Its a wrap

Guatemala is very much a country that is still recovering from a 36 year violent civil war that only ended with the signing of peace accords in 1996.  This democratic republic governed country has just persecuted that dictator, Efrain Rios Montt, responsible for ordering the slaughter of thousands of indigenous and non indigenous people in a trial decided May 10th.  But it is far from being fully recovered.  People still mourn the loss of their relatives and loved ones, most of which "disappeared" never to be seen again.  Many rural people of Guatemala fled the country to escape death by Montt's regime as well.  The number of people affected by the murders are ever increasing, and more often than not a Guatemalan has at least one missing relative because of the genocide.  Montt was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 80 years in prison.  This sentence is controversial and sends a clear message because Montt is 86 years old.  He will most likely die in prison.  

The violence of the civil war still lives on in the streets of Guatemala, in the lives of the notorious mara's.  More specifically the Mara Salvatrucha 13, the Mara 18, and the Zeta's from neighboring Mexico just to name a few.  Most of the violence that occurs is drug related or against women in the form of rapings and killings.  Rape was widely used during the civil war as a weapon of war to intimidate opponents.  Just last year some 700 women were killed in Guatemala alone, mostly from gang violence.   These gangs were hardened in the streets and prisons in places like L.A. and have brought that sense of violence back home with them. Much of Guatemala's most dangerous crimes occur along the Mexican-Guatemalan border and these include drug smuggling as well as "alien" smuggling.   Gang members often kidnap and kill as their tactic and high rates of these crimes have been seen in Guatemala City as well as rural Guatemala.  

Many of these civilians being targeted are indigenous Mayans.  Guatemala's indigenous population makes up over 60% of the countries total population.  Though this 60% percent is quite poor, they also make up 61.7% of the countries economic output.  

Tourism in Guatemala

This discussion with Victor prompted me to research Guatemalan tourism.  I found some interesting information in an article one done by Huffington Posts' writer Ashley Michelle Williams and some excerpts from that article can be seen below.  

Spring and Summer are booming tourism months for Guatemala, the weather is perfect and the scenery is stunning.  People come from all around to see historic sites and its glorious natural sites like the Peten Protected Areas.  Places like Peten stand out for their abundance in old Mayan cultural sites and serene natural forests.

Nearly 15% of Guatemalans work in the tourism industry, and it comes in second as a international currency to the country.  From 2003-2009, "Guatemala has experienced an average annual growth in tourist numbers from 17% in the last four years [rising from 880,223 people to 1776,069."[1]  However, global economic crisis has lessened tourism business in Guatemala beginning in 2010.   

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ashley-michelle-williams/the-economic-domino-effec_b_854151.html
http://www.aroundantigua.com/travel/destinations/tikal.htm

Meeting Victor

At my work, The Resort at Pelican Hill, I had the chance to become close with one of the stewards that often works with me.  His name is Victor and he is a 28 year old male living in California but originally came from Guatemala.  Victor is a happy person who loves to tell stories and we got to talking about school one day.  I had mentioned that I was doing a blog about Guatemala and his face lit up as i said it.  He began showing me pictures of his hometown and i got a little insight into what a rural town in Guatemala looked like. Without any prompt he began telling me about what it was like to live there, and kept going on and on about how beautiful it was there.  And i couldn't agree with him more, the pictures he showed me were of rolling green mountains with small 'houses' dotting the landscape.  I put houses in quotation marks because he did mention his area was relatively poor, so our definition of small 'houses' may not be an accurate portrayal.
He also mentioned now it is safer to travel to Guatemala because there is no longer fighting going on. But the places where it was safer was near the resorts and hotels that are popping up in places.  He mentioned that most of the nicer places were located by these resorts because the government wants to attract tourists and so they clean up the beaches by the tourism areas and are not too good at cleaning up other beaches where the locals live.

Here are some picture Victor showed me of his Guatemala.

Montt Trial Decision

This Friday May 10th, Former dictator Efrain Rios Montt was found guilty on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in a trial held by his own government.  In an earlier post I had briefly outlined the history of the civil war in Guatemala and the brutal war time crimes that left many dead.  

   "Rios Montt being found guilty ... is a significant step forward for justice and accountability in Guatemala," said Matthew Kennis, Amnesty International's chair for Central America-Mexico Coordination Group.[1]

As i mentioned earlier, this trial was one of the first ones where a country persecuted its own leader on charges of genocide.  

Survivors and relatives of victims have sought for 30 years to bring punishment for Rios Montt. For international observers and Guatemalans on both sides of the war, the trial could be a turning point in a nation still wrestling with the trauma of a conflict that killed some 200,000 people.[1]

Rios Montt was sentenced to 80 years in prison, a sentence that is quite controversial since he is 86 and the maximum sentence in Guatemala is 50 years.  Which leads me to wonder why they didn't give him a term of life in prison.  

This is what Montt said when he testified for the first time on the Thursday before his verdict, "I declare myself innocent," Rios Montt told the three-judge tribunal as many in the audience applauded. "It was never my intention or my goal to destroy a whole ethnic group, "I declare myself innocent," Rios Montt told the three-judge tribunal as many in the audience applauded. "It was never my intention or my goal to destroy a whole ethnic group."[1]

I tried paraphrasing this excerpt from The New York Times article but i felt that taking any of it out would be worse, so here it is. I had mentioned in one of my blog posts earlier about US government backing of Montt's regime and I felt these next few excerpts were pertinent.

The American military had a close relationship with the Guatemalan military well into the 1970s before President Jimmy Carter’s administration cut off aid. When General Ríos Montt seized power in March 1982, President Ronald Reagan’s administration cultivated him as a reliable Central American ally in its battle against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and Salvadoran guerrillas.

Those interests influenced the way American officials treated evidence of the massacres. They were quick to accept military explanations that guerrillas had carried out the killings, said Kate Doyle, a Guatemala expert at the National Security Archive, a Washington research group that works to obtain declassified government documents.

By the end of 1982, however, the State Department had gathered evidence that the army was behind the massacres.

But even then, the administration insisted that General Ríos Montt was working to reduce the violence. After a regional meeting, President Reagan described him as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment.”[2]

1.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/efrain-rios-montt-convicted_n_3256070.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=440852,b=facebook
2.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/world/americas/gen-efrain-rios-montt-of-guatemala-guilty-of-genocide.html?_r=0

Child labor in Guatemala

Child labor is very much a big aspect of the Guatemalan labor force.  National law provides an exception to its ban on working minors, provided they perform "light work" and have the permission of their parent or guardian as well as the Child Protection Unit of the Ministry of Labor.
That Ministry pledged in 2008 not to award any work permits to children under 14 years and has confirmed  this policy remains in place.[1]  Most of this work however is far from 'light work' and as it shows in the video these children are exposed to very dangerous working conditions and even potentially harmful disinfectants.   

Guatemala has the worst child labor figures in the continent. According to the 2006 Survey of Living Conditions, the latest available official data, 528,000 children between the ages of five and 14 work in Guatemala.[1] However the reality is grim, these children need to work so their families can have enough money.  This usually results in the children not being able to attend school either.  The 'minimum wage' for agricultural workers is a little over 7.50 US dollars (68 Quetzals) per day.  

Many of these corporations are aware of the child labor laws but turn a blind eye to it in the name of profit.  Though it isn't always corporations who are guilty of this,  "also noted [is] the continuing trend to subcontract garment sewing in small shops and homes in Guatemala. This practice, which is commonly found in Latin America, allows a factory to boost its production while turning a blind eye to child workers who are employed by these sub-contractors or who assist their mothers working out of their homes."[2]

Often times it is absolutely necessary for these children to also be working.  Since schooling is too expensive children help out there parents in order to put food on the table.  So where do we draw the line?  Some of the sugar plantation workers threatened to burn the plantation down when laws were passed saying they couldnt bring their children in any longer.  From the parents perspective that may mean the difference of 20 Quetzal per day, with the same number of mouths to feed.  Without child labor these folks have less money, but with child labor they can provide for their families.  It is a huge moral dilemma to think that child labor could actually benefit these people more than it could hurt them.



1.http://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/child-labor-and-exploitation-guatemalan-sugar-industry 
2.http://www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/sweat/guatemala.htm

Guatemala's Gang Problem

"Hardened in the streets and prisons of California and deported in the 1990s to the Central American countries where they were born, the members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang swiftly grew into a force of heavily tattooed young men carrying out kidnappings, murder and extortion.

Now, Guatemalan authorities say, they have begun to see new and disturbing evidence of an alliance between the Maras and another of the most feared criminal organizations in Latin America — a deal with the potential to further undermine that U.S.-backed effort to fight violent crime and narcotics trafficking in the region."

 Guatemala is one of the most dangerous countries in the world with a weekly murder rate of 42 people per 100,00 residents in 2011, twice as high as Mexico's. The gangs are central players in a crime wave that has paralyzed the country.  Compared to L.A. gangs, those in Central America are operating without rules.  They have all the swagger of an L.A. gang, they have all the symbols, the tattoos, the signs, but they have none of the structure. They’re still too young to have developed any type of structure.  Many Guatemalan gangs have roots in Los Angeles. During the 1980s — with civil wars being fought in Central America — Salvadorans fled to Hispanic neighborhoods of Los Angeles. They established gangs, "maras" in Spanish, with names to honor their home country. The most notorious were Mara 18 (a reference to 18th Street in San Salvador) and Mara Salvatrucha 13 (a reference to the gang founders who said they were as wise as a trout or trucha).

Guatemala shares a 620-mile porous border with Mexico and many traffickers and other criminals have no trouble navigating the estimated 700 unofficial crossings. A "balloon effect" results when "reductions in illegal drug activity in one country lead to an increase in another," the Wilson Center observed.

But criminal activity is not limited to the drug trade. Widespread abductions, vehicle thefts, extortion, money laundering and human trafficking also plague the nation.

It's no surprise then that a Vox Latina national survey in July found that more than two-thirds of Guatemalans said violence was the issue that concerned them most, far outpacing the combined totals for the economy, unemployment, poverty and lack of education.Given those fears, it's also no surprise that law-and-order candidate Otto Perez Molina -- a former army general -- is polling about two times higher than his nearest challenger in Sunday's presidential election.

It seems like everyone is posting Gangland clips onto their blogs, so here it is, another clip. This one is pretty good though.  Its only ten minutes so its worth a watch.  Gives insight into how ruthless these gangs can be.  

Interesting Video of New Presidents History in Genocide

In a previous post i had mentioned the trial of current president Mondtt in the involvement of genocidal crimes during the Guatemalan civil war.  However i found this clip of current president Otto Perez being interviewed that shows that he was a also involved in giving orders to kill "counter-insurgents" during that time.  This video points out that Guatemala's president has immunity from being put on trial, but when/if he leaves he may be put on trial just as Mondtt has been put on trial.  This is the CURRENT president standing over these dead bodies, he went by the name Major Tito at the time, and he was a major player in implementing the murders of thousands of people.  He talks about US support with counter insurgency, and the possibility of supplying helicopters to the Guatemalan government.  He is is also caught on tape saying straight out that the weapons he will be using from the US/Israel will in fact be used against the people of Guatemala.   

Witnesses still recall the horrors of army-led massacres before Major Tito's arrival: soldiers executing 20 people in front of the church, cutting off the arms and gouging out the eyes and tongues of the villagers while the rest of the town was forced to watch. Forty more villagers were burned alive in another incident, and hundreds fled into the mountains for months to escape further attacks.[1] However Perez is no longer seen as this ruthless General, once ruling with an iron fist, the citizens of Guatemala actually like that trait in him.  "Today, many Guatemalans see Perez as the man who can keep drug traffickers and youth gangs at bay. They have turned to him not in spite of his perceived iron fist but because of it."[1]  His promise to crack down on drug trafficking that spills over from Mexico has been a major factor in his ability to win support among Guatemalans.  He has yet to take a stance on the trials of former generals in the genocide case, neither stanidng behind it or against it.  

"Certainly Perez's military background ... poses some very interesting questions for the country going forward," said Daniel Sachs, an analyst at consultancy firm Control Risks in London. "It's assumed that he was involved in some pretty nasty stuff but there has been no real international investigation either by a civil society group or actually even possibly by a court into what he was up to."[1]




1.http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/11/us-guatemala-perez-f-idUSTRE7AA38320111111