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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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Guatemala, Siempre Llena De Sorpresas |
Current rating: 0 |
by Meridith Kruse
(No verified email address) |
15 Jun 2003
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Updates on latest news in Guatemala... Specifically the continued attempts by current President of Congress, Rios Montt, to run for President in the November 2003 election. Rios Montt ruled Guatemala by military coup in 1982-83 during some of the worst years of a 36 year civil war in which the army was responsible for over 90% the 200,000 deaths of mostly indigenous Guatemalans. Montt is currently facing charges of genocide in Spanish courts. Despite repeated rulings by Guatemalan Supreme court that his campaign in illegal (Guatemalan Constitution prevents anyone who has ruled by military coup from running) Rios Montt continues his campaign and yesterday had the audacity to give a political speech in Rio Negro, Rabinal, site of four massacres by the Guatemalan military in the 1980s. |
There are patterns in the weather here, but there are always plenty of surprises as well. Yesterday for example, in the span of 24 hours, we had brilliant morning sun, a torrential rain and flooding, and then a crisp cool night shinning with a bright full moon. Xela, in the highlands of Guatemala, is a city in a valley surrounded by mountains and
Volcanoes. (Its kinda like being situated at the bottom of a bowl) So when it rains here, mud, stones, tree branches, and lots of other garbage flood down the surrounding hills into our streets making passage of roads impossible for several hours.
Politics, is of course, full of patterns and simultaneously impossible to predict as well. Massive poverty, corruption, lack of social services, environmental degradation, and political disillusionment continue as the current government has failed miserable to implement structural changes mandated in the 1996 peace accords.
And then we have the ever unpredictable campaign by former military general Rios Montt for the Presidency of Guatemala. This week, after his second rejection by the Guatemalan Supreme Court, Rios Montt, who controlled Guatemala by military coup during years of of (1982-83), continued to insist that he would be the next FRG (Frente Republicano Guatemalteco) candidate in the upcoming November elections.
Lawyers for the "Defense of the Guatemala Constitution" have repeatedly sited article 186 which prohibits anyone who has taken power of the government by a military coup from running for the Presidency. It is a very clear law that has consistently been cited to reject Montts candidacy. However, the FRG party continues to appeal, insisting that this article of the constitution was approved in 1986, before Montts coup in 1982, so it should not be applied retroactively.
In other unbelievable news, after the courts rejected his attempt on Constitutional grounds, Montt announced that he was going to begin a legal battle for his right to run for President using the International Declaration of Human Rights. His rationale is that denying him the opportunity to run is a violation of his civil and human rights. He repeatedly says that "only the Guatemalan people should have the right to decide." I find it horrifying that Montt should even attempt to use the Declaration of Human Rights after committing genocide against thousands of indigenous Guatemalans. It reminds me of Donald Rumsfelds invocation of Human Rights Law, in the middle of the illegal US invasion of Iraq, to castigate Iraq for showing pictures of US prisoners of war...
One last bit of news with regards to Rios Montt, (which also demonstrates there is no depth to which he will not stoop...)
Yesterday, Saturday June 14th , while visiting communities on his campaign tour, he had the audacity to stop in Rio Negro, Rabinal, Baja Verapaz. Just one day earlier, on Friday June 13th, the Prensa Libre (a major newspaper in Guatemala) reported the arrival of seventy boxes of skeletons in Rio Negro containing the remains of victims of military massacres carried out under the Rios Montt regime.
On the editorial page the Presna Libre also had a cartoon juxtaposing a surprised looking Montt arriving for his political speech finding a community full of skeletons and coffins...
In other news massive governmental corruption continues unabated. The latest scandal involves IGSS, the social security program workers pay into to receive some medical and pension benefits in their retirement. Several weeks ago it was reported that 239 million quetzals of workers money from this program is missing and now the search is on to find government officials responsible and try to recuperate the money, some of which has been sent to off shore banks in Panama.
And, I also read in the Prensa Libre that last Wednesday the Procurator for Human Rights in Chimaltenango was murdered. The United Nations verification commission, MINUSGUA has condemened this, and other deaths of Human Rights Procurators in Guatemala.
There is so much more to write, but time is short. I am reading a very powerful testimony by Victor Montejo, whose community was forced to form civil patrols to fight the guerillas but then attacked by the army anyway. Victor was a primary school teacher who was taken prisoner by the army and tortured but survived to tell his story.
I will also post an interview I did with Renaldo, a former member of the URNG guerilla movement who is now active with the URNG political party. The URNG is the only political party who has prioritized fulfillment of the 1996 peace accords in their platform, they are looking for any
monetary support possible, since they are, "un partido de
los pobres"...
More soon, in peace, Meridith
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