Guatemala

“Today, illegal abortions are the leading cause of death among young women in Latin America. Whether they are performed in major cities or in the isolated countryside, these 'back room' abortions are leaving thousands of young women dead each year.

Guatemala has the highest fertility rate among women and yet it remains the poorest country in the region where women can ill afford large families. Unwanted pregnancies, coupled with the forces of tradition and politics, leave few options for these families.

Through the work of an activist and the medical team she leads, this film explores the questions of family planning, which many see as the right to life.”

A film by Greg Brosnan is part of a series called Birthrights, on Al Jazeera, and can be viewed here.

News from our friends in Banana Link highlights an event where the national police force, paramilitaries and local big business joined forces to brutally and criminally evict local farmers and their families in Alta Verapaz.

We have mentioned before, here and here, where the State of Siege in Alta Verapaz may have had other issues at hand rather than the stated one of fighting narco-traffickers.

You can find out more here and details of how you can take action.

A new website/blog has been set up regarding the case of Efraín Bamaca, featured here before, which includes all the documentation relating to the case. The site also includes a declaration by Jennifer Harbury, relating to the case.

The website is titled, The truth of the Bamaca case: What does the military fear? What indeed.

The site will be of interest to those who want to see how justice can be denied in Guatemala. It is all in Spanish.

At the end of October another crack was opened in the wall of impunity: there was a further conviction for forced disappearance. That is the third success for justice, along with the El Jute and Choatalum  cases. The bare facts of the case are that student leader Edgar Fernando García was disappeared on 18 February 1984 and was never seen again. The whereabouts of his remains are still unknown, as the two police officers convicted have not revealed them. The police officers have been sentenced to forty years each in prison.

We were recently contacted by Adrien Trocme from the project LA Ruta. In Adrien's words "We are currently working on the project called La Ruta. We are informing our readers about the themes mentioned in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) putting special emphasis on the opinion of the civil society and the social movements." They made this film, called "Mindy's Nightmare", which you can watch here. It is pretty disturbing, especially given that the Mindy wears a mask throughout, but also because of what it shows about the operation of "justice" in her case.

The cynics amongst you might think that my title is a little ironic, and perhaps complain that Jennifer Harbury only talks about the Bamaca case. However, I would put a positive spin on it, as it seems to me to be a testament to the fortitude of Jennifer that she continues to press for the truth and justice in the case of her husband, and refuses to be silenced despite the campaigns to undermine her directed from certain parts of Guatemala. Equally, she also spends a lot of time putting her experience in context: of the civil war and of US foreign policy in Latin America, for example, so any idea that she has a one dimensional view would be quite wrong.  

The psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed that humans have a hierarchy of needs, from the most basic, required for our very survival, to what he called the need for self-actualisation. These needs are often visualised as a pyramid, with the most basic needs at the bottom. The logic of this analysis is unarguable: without sufficient food, water and shelter the other needs become luxuries or are seriously compromised, overwhelmed by the imperative to stop the aching in the stomach.

"The Committee requests the Government to neither grant nor renew any licence for the exploration and exploitation of natural resources as referred to in Article 15 of the Convention while the participation and consultation provided for by the Convention are not being carried out, and to provide information in this regard".

You may have noticed that we put up a call for letters of support for Jesus Tecu Osorio as a nominee for the Baldwin Medal. Over the years GSN has had a great deal of contact with Jesus and we were proud to submit our own statement of support for him, see attachment, and are therefore immensely satisfied to see that he has been successful. In a message of congratulation to Jesus' senior associate, human rights defenders programme of Human Rights First Andrew Hudson said "an international selection committee decided that this prize should be awarded to you considering your unique and distinctive work, the effectiveness with which you have advanced human rights in Guatemala and the considerable risk to which you are exposed as a result".

The award will be bestowed at a ceremony in New York in May. Human Rights First's press release can be found here.

The BBC is currently running a series of short programmes entitled " A History of the World in 100 Objects", which charts human development through artefacts to be found in the British Museum. The development of agriculture is unquestionably a key moment in human history, and influenced how people thought about themselves and their place in the universe. One programme uses a Mayan statue of a corn god to tell the story of the importance of maize in the Americas.

As multinational companies continue to seek licences for mineral exploitation in Guatemala, time and again local communities reject these initiatives in popular consultas comunitarias. Not only do they site the environmental damage that will be done to their lands, and the lack of any real economic benefit to the local community (with subsistence level wages paid, while profits are taken straight out the country, with minimal tax paid on them), but more fundamentally, they reject the very idea that the government can sell off what they deem as their land.

The most recent rejection of multinational mining took place in the municipality of Cunén, in the department of Quiché. For more, please see the press bulletin below:

CUNEN REJECTS MINING IN LOCAL TERRITORY

 Press Bulletin

Waqib’ Kej

29 October 2009 

Seventy-one communities [out of seventy-two] in the municipality of Cunén, department of Quiché, gathered in the center of each community to define the immediate future of the population now facing mineral exploration and exploitation licenses granted within their territory.  

Both urban and rural communities were summoned for October 27 to define their official position regarding four mining exploration and exploitation licenses granted within the municipality. Projects approved for the area include “La Abundante” mine, as well as mineral extraction projects Yexub, ADD Minera and Chepenal.    

The referendum was organized by the Cunén Community Council, the Community Development Councils, community and religious leaders, and local mayors, acting with the backing of a municipal agreement issued on September 23, 2009.   

Community members started gathering in the center of each town early on [October 27] to declare their position before local authorities… national and international observers, social organizations and representatives of various indigenous communities in the country. 

It has been estimated that one half of the 6000 languages spoken in the world are under threat of extinction from globalisation, greater movement of people and mass communication in the dominant language of countries which are linguistically diverse.