(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Censorship, Jailing Opponents, Voter Suppression: The Conservative Script Road-Test - Guatemala [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-07 Flores, Petén, Guatemala: Your humble author falls into Lago Petén Itzá (February 2023) Background: In association with UNESCO’s Education Sector, I was in Guatemala as part of a Mexican delegation promoting higher education throughout Central America. I worked for six weeks in Flores and Santa Elena, Petén, Guatemala in February and March 2023. I return in April and May to Puerto Barrios, Izabel, Guatemala & San Pedro Sula, Cortés, Honduras. This is the first of several articles about México, Guatemala and Central America relating to the economic and political environment, migration and relations with the USA. Among the pillars of the modern conservative movement, I wanted to call your attention to three tracks that stand out. These tracks are not new in the USA and they have been well tested around the world, usually under the direct direction and supervision of conservative business leaders and politicians. Let’s examine Guatemala. In 2023, overt acts of these activities are evident throughout Guatemala, directed by the administration led by Alejandro Giammattei. General elections to select Giammattei’s sucessor as well as all seats in Congress will be held on June 25, 2023. The president is constitutionally prohibited from running for a second team (at least so far). 1. Censorship and Self-censorship. Journalists are harassed and arrested for investigating corruption with the current government. Back in December 2020, Daniel Gatti wrote, in Uruguay’s Semanario Brecha, about a vicious wave of repression: La ira en las entrañas del odio (roughly translated as ‘The anger in the bowels of hate’). At the time, Guatemala was suffering the displacement of communities because of the effects of several several tropical storms and hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and the COVID-19 health crisis. The Giammattei administration responded by cutting funding to health care, poverty, infrastructure and other essential services (including education). Señor Gatti notes: [C]on casi el 60 por ciento de la población en la pobreza y un desempleo enorme, se congelaba el gasto social. Se pretendía, por ejemplo, suprimir un programa que combatía la desnutrición infantil. Pero no es sólo eso: dice que, en los diez meses que lleva en el gobierno, Giammattei ni ha rozado, a pesar de que dijo que algo haría, las estructuras que conducen a la reproducción de la corrupción y la miseria. Desde que se inició la pandemia, el Congreso pidió préstamos por 3.800 millones de dólares y no se sabe en qué se utilizaron. A los guatemaltecos les llegó menos del 15 por ciento. (translation: [W]ith almost 60 percent of the population living in poverty and enormous unemployment, social spending was frozen. It was intended, for example, to suppress a program that combated child malnutrition. But it is not only that: he says that, in the ten months that he has been in government, Giammattei has not touched, despite the fact that he said that he would do something, the structures that lead to the reproduction of corruption and misery. Since the pandemic began, Congress has borrowed $3.8 billion and it is not known what they were used for. Guatemalans received less than 15 percent.) Add femicide and drug trafficking gangs to the mix and we have a genuine humanitarian crisis. (I’ll save my direct witnessing of the migration crisis for another story.) Self-censorship is evident in conversations with students, cohorts, and even local leaders that I interacted with. In February, President Giammattei celebrated the opening (in Ayutla, San Marcos) of an auto parts plant is run by Yazaki North America, Inc. (AP noted “It was part of an appeal by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in 2021 for companies to invest in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.”) In early March, Guatemalan press reported that Ford is also considering opening a plant as well. These efforts are certainly welcome — under the right circumstances. However, concerns about graft and unfair labor practices abound. (Rightly so!) Environmental concerns are also dismissed (in collusion with non-Guatemalan actors — the outside corporate interests). These are just part of the Giammattei administration’s Standard Operating Procedures. Students of mine asked questions about certain sensitive topics but not directly and certainly not in front of other professors or school administrators (who are dependent on government approval to be in their roles). I too must have my curriculum approved because of my work with state-sanctioned universities, despite being UNESCO-certified. At one point, I stopped a hostile discussion on the Ford plant because opinions being expressed could end students' opportunities to continue to study. All I could do is meekly suggest that students do their research, ask questions and look for guidance from societies that have emerged from closed societies. (I used a few allegories about my time in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship.) 2. Jailing Journalists and Political Opponents. On March 14, 2023, the Washington Post published an article in the Opinion section written by José Carlos Zamora about his father: “José Rubén Zamora is unjustly imprisoned. It’s time to free him.” The article by the younger Zamora highlights the irregularities of this case — one of many, many cases of oppression: That day, seven US Senators (Bob Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tim Kaine, Dick Durbin, Ben Cardin, Jeanne Shaheen, Jeff Merkley, and Peter Welch) sent a letter to US Secretary of State Blinken calling out the Giammattei government for harassing and persecuting government officials, members of the press, and civil society organizations, specifically naming José Rubén Zamora, among others. Read that letter here. In case you wondered, neither the Washington Post article or the US Senators’ letter was accessible to me while on Guatemalan public internet access. Days later, the AP reported on the arrest of former prosecutor Orlando Salvador López on abuse-of-authority charges. López was best known for having brought to trial late dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt in 2013 for genocide committed against Indigenous Guatemalans during the country’s 1960-1996 civil war. Ríos Montt was convicted and sentenced to 80 years, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. Not noted in the article: Ríos Montt's daughter Zury Ríos is one of the leading candidates for the presidency. She was formerly married to former U.S. Congressman Jerry Weller (Republican from Illinois), who was one of the members of Congress who took ‘donations’ from Duke Cunningham. (Efraín Ríos Montt’s conversion to evangelical Christianity in the late 1970s had (and still has) a significant impact on Guatemalan society. I would like to talk more in depth about Ríos Montt and family in a later article.) 3. Voter Suppression. Almost daily for the first ten weeks of 2023, stories appeared in the local and national press about candidate and voter suppression. Reports of candidate suppression — blocking candidates from the ballot — are worded very cautiously by merely reporting the flimsy reasons given by El Registro de Ciudadanos (The Registry of Citizens) for not allowing a candidate on the ballot. One example on 21-March: El Registro de Ciudadanos rechaza la inscripción del binomio presidencial del partido Creo, conformado por Francisco Arredondo y Francisco Bermúdez, debido a que existen cargos jurídicos contra Arredondo en la Contraloría General de Cuentas. (translation: The Registry of Citizens rejects the registration of the presidential binomial of the Creo party, made up of Francisco Arredondo and Francisco Bermúdez, because there are legal charges against Arredondo in the Comptroller General of Accounts.) How about that! One arm of the government will charge you with a crime (with no evidence) and all of a sudden you aren’t eligible to be on the ballot. (And look, UN observers! See: we are cracking down on corruption by not letting ‘criminals’ appear on the ballot. Somewhere Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are kicking themselves — hard, I hope — for not shoving this into Homeland Security when the W. Bush administration made their civil liberties grab after the 2001 terrorist attacks.) There are other conservative tracks fully evident in Guatemala, namely harassment of peaceful protests, legislation against abortion, sex education and LGBT+ rights, racism against indigenous peoples (especially women) and book banning as well as directing public spending to private enterprises and vast orchestrated corruption and graft. On March 7th, military veterans — tossed aside by a government bill in 2022 that cancelled most of their benefits for their service — began a series of blockades and protests in the country, including the Puente Machaquilá (Machaquila Bridge) in Petén, a major trucking artery from Puerto Barrios to Flores. Several of us attended but were warned against taking any photographs. (Warning usually are done with a barrel of an automatic weapon.) Reserva de Biosfera Maya (March 2023) Guatemala is a beautiful country. I first visited there in 1987 when I hitch-hiked from León, Nicaragua to Mérida, Yucatán, México. The people I have met in these rural communities and small towns — so often left behind and used as fodder in U.S.-backed counter-insurgency activities throughout Central America in the 1980s — are strong, hard-working survivors. The younger generations are becoming ecological justice warriors — it is heartening to see and hear the love for this mesmerizing landscape and its rich history carried on by the young. Please consider following the social media account of Guatemalan anthologist, editor and historian Ana Cofiño and the social justice organization: Fundación Myrna Mack. Thank you for reading. Alejandro Morales A variation of this appeared in March in the student publication at La Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Quintana Roo. This is the first of several articles about México, Guatemala and Central America relating to the economic and political environment, migration and relations with the USA. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/7/2160114/-Censorship-Jailing-Opponents-Voter-Suppression-The-Conservative-Script-Road-Test-Guatemala Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/