Author Archives

• Revolving Door Raises Concern about Corporate influence over Escobal Mine Consultation

  By kevodell on February 14, 2020 • ( 0 )

  “Just weeks into his administration, President Giammattei has already declared martial law in two municipalities opposed to resource extraction. He also promised to fast-track a highly controversial law to regulate the consultation process. While sure to be contested, many fear… Read More ›

• Giammattei Begins Term Alongside Allies of Jimmy Morales

  By kevodell on February 13, 2020 • ( 0 )

  ‘How does a former director of prison facilities connected to a massacre end up as president of Guatemala? In the country’s recent history, discontent with the political class has created fertile soil for people claiming to be saviors to take… Read More ›

• Drought and hunger: why thousands of Guatemalans are fleeing north

  By kevodell on February 8, 2020 • ( 0 )

  The threat of famine and the battle for dwindling natural resources are increasingly being recognised as major factors in the exodus José García Escobar and Melisa Rabanales write in The Guardian as part of the Global Development series. Martina García… Read More ›

• Drugs, mining, monoculture threaten Guatemala’s mangrove ecosystems

  By kevodell on January 25, 2020 • ( 0 )

  On Guatemala’s Caribbean coast, criminal activity is destroying mangroves and the livelihoods of families who depend on them. Yet Guatemala’s mangrove ecosystems are connected to those of Honduras, Belize and Mexico. What happens to one affects the others. Francelia Solano… Read More ›

• Guatemala, a New President while the Old Leaves With Further Repression and Impunity

  By kevodell on January 24, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Lisa Rankin, of Breaking the Silence, writes on their blog site about the change-over but lack of change. January 14 was the inauguration of the new Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei. He is known as a hard-line right-wing conservative with a… Read More ›

• Around the change-over of President

  By kevodell on January 21, 2020 • ( 0 )

  In the last couple of weeks, Guatemala has seen the swearing in of its new President, Alejandro Giammattei, and the unedifying site of Jimmy Morales scurrying off to the Central America Parliament (PARLACEN) so as to maintain his impunity from… Read More ›

• What the CICIG Taught Guatemala

  By kevodell on January 13, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Irma A. Velasquez Nimatuj writes on the Americas Program website about the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG by its acronym in Spanish). It is a timely piece, as President Morales is about to step down from his role… Read More ›

• PBI-Guatemala concern over the situation at the Police Archive

  By kevodell on January 12, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Brent Patterson writes: On January 12, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted, “The Supreme Court of Justice had scheduled a public hearing on the AHPN situation but rescheduled it for February 24. Meanwhile the Archive is left without staff.” The… Read More ›

• 'Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are everything but safe.'

  By kevodell on January 6, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Belén Fernández writes in Al Jazeera. This year, US President and xenophobe-in-chief, Donald Trump finagled “safe third country agreements” with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, allowing the United States to deport aspiring asylum seekers to the very region many of… Read More ›

• A Translation Crisis at the Border

  By kevodell on December 30, 2019 • ( 0 )

  Rachel Nolan writes in the New Yorker magazine about the grassroots group of interpreters who are often the only hope for migrants who speak Mayan languages. “The U.S. government claims to provide proper translation at all points in the immigration… Read More ›