"What is the difference between an American and a Guatemalan anthropologist? In America you publish or you perish; in Guatemala you perish if you publish!"
- Statement by Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack - cited in Beatriz Manz book "Paradise in Ashes," 2004
Yesterday I met with Carmen Ibarra with the Myrna Mack Foundation. This foundation is named after the Guatemalan anthropologist who was assassinated in 1990 by the Guatemalan army. For years this case was bogged down in the corrupt judicial system and a victim of the decades-long impunity that benefited the military.
Carmen is the coordinator of both political projects, the justice and security projects. With the justice project, the foundation is focusing on decreasing the size and role of the military in Guatemalan affairs. Carmen discussed the failure of the government to fullfil one of the major agreements of the 1996 Peace Accords, which was the downsizing of the army. Another major issue has to do with reforming the system of military intelligence, particularly the information sharing that occurs between official military sources and clandestine groups. The Myrna Mack Foundation and other human rights groups have been pushing for an agreement between the Guatemalan government and the United Nations that would establish an international Commission to Investigate Illegal Bodies and Clandestine Security Groups (CAIACS). (See Human Rights Report April-October 2004) The Guatemalan court is arguing that the agreement would violate their constitution, but the human rights groups point out that this agreement would qualify as a human rights convention, which according to article 46 of the Guatemalan Constitution รค human rights convention has preeminence over national law."
I also asked Carmen about the foundations role in resisting economic policies like CAFTA. She said this was not an issue that they focused on. However, she acknowledged that historically the military behavior has been tied to preserving the economic interests of a privileged few. This could certainly be the case with the new Berger administration, which according to an analysis by the Myrna Mack Foundation is tied to big business interests. (See the Myrna Mack Foundation Political Analysis, March 2004, in the Resources section of the GHRC-USA page) In fact, people who represent some of the largest economic interests in the country received high ranking positions in the new government.
