expuesto,

SOLICITAMOS

1.Suspender las amenazas de desalojos a las comunidades que han accesado a tierras por parte del Fondo de Tierras y Banrural.
2.La renegociación de los créditos atorgados a través del Fondo de Tierras, en base a un nuevo avalúo de las fincas.
3.La condonación de las deudas de algunas fincas que no tienen posibilidades de pago.

¡La tierra es Nuestra Madre, no se compra ni se vende, se recupera y se DEFIENDE!

Comité de Unidad Campesina CUC, miembro de CNOC, MICSP, WAKIB’ KEJ, CLOC Y Vía Campesina

Skye Resources, based in Vancouver, bought the land from Inco and is ramping up to start production. If you talk to the company, the community is solidly behind them and if you talk to the mayor, you'll hear the same thing.”

The Guatemalan Congress must urgently ratify the new International Commission Against Impunity (CICIG) if the country is to tackle clandestine criminal groups, said Amnesty International today.

Once approved by Congress, the UN-sponsored CICIG will act in support of the Public Prosecutor's Office, suggesting methods of investigation and presenting evidence. The Public Prosecutor's Office will have ultimate responsibility for deciding whether or not to pursue an investigation.

“The existence and operations of clandestine groups severely undermines respect for the rule of law and human rights” said Sebastian Elgueta, Amnesty International's researcher for Guatemala. “The CICIG could become a valuable contributor in the fight against clandestine criminal groups and the impunity they enjoy.”

The CICIG is an extremely important step in the fight against impunity and clandestine groups operating in Guatemala. There is grave concern that if the ratification of CICIG is not made a priority by all political parties, it will fail to advance.

“It is now over three years since initial proposals were discussed to establish an international commission to investigate clandestine criminal groups. The longer discussions and agreements are delayed, the more entrenched criminal networks become in state institutions and the more difficult it becomes to purge the system.”

Amnesty International welcomes the international support that the CICIG initiative has received. The organization calls on the Congress of Guatemala to maintain the engagement of the international community and to show a real commitment to the protection of human rights by approving the CICIG without delay.

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.

Andrew Hudson of the Human Rights Defenders program, part of Human Rights First, a nonprofit organization based in New York and Washington , suggested that prosecution of the Rios Montt case would have broad consequences.

“It is important to bring the perpetrators of serious human rights violations to justice in order to break the culture of impunity and create a safer environment for human rights defenders,” he said.

En lo que va de este año han muerto de forma violenta 485 mujeres, 825 han sido violadas y 10 mil 84 han sufrido agresiones físicas por parte de sus esposos, parejas o ex convivientes.

Las organizaciones pidieron al Gobierno que asigne el presupuesto para poner en práctica programas de prevención. El Instituto de Estudios Comparados en Ciencias Penales (IECCP) expuso la falta de coordinación entre la Policía Nacional, el Ministerio Público y el Organismo Judicial, lo cual origina que no se resuelvan los casos de crímenes violentos contra mujeres.

En el análisis se detalla que la carencia de procedimientos científicos, de pruebas de ADN, de laboratorios, de presupuesto y de personal, entre otros, hace que los procesos queden impunes.  Ya que de cada 100 casos que se llevan en la provincia, sólo dos se resuelven efectivamente, mientras que en la capital se logran resolver sólo tres. Ese tipo de estadística demuestra que estamos en una completa impunidad, explicó Marco Antonio Canteo, coordinador del área de investigación del IECCP.”