Ríos Montt – One Night in Prison

Photos by Otto Rene Castillo from the Guatemalan Catholic report on Human Rights Violations during the armed conflict

By Adrienne Wiebe, MCC Latin America Policy Analyst/Educator

Para leer en Español

Former Guatemalan Dictator, Ex-General Ríos Montt was sentenced to 80 years in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity on May 10, 2013.

However, he has only spent one night in jail.

He was under house arrest for that past year, awaiting trial. After the sentencing, the ex-General spent one night in jail, and then the next day he was taken to a military hospital because he apparently had problems with hypertension.

Then today (May 20),the announcement was made that the Constitutional Court of Guatemala has annulled the conviction because of a technicality midway through the trial. It appears that the last half of the trial is invalid. Ríos Montt has been transferred back to house arrest.

This sentence was historic. It was the first time in Latin America, that a former head of state has been found guilty of genocide in his or her own country. For human rights organizations and civil society groups, it seemed to signal an end of the impunity that has protected the powerful elite in Guatemala for decades.

The Bloodiest Period of the Armed Conflict

During the armed conflict from 1960 to 1996, 250,000 people were killed or disappeared, the majority indigenous and civilians. According to the UN, 93% of the crimes were perpetrated by military or paramilitary forces. Four-hundred villages were completely razed. Thousands of women were sexually assaulted.

Ríos Montt presided over the bloodiest period of the country’s 36-year civil war. He took power in a military coup in March 1982, and  was ousted by another coup 17 months later in August 1983.

In this short period a “scorched-earth” strategy was used by the military against indigenous communities thought to be helping leftist rebels. Hundreds of Mayan villages were destroyed, houses and fields burned, women raped, and people brutally killed by soldiers.

Maya-Ixil women provide testimony during trial of Ríos Montt

Vultures and Butterflies

The conviction of Ríos Montt has been controversial in Guatemala. Some people argue that this case is reopening wounds from the armed conflict that should be left closed. The Peace Accords of 1996 ended the armed conflict, and now the country needs to move on.  The best way to achieve peace is to forget about the past. Similar arguments have been used in situations around the world (i.e. South Africa, Argentina, Chile).

Thinking about this, I was reminded of a section from the book, by Susan Classen, Vultures and Butterflies: Living the Contractions. Classen was an MCC worker for about 23 years in Bolivia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. She lived in El Salvador during the armed conflict there, and experienced harassment, arrest, and the suffering of the communities she lived with.

Here are her thoughts about the relationship between justice and peace, in a context where violence is used to protect privilege and power, and “peace” means leaving past injustice covered up.

“Christians are indeed called to take sides in certain kinds of conflicts. [Albert Nolan, a South African priest] identifies three mis-perceptions in the position that being a peacemaker always means reconciling two opposing forces.

First, the position of reconciliation assumes that the conflict is based on mis-understandings that can be cleared up by facilitating communication. But in some conflicts there is a right side and a wrong side. Christians aren’t called to try to reconcile good and evil, justice and injustice. We are called to do away with evil and injustice.

Second, the reconciliation position assumes that a person can be neutral. But in cases of injustice and oppression, neutrality is impossible. It we don’t side with the oppressed, we automatically side with the oppressor by consciously or unconsciously maintaining the status quo.

Third, the position that Christians should always seek reconciliation and harmony assumes that tension and conflict are worse evils than injustice and oppression.” (p. 150-151)

Nebaj – a town in the Maya-Ixil region of Guatemala, one of the areas the suffered the most during the Armed conflict

The Challenge for Peace with Justice

The issue of how justice AND peace are achieved in countries that have experienced extended, painful periods of armed conflict is complex. Guatemalans are currently grappling with this, as are many other countries in Latin America. Colombians will be facing similar challenges as peace negotiations between the government and guerrillas progress.

Building peace while achieving justice is extremely difficult, particularly when addressing cases of State crimes against their own populations.  However, it is critical to balance genuine justice and holistic peace if positive societal transformation is to come from these armed conflicts.

More information:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/americas/guatemalas-highest-court-overturns-genocide-conviction-of-former-dictator.html?ref=americas&_r=0

http://publicogt.com/2013/05/21/anulan-la-condena-contra-el-exdictador-de-guatemala-rios-montt/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22605022

http://www.rightsaction.org/action-content/645pm-may-10-2013-guatemalan-general-guilty-genocide

Susan Classen, 1992. Vultures and Butterflies: Living the Contradictions.

http://justiceinconflict.org/2011/09/30/the-fallacy-of-sequencing-peace-and-justice/

http://ladobe.com.mx/2013/04/testimonios-de-mujeres-indigenas-durante-juicio-a-rios-montt-en-guatemala/

Shopping: Another way to change the world?

By Adrienne Wiebe, MCC Latin America

Para leer en Español

When we talk about advocacy to address the root causes of injustice and conflict, we usually think about actions that attempt to influence government policy, such as letter-writing campaigns, petitions, and marches.

However, we as global citizens also have considerable “consumer power” in a world dominated by an economic system that values profits over people, and benefits a minority elite rather than the common good of the planet and its inhabitants. Each dollar (or peso, quetzal, lempira, cordoba, goud…) we spend is a vote for the type of economy and world we want.

Criteria for ranking at Better World Shopper

Better World Shopper http://www.betterworldshopper.com/ is a website that provides information for consumer citizens who want to make choices based on:  human rights, the environment, animal protection, community involvement, and social justice. I have found it fascinating.

 

 

 

For example, here are the ratings based on their research for purchasing clothing. Many of you living in Latin America and working with MCC probably already frequent the “pacas” – secondhand clothing stores – because of limited budgets, but this guide indicates that buying second-hand is also good for the planet and its people.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s another one of their ratings: this one for grocery stories. Again, those of us living in Latin America probably already purchase most of our food in markets, however this guide also ranks the larger stores.

As a consumer and global citizen, concerned with social justice and the health of the planet, do you have other information sources, strategies or tips to share? We’d like to hear from you.

URGENT: Government Repression of the Mayan Ixil People of Nebaj, Guatemala

Community members and Tobias at the Municipal building May 1, 2013

May 2, 2013 –  Tobias Roberts, an MCC service worker in Nebaj, is accompanying this community in this tense situation. The community is asking for international attention to ensure that the situation is resolved without violence, and that their rights are respected.

Para leer en Español

In the next 24 hours, hundreds of police and military forces will occupy on the small town of Nebaj nestled in the mountains of northern Guatemala.

The military and police forces are being sent to forcefully reinstate ex-mayor Virgilio Bernal of the governing party who lost the 2011 municipal elections by more than 3,000 votes.  Due to a confusing legal battle regarding anomalies in the 2011 election ballot, the Guatemalan electoral authorities determined that the elections would be repeated and the Bernal, as ex-mayor, should immediately resume office.

Behind this strange turn of events, many Ixil leaders, including the ancestral authorities that MCC supports, believe that there are other forces at work.

The current trial against former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide against the Ixil people during the Civil War of the 1980´s has polarized the nation.  The president of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina, was an army major that was stationed in Nebaj during the worst atrocities of the Civil War, and during the genocide trial proceedings, was identified by witnesses as participating in the massacres and extrajudicial assassinations of the Ixil people.  Ex-mayor Bernal has recently gained support from the current government by denying that genocide took place during the Civil War in the Ixil region.

Many of the ancestral authorities of the Ixil region believe that the current militarization of Nebaj and the strange decision by the Guatemalan electoral authorities to reinstate ex-mayor Bernal are part of a strategy to adversely influence the current trial for genocide against former dictator Ríos Montt.

Furthermore, the democratically elected mayor of Nebaj, Pedro Raymundo Cobo, during a recent visit of President Pérez to the Ixil region, demanded the cancellation of recent licenses for mega-hydroelectric development signed by the current government.  The Guatemalan government has stated its belief that multinational foreign investment in rural areas, especially for mining and hydroelectric development, is the key to developing the rural areas of Guatemala.

In the Ixil region of Guatemala, there are currently two mega-dams that have built, three others with licenses to begin construction, and eight others with exploratory licenses.  All of these projects have been signed into existence without the proper consultation of the Ixil people as stipulated by national and international law.  Furthermore, these projects leave no benefit to local communities, many of whom live without access to electricity and are the ones who suffer the environmental damage provoked by these mega-dams and the social conflict that they create.

Again, the ancestral leaders of the Ixil people believe that the current handling of the electoral situation in Nebaj is a strategy by the national government to impose a local leader (ex-mayor Bernal) who has demonstrated his openness to follow the government´s “development” strategy despite much opposition from the Ixil people.

It is possible that the TSE’s unjust ruling, made in the midst of a historical juncture for Guatemala, is a strategic move on the part of the Perez-Molina government to divide and exhaust the Ixil people, distracting them from the genocide trial and the conflicts over land and development. This also destabilizes the region in order to justify a new militarization to protect transnational and national corporate interests against local opposition.

We ask for the support of the international community to be conscientious of the dangerous situation of the re-militarization of the community of Nebaj.

Photo source and further information: http://www.prensalibre.com/quiche/Juzgado-Quiche-repeticion-comicios-Nebaj_0_911909084.html

Stories – listening, sharing and engaging

“Another World is Possible” by Beatrice Aurora, Mexican-Chilean artist

This post was originally a speech given by Ellen Paulley at a Canadian Mennonite University Fundraising Banquet, on April 4, 2013. Ellen was an intern with MCC Mexico from May-July, 2012.

Para leer en Español

Listening to People’s Stories

The benefits of organic farming. The dangers faced by migrants as they journey in hopes of finding a better life. The power of education to change a life, a family, a community. These are some of the many amazing stories I heard during my three months in Mexico City.

Working as a communications intern with Mennonite Central Committee’s Latin America Advocacy program, I was tasked with assisting and enhancing the program’s communication work. As a guest in a new land for only a short time, my duty was to listen well, to seek to understand, and to share the story with those around me, both in Mexico and in Canada.

Sharing Stories

How can you best share the joys, the struggles, the journeys and the hopes that you hear? It’s a challenge to do so in any context, and even more so in a context that is brand new. I had the opportunity to take all that I heard and work with others to share the information in a way that captured and respected the intricacies of what we had heard. Using a variety of media, I welcomed the challenge to share issues facing Latin Americans in a way that presented not only statistical information but that also shared the realities faced by the people behind the numbers.

Engaging the Stories

With a focus on mining justice, urban peace-building, rural justice and migration, the stories curated by MCC’s Latin America Advocacy program challenged, inspired, saddened and encouraged me. But the realization that these stories came from my, from our, brothers and sisters in Christ kept me from disengaging. These are the stories of the global church and through my work I was welcomed into them. I encourage you to enter into these stories as well – the world is filled with opportunities for us to make a difference.

Three months is not a long time; indeed, I felt the time pass much too quickly and wished I could have extended my stay. Yet my hope remains that I have and will continue to honour the hospitality of those who so graciously shared their lives and stories with me. They were wonderful hosts and I have been changed for the better because of their willingness to share.

Who owns the Wind?

Wind Farm in Oaxaca, Mexico

By Adrienne Wiebe, MCC Latin America

Para leer en Español

I was confused. – Isn’t wind energy a GOOD thing?!

An indigenous leader was passionately denouncing the the wind farms in his community. We were in a workshop in southern Mexico in which a lawyer was assisting indigenous community leaders to understand the laws governing their land and rights for self-determination.

The narrowest part of Mexico is the Istmo de Tehuantepec, a bridge of land between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and it is one of the windiest places on earth.

This part of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico is also the home of Zapotec, Huave and Mixe indigenous people. They are largely agriculturalists and fisherfolk living on collectively owned land.

There is a growing industry, encouraged by the central government, to produce wind-power in Mexico since 1994. Many national and international corporations are planning to build or have already built huge wind farms, particularly in the last 5 years.

Current Conflicts in Latin America

There is a dramatic difference between the types of conflict and violence currently occurring in the cities and the rural areas of Latin America. While the cities are the site of gang violence, organized crime and the structural violence of poverty and marginalization; in the rural areas, the conflicts are over the ownership and control of natural resources.

In the rural areas, there are currently conflicts throughout the region over large-scale mining, hydroelectric dams, and African palm plantations, among other mega “development” projects.  (See previous blogs on these.)

Wind Energy: Green and Good?

While mining, dams, and export agriculture, are obviously destructive to environments and community livelihoods, what about the case of large-scale wind-power development?

In this case, there are some negative impacts on local farming activities, and the noise of the turbines is sometimes a problem. However, the larger problem is about the lack of participation of the local communities, in the decision-making processes. In addition, the strategies used by  government and corporate officials to gain an appearance of community agreement, have created divisions and social conflict within the community. On top of that, the local communities benefit very little from the presence of the wind projects.

Last month a community conflict escalated related to a Oaxaca wind-power project, (partially owned by ENEL, the Italian corporation building hydro-dams in Guatemala). The benefits to the El Espinal community where it is located include: a paved road, fixed up the central plaza in town, and a soccer field. Another community received about $38,000 to pave a road, and another received $30,000 for a transmission line. The majority of the power will be used by transnationals, Nestlé, and FEMSA, a Mexican-based corporation that bottles Coca-Cola drinks and operates the Oxxo chain.

Process is Important

So while in this case, generating renewable wind energy may sound like a great idea, the problem is the unequal power-relations between communities and governments/corporations in the decision-making and negotiation process of how natural resources will be developed and for whose benefit.

References

Laura Hamister, 2012. “Wind Development of Oaxaca, Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec: Energy Efficient or Human Rights Deficient?” Mexican Law Review, Vol V, No. 1, p. 151-179.

http://biblio.juridicas.unam.mx/revista/pdf/MexicanLawReview/9/nte/nte5.pdf

Proceso Article about windpower conflicts in Oaxaca, March 24, 2013

http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=337063

March for Rural Justice in Colombia

By Larisa Zehr, MCC Colombia

Para leer en Español

Note: The march halted on Sunday, April 7 after negotiations with government authorities. For an update on what happened see Anna Vogt’s blog http://thellamadiaries.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/montes-de-maria-the-movement-continues-only-the-steps-have-changed/

If violence were the solution to all of our problems, say the leaders of the campesino movement now forming in the Montes de Maria, Colombia, our problems would have been solved thirty years ago.  A coalition of leaders representing almost 30 communities have decided to join together in a nonviolent collective effort to draw together an effort to rebuild their region. There will be a march for 5 days starting on April 5.

The Montes de Maria are famous both for the fertility of the soil and the ferocity of the violence in the last fifteen years.  Unorganized criminal groups, the guerrilla groups the FARC and ELN, and paramilitary groups fought for territory in the region, catching the farming communities in the middle.  The violence came to a peak in October 2000, with the well-known massacre of Macayepo leaving 35 victims.

To stand up for their rights as victims, people must publically denounce the guilty groups and makes people targets of these still-active, still-powerful armed groups.  Furthermore, community organizers work in a context where communities have been divided and made distrustful by false promises of protection from illegal armed groups and from the government.  The march has helped the communities begin to break down some of the stigmas surrounding the region.

The campesinos of the region are used to farming its steep hills by hand, but have sustained themselves for the last 30 years from the avocado harvests.  Not only were the communities devastated by massive sackings, burnings, murders, and displacement in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but since they have returned to recuperate their farms, their principal crop has fallen to disease.  Almost all of the massive acreage of avocado farms has died in the last few years.

In the face of such obstacles, they have realized that a unified, dignified and nonviolent march is the best way to highlight both the generosity of spirit and hardworking nature of the people in the mountains, and to ask for an integrated governmental response to their plight as victims of the armed conflict and of crop disease.

The communities say that the government’s policy on reparations is not enough to meet their needs.  The Victims’ Law #1448 of 2011, establishes a ten year plan for reparations, starting in targeted communities like Macayepo, where the violence is better known.  The leaders argue that their needs are greater than mere targeted collective reparations.  They seek integrated, transformative reparations in the whole region, not just select communities.

They also recognize that without the avocado, there may well be a second displacement, this time because of economic violence.  They seek two integrated strategies for the region- a return with dignity and institutional accompaniment that fulfills their socio-economic rights and develops strategies to recover from the loss of the avocado, and an integrated, transformative, and regional reparations strategy.

In October of 2012, several community leaders began voicing a common idea: a nonviolent collective action.  Made up of practicing Evangelicals, Seventh-Day Adventists, Pentecostals, Catholics and secular community members, they are a diverse group in religious beliefs, ethnicities, and life experiences.  In October, they began to plan a march from their municipal center, El Carmen de Bolivar, to the departmental capital, Cartagena.  On April 6, 2013, over a thousand campesinos will gather to march for 5 days to a dialogue with local, departmental, and national members of the government and members of various non-governmental organizations.

They invite the national and international community to participate, publicize, and support the communities of the mountain in their nonviolent, collective effort to reclaim their rights and dignity.

For more information
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/28769-30-colombian-communities-will-march-to-be-recognized-as-victims-.html

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2013/04/colombian-coast-mobilizes-to-demand-rights-for-holistic-reparations/

Undermining

Photos by Larisa Zehr, Macayepo , Colombia

By Larisa Zehr, MCC Colombia

Para leer en Español

One Sunday morning in Bogota, we headed for one of the city’s best markets, Paloquemao.  We sipped hot café con leche and ate almojabanas, cheesy pastries,  browsed the tightly packed stalls for dry fruit, nuts, and whole wheat flour to take back home, and stared at the stacks of strange fresh fruit and vegetables.  You can buy almost anything at Paloquemao and almost all of it is grown in some region of Colombia.

We had enough time to walk back, and a block down the road, came to the security guards and automatic glass doors of a shiny new monstrosity of a shopping mall.  It seemed dropped from the sky- millions of dollars of panes of glass, colorful Adidas shoes, North American fast food and the newest Hollywood releases in the movie theater.  It was clean, uniform, and perfect.

Leaving, we soon started to walk along a flat gray wall for an entire city block- the exterior of Bogota’s largest mega-church.  There was space in the sanctuary for 10.000.  We squinted at the worship leaders from the back, over the swaying hands of several thousand.  There was a steak house and a gym, a radio station and a large scale map of Colombia and its new mega-churches: fruits of recent missions.  As we walked past the streams of Bogotanos heading into the service, we remembered some of our friends who were meeting in a house church only a half hour walk away.

That evening, after the plane ride and on the way to Sincelejo, I watched scenes of the Caribbean Coast move across the taxi’s windows.  Thatch roofs, motorcyclists with no helmets, broken concrete, stalks of yucca wilting with the lack of rain.   It is extraordinary what things co-exist in this world.

On Saturday, we had listened to a professor-activist who fights against a huge hydroelectric dam project in the department of Huila discuss the current strategy of development in Colombia and most of Latin America.  Massive transnational corporations propose huge, lucrative projects to the government, based largely on extracting or exploiting natural resources.  The governments jump at the chance to publicize their competitive advantage- the water, gold, lumber, or other natural resources- and bend to the companies, allowing them extreme amounts of legal power.

The government lets the corporation interact with the local environment, with almost no regulatory measures.  The corporation leaves the national government with few profits, and the people of the region have nothing except ruined farmland, few jobs, and a lack of future options.  Through rigorous research, the professor and his team have been able to prove that the damages caused currently and the projected loss of resources over the fifty years of the dam’s lifetime are significantly more than the profits accrued by the project, and the profits do not even stay in the country.

By turning the world into a neoliberal comparative advantage model, diverse ecosystems are replaced by huge reservoirs.  Electricity produced in Panama can travel to Argentina, but doesn’t get to rural towns in Panama.  The free trade agreements now signed in Colombia, Peru, Chile, and a number of other countries allow choice export markets to grow, at the expense of the farmers that have sustained their countries for millennia.  Malls and supermarkets take the place of the chaotic, diverse networks of local markets in which money spent stays in the community.

The church is part of the same strategy.  A uniform faith takes the place of geographical communities.  Differences are ironed out under the goal of contributing financially to God’s mission on earth, be it through building new mega-churches or funding mission trips across the world.  If you pay, you receive more blessings.  If you buy in, you receive more blessings.

We become valued not because of our cultural heritage, our grounding or love of place, our songs and food and literature.  Our activities no longer require relationship of specificity, but shopping, entertainment, church, and travel can all be accomplished without talking to another human being.  We can watch the same TV, eat the same food, and shop in the same stores in Colombia as in Lebanon, Sweden or South Africa.  We become flattened, the subjects of a market instead of a nation or a culture.  We are valued for our purchasing power or how much we produce.  It is the model of efficiency, the model of economic growth, the model of profit.  But what do we value?  At what cost?

Originally posted on http://movingfromitowe.blogspot.mx/2013/01/undermining.html