This blog is
contributed to by people who have other lives, and inevitably
sometimes the demands mean we miss posting a few things we would have
liked to. This happened in May, so I thought I would just post up a
brief summary of a few things I would have liked to have posted then.
Hope you find them useful!
- The Academy
of Mayan Languages
has set up a television
station
to transmit programmes in Mayan languages, TV
Maya.
It will be a small start – only three transmissions of half an
hour per week – but it is hoped to expand this soon. - Jennifer
Harbury has lost
her final appeal
for compensation from the US authorities for their part in the death
of her husband, Efrain Bamaca. She made a claim under the Federal
Tort Claims Act,
(FTCA) which permits the US government to be sued for actions of
people acting on its behalf. Jennifer Harbury tells the story in her
book “Searching
for Everardo”
of how she met and married the guerrilla reader Comandante Everardo,
and then her search for the truth about his fate after he
disappeared. She eventually discovered that Bamaca was killed by a
paid CIA asset after being captured in battle. The judgement claims
the FTCA does not apply to actions outside the US. The state of
Guatemala recognised its responsibility
in the death of Bamaca back in 2006. - An attempt to
reintroduce the death penalty in Guatemala has failed for the time
being. As we reported
back in February a bill was introduced to reintroduce it as a
response to the crime rate. In mid-March Alvaro Colom vetoed
the law arguing that it was unconstitutional. As the Constitutional
Governance Committee failed to determine what to do next the law
then failed at the beginning of May. Congress will need to introduce
a new bill if it wishes to try again to reintroduce the penalty
again. - A hunger
strike
was held in Guatemala City by four women claiming their babies had
been stolen for adoption. They lost
their children in 2006 in various different ways, including being
drugged or threatened. They gave up the strike after eight days but
suggested they may reinitiate it if the authorities do not do
anything about locating their children. A new adoption law
introduced at the end of 2007 tightened up adoption procedures. In
the face of the hunger strike all adoptions were suspended
for a period of one month so that pending adoptions, some of which
were initiated before the new law, can be reviewed. - Victor Rivera,
a former adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, was murdered
just two days after he was dismissed from his post. The president
had remarked that he had become “too powerful”. He was a
controversial figure having allegedly been a CIA asset in El
Salvador. He was a Venezuelan by birth but had taken up Guatemalan
citizenship, and had worked in Guatemela for many years. He was
involved in negotiating the release of kidnap victims and had been
investigating the killing of three Salvadoran politicians and their
driver. There was criticism that he had not been provided with
protection after he was dismissed despite the work he had done and
the knowledge he had about high profile cases. - Guatemala is
considering a freedom
of information act
to allow members of the public to access details of how public money
is spent. This has been lingering in Congress since 2000.
Categories: Culture
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