Tensions are rising in Guatemala as key election processes get underway. President Bernardo Arévalo has instituted a state of siege to combat gang-related violence that experts say appears to be aimed at destabilizing his government. The months ahead may be… Read More ›
Violence
Water Defenders Celebrate Ruling Against U.S. Gold Company’s Claim
A major victory against an exploitative corporate lawsuit in Guatemala. Jen Moore wrote, recently, on the website of the Institute for Policy Studies about the victory celebrated by the Resistencia Pacifica La Puya with the ruling by an arbitration panel… Read More ›
Arévalo Begins Third Year under State of Siege amid Clashes with 18th Street
Roman Gressier, Yuliana Ramazzini and Carlos Barrera write in El Faro English on the startling developments that have overtaken the Government of Bernardo Arévalo at the beginning of his third term. The events started off as a series of gang-related… Read More ›
La Puya: Yes to Life, No to Mining
Statement from the Peaceful Resistance La Puya to the Guatemalan and International Community in response to the decision of the International Arbitration Tribunal (CIADI) in KCA v. Guatemala The Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) has posted… Read More ›
Nine Minutes in the Fire, Eight Years For the First Light
El Faro English presented an English version of a piece by Edward Grattan relating to the tiral and sentencing of those found responsible for the deaths of the 41 young girls in the fire at the Hogar Seguro Virgen de… Read More ›
Regina José Galindo, Performance Artist: “In Guatemala, we don’t live with the truth”
She walked barefoot, leaving footprints of human blood outside the Constitutional Court. She underwent surgery to reconstruct her hymen and become a virgin again. She had a doctor injected her in the mouth with anesthesia as she attempted to read… Read More ›
Military Diary Case: “Every judicial delay prolongs the never-ending grief”
Andrea Godínez has written on Agencia Ocote about the threats to the judicial process in the Military Diary case and the pain being felt by family members of the those forcibly disappeared by the Guatemala state because of these threats…. Read More ›
The Books the CIA Burned in Guatemala
Burning books, part of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, had strong support from local allies. Guatemala, after the fall of Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, points to a common practice in Central America: the violent repression of the free… Read More ›
GHRC – Attacks on human rights defenders continue in Guatemala
GHRC writes that in the past month attacks on human rights defenders, including journalists, have continued. Journalist Carlos Choc has suffered acts of intimidation and has been the victim of a defamation campaign. These acts are believed to be linked… Read More ›
Pregnant and trapped: Guatemala’s child sex abuse crisis
In late 2022, Anja Popp presented an episode of Unreported World which looked at teen pregnancies among Indigenous Maya as a result of rape and sexual assault. There is a silent crisis of abuse and child pregnancies robbing a generation… Read More ›