A recent Opinion piece in Ojalá seeks to place the current national strike/blockade (paro nacional) within the context of oppression, indigenous solidarity and ages-old communal links.
A communal mobilization of national scope has brought everyday impunity and extractivism in Guatemala to a halt and revealed the vulnerability of the entire political and social structure.
This Indigenous-communal uprising began on October 2nd, organized and sustained nationwide communal governance structures, which although negated both in legal and political terms, have brought to the fore the rejection of the impunity so keenly experienced in Guatemalan society. At its highest point, there were more than 200 blockades of highways and streets. Today there continues to be more than 20.
The blockades were called by the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán, the Indigenous Municipality of Sololá, the Indigenous Municipality of Nebaj, the Allied Communities of Chichicastenango, the Indigenous Municipality of Santa Lucía Utatlán and several others at the beginning of October. They have since set a limit to the impunity with which abuse of the republican institutions in Guatemala was being exercised.
[…]
The straw that broke the camel’s back amid all the arbitrariness and interference, which were well outside the bounds of legality, was the entry of state forces into the offices of the electoral tribunal at the end of September to seize the ballots that elected Arévalo.
[…]
By staying true to agreements produced in a collective manner, in this case, the demand for the resignation of the three government officials, communal representatives produce simple and sensible lines of action that resonate with the majority of the population.
It is the massive organizational capacity of the network of Indigenous communal structures, which are renewed year after year through festivities, collective work for tasks in the common interest, and the regular election of authorities, that can sustain and organize the daily work needed to continue the ongoing national mobilization.
You can read the full Opinion, with links and photos, here, The pedagogy of communal politics in Guatemala.
Categories: Corruption, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Legal, Presidential Elections, Solidarity in Action
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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