December 29, 2004
With GAM
I'm still in the capital accompanying members of GAM. Preparations are underway for tomorrow's 8th anniversary of the Peace Accord signing here in Guatemala. I plan on filming and covering the events organized by the popular movements.
Earlier this year several thousand Central Americans met at the Mesoamerican forum to discuss CAFTA and Plan Puebla Panama. They produced a declaration which states in part "We have observed how more than 20 years of structural adjustment, deregulation, privatization, and extreme indebtedness have led to greater poverty and unemployment, increasingly precarious labor conditions, more migration, increased ecological destruction, greater food insecurity, less access to public services, and a systemic violation of economic, social and cultural rights, especially among youth, women, indigenous peoples, and those of African descent.....For the US, the free trade agenda constitutes a fundamental part of it's national security strategy, which - from a militarist, unilateralist perspective - then justifies repression against those who resist these transnational projects of domination."
One example of how the regional governments have implimented their own national security strategies as it relates to CAFTA is in Guatemala. If Guatemalan truck drivers engage in non-violent actions, such as road blocks, they could face up to 30 years in prison under the crime of ¨terrorism.¨ In addition, the group Tropico Verde has documented joint US/Guatemalan troop exercises in the Peten (the rainforest area of Guatemala). Not surprising, it is in the same areas as the proposed damn sites for hydro-electric generation that will be needed to fuel the new industrial corridor along the Guatemalan/Mexican border.
