Category Archives: News

Yesterday I had the strange opportunity to enter the National Palace for the formal ceremony to commemorate the 8th anniversary of the Peace Accord signing. You knew something was up in downtown Guatemala City. They closed off the roads and brought in 3 truckloads of extra police to make sure that things went smooth.

It was a surprisingly short ceremony, with lots of official declarations about the “peace”in Guatemala. Only a few hundred were in attendance, with virtually no Mayan representation – this in a country with roughly 60% of the population being Mayan.

There was a break between the formal ceremony and the bread & circus event for the public outside. At this point a small crowd gathered in front of the fountain in the center of the Central Plaza. I went over to see who was speaking and to my surprise there was Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu Tum. Her reason for the impromtue press conference was her denunciation of CAFTA, with particular emphasis on what the US-based pharacuetical industry will do to Guatemala’s. Menchu claims that CAFTA will increase medicine costs for her fellow citizens, many of which can not afford the generic drugs manufactured locally.

A couple of hours later the Peace Accords anniversary celebration resumed with a ridiculous MC who sounded more like a game-show host. A marimba band played and then they brought out a Brittney Spears look a like. The ceremony ended with a group of people introduced as members of the National Peace Committee. They said nothing, but released several doves, apparently to demonstrate that peace has indeed come to Guatemala. Unfortunately, eight years after a cease fire agreement was signed between the government and the insurgent forces (URNG), peace alludes most of the country.

The Guatemalan Human Right Commission in its November report documents many current violations of the Peace Accords signing. First, the state “the army is patrolling the streets along with the police,” a clear violation of the agreement. More importantly, many of the private and clandestine security forces, believed to be connected to much of the recent crime, human rights abuses and drug

trade – are actually linked to the Army.

Impunity is still one of the main issues that underscores the lack of Justice in the country. The United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) documents in it´s last report states that “shielded by impunity, these structures (clandestine security groups) have regrouped and are pursuing illegal business interests and political influence. Whenever human rights groups attempt to prosecute these organizations they are intimidated with death threats.” Even the US State Department admits as much, “with relatively few exceptions, plaintiffs, witnesses, prosecutors, and jurists involved in high profile cases against members of the military reported threats, intimidation and surveillance.” Perhaps more relevant to this trip is the fact that everyone I have spoken to up to this point all agrees on two things; that the root causes for the war still exist – extreme economic injustice and institutional racism, and that CAFTA will only exacerbate these problems.

Today I spoke with a new group called Mesa Global. They are sort of an umbrella group that came together a few years ago for organization resisting Plan Puebla Panama and CAFTA. This coalition consists of labor, indigenous, campesino, human rights and women’s organizations. They talked about the importance of people in the US understanding that Plan Puebla Panama(PPP) is the link between NAFTA and CAFTA. PPP has already got many foreign investors behind it, but CAFTA would provide more of a formal implementation of the broad plans of PPP.

The strategy of PPP and CAFTA is an “integrated one,” according to Mesa Global. They told me that the new highway plans would link up major industrial and shipping corridors. The influx of US grains, particularly corn at cheaper prices, will force many small rural farmers off the land seeking work in the growing Maquiladora zones. This will hit Guatemala particularly hard since it has the largest rural small farmer population in Central America. The damn projects would provide sufficient energy resources for the new sweatshop factories. This all sounds like a great plan to investors, but what they don’t take into account is that this plan doesn’t take into account that it will create more displacement and moreenvironmental distruction. They told me that people in the US need to look at what has happened in the northern Mexican border, the current major sweatshop corridor along the US border.

“Look at the working conditions it has created, the environmental problems and the other social factors that these Free Trade Zones have created.” The factors, I was told, are that these sweatshop zones become havens for drugs and prostitution, which eventually leads to more violence against women as we have seen in places like Juarez and Chihuahua.

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.

In news from Colombia, president Alvaro Uribe has signed into law a constitutional amendment that will allow him to run for re-election. The amendment also bars any opponents from launching their campaigns until four months before the presidential election. Uribe’s current term expires in August 2006. Re-election would keep him in power until 2010.

Since Christmas morning I have been helping out with the accompanyment work with Congresswoman and co-founder of GAM Nineth Montenegro. She has been receiving death threats since 1984 and has been accompanied by members of Peace Brigades International over many years. I accompamied her and her daughter in 1988 for over a month. She received the most recent deaths threats on November 30 most likely for her work in the investigation of military corruption. Those making the threats said “something big will happen to Nineth or her family before the end of the year.”

I will only be doing this for a few more days but do have time to work on other interviews. This week I plan to write about the upcoming 8th anniversary of the Peace Accord signing here in Guatemala, more on the trade agreement CAFTA and what many here believe is a region economic agreement that will lay the ground work for CAFTA and the FTAA…Plan Puebla Panama (PPP).