Benoit Pierre Amedee María, known as ‘Benito,’ pictured during a graduation ceremony at the Ixil University. Photo: Giovanni Batz/provided for The Globe Post
On August 10, a French development worker was shot to death execution-style in rural Guatemala, one of the highest-profile murders in the Central American country in recent years.
Elizabeth Oglesby writes in The Globe Post.
The 60-year-old Benoit Pierre Amedee María, known as “Benito,” was an agronomist with Agronomists and Veterinarians Without Borders. He worked to alleviate poverty and support land rights in Guatemala’s Mayan highlands for more than two decades.
The murder is a warning to community activists and environmental defenders across the country. It also signals that Guatemala’s efforts to combat impunity are being unraveled by diehard forces of its bloody past.
What makes this moment so dangerous is that after years of bipartisan US support for Guatemala’s anti-impunity efforts, Trump officials and Republicans along with them have turned a blind eye as criminal networks systematically reverse human rights and rule of law gains made so laboriously after Guatemala’s 36-year civil war ended in 1996.
You can read the full piece, including links and photos, here, on The Globe Post website, where the writer further explores Guatemala’s murderous past and how attempts to fight impunity are being undermined by the US President.
Categories: Culture, Genocide, Guatemala, Human Rights, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Land, Military, Poverty, Violence
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