poverty

“In Guatemala City, a place called "The Mine" can deliver both a means of survival and a grisly death. Every day, dozens of residents salvage a living by scouring the massive dump for scrap metal. Facing the threat of mudslides, collapses, and disease, they can potentially earn twice the daily minimum wage. Associated Press photographer Rodrigo Abd documented their efforts.”

You can see the extraordinary (and extraordinarily heartbreaking) photos courtesy of Boston.com, here.

“The massive evictions of 800 families from 14 communities in Guatemala's Polochic Valley, removing peasant agriculture in order to install the Chabil Utzaj sugar plantation, began on March 15, 2011. When we heard, we were surprised. Not because we have any illusions about the benevolence of the Guatemalan government or the oligarchy it serves, but because we didn't expect the government to risk the public reaction that a major atrocity in the Polochic's symbolic municipality of Panzós would provoke. Here in Guatemala, the Colom administration poses as a populist movement that takes the side of the poor, but Colom and his now ex-wife Sandra Torres are enmbroiled in major electoral tension as Torres battles her disqualification from the electoral contest for President. Because Colom and Torres are banking on their ability to mobilize the working classes to protest on their behalf in order to win the elections and maintain power, we didn't anticipate that the government would be willing to shatter the illusion of their so-called “Times of Solidarity” so bluntly.”

With the backdrop of the upcoming Presidential elections, here is an article by Tristan Call and Katy Savage, courtesy of Upside Down World,  providing an all too familiar description of the background and events that are blighting the lives of evicted communities in the Polochic valley, in Alta Verapaz. There is also a brief description of the massacres in nearby Panzós, one of the more notorious during the internal conflict, to give a sense of historical forces at play.

At the 2000 UN Millennium Summit, world leaders from rich and poor countries alike committed themselves - at the highest political level - to a set of eight time-bound targets (Millennium Development Goals – MDGs) that, when achieved, will end extreme poverty worldwide by 2015. MDG 1 aims to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. RTVE, the Spanish national broadcaster, broadcast a series of films promoting the MDGs and the film on MDG 1 highlighted the Mendoza family from Guatemala – Juan, Irma and their ten children survive, if that’s the word, on less than a euro a day. The family are Maya Ch’ortí’ and live in the east of Guatemala, near Jocotán, in Chiquimula.

In Guatemala, according to the film, extreme poverty has an indigenous face. Watching this film leaves you in no doubt that it is extremely hard work being poor.

“The decision to lower royalties from six percent to one percent meant that Guatemala forfeited more than US$28m in three years. In 2006, the fiscal cost of this tax incentive to one mining company exceeded Guatemala’s total spending on health infrastructure.”