Eyder Peralta recently hosted, on NPR, a couple of interviews with prominent Guatemalans on that country’s current democratic crisis with the upcoming second round of the presidential elections on the horizon.
He talks with Yassmín Barrios, the judge who passed down the Guilty verdict of genocide and crimes against humanity against Efraín Ríoss Montt.
Yassmin Barrios, a judge who has lived through the most hopeful moments of the country’s democracy and has now decided to fight through one of its most difficult.
When I first see Judge Yassmin Barrios, she’s in the middle of a judicial nightmare – far from where she was 10 years ago. That’s when she handed down one of the most important rulings in Latin American history. She presided over a trial that found Efrain Rios Montt, the former military ruler of Guatemala, guilty of genocide, of ordering the extermination of a Mayan tribe during the civil war in the ’80s. It was unprecedented – an untouchable had been held to account. But just 10 days later, that sentence was thrown out. And now she’s been relegated to this courthouse, to this trial about a gang running an extortion ring.
You can read the transcript and listen to the interview, here, Meet the Guatemalan judge fighting for democracy at a critical moment for the country.
In a second interview, he talks with Guatemalan Congressman Samuel Pérez Álvarez, a member of a reformist party whose candidate made it into the second round of presidential elections this year.
Guatemala’s presidential runoff is in a couple of weeks. Three of the most popular candidates were disqualified before the first round. Two candidates remain – Sandra Torres, a political veteran, a former first lady who’s promised to fight corruption, but she’s been jailed for it in the past and is now the preferred candidate of the establishment – and Bernardo Arevalo, the leader of a small reformist party that surprised everyone by making it into a second round. The party has made fighting corruption the centerpiece of its campaign, but it has faced official harassment. Police raided their offices, and a judge has tried to knock them off the ballot. So far, they’re still in the running, but the U.S. and other countries have raised concerns that the election won’t be fair.
We contacted a member of the Semilla (Movimiento Semilla) party, Guatemalan Congressman Samuel Perez Alvarez, as he was campaigning in Guatemala City. I asked him what’s happened since his party came out victorious in the first round of presidential elections.
You can read the transcript and listen to the interview, here, A leader of Guatemala’s reformist party on the country’s upcoming elections.
Categories: Audio, Corruption, Criminalisation, Guatemala, Impunity, Justice, Presidential Elections, Solidarity in Action
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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