Guatemala 2019

July 18, 2019:
Another year has gone by and I've rarely thought about this blog, but I'll try to be more consistent in posting. This year has been one of unending political turmoil in Guatemala, and increased repression against indigenous communities. When I was here last summer, although I didn't detail it in the blog, I was part of a human rights delegation that was convened to look into a string of assassinations of leaders of two important peasant organizations: the Comité Campesino para el Desarrollo del Altiplano (Peasant Committee for Development in the Highlands), known by its Spanish acronym CCDA, and the Comité de Desarrollo Campesino (Committee for Peasant Development), or CODECA. At the time we arrived in Guatemala in July of 2018, 4 members of each organization had been assassinated during the previous few months; the night we arrived in Guatemala, a leader from a different indigenous organization was assassinated. The assassinations have continued into the current year; since my arrival in Guatemala a week ago, three more leaders have been assassinated.  

I usually come to Guatemala in the summer and again during my winter break, sometime between late December and late January, but this year I decided to forgo a winter visit to Guatemala and instead spent a week volunteering in Tijuana with an organization called Al Otro Lado (on the other side) that tries to help orient migrants and asylum seekers about the process, to give them some preliminary feedback about whether or not they have grounds to seek asylum and to prepare them for what to expect when they face a credible fear interview. 

I was here in March over my spring break but it was just for 9 or 10 days, and I was mostly researching an article that I have yet to write about monuments to migration. This current trip, which is exactly four weeks, had two key purposes. First, I was one of the co-organizers of the biannual conference of the Guatemala Scholars Network, which took place in Antigua, Guatemala from July 11 through the 13th. And secondly, I am trying to wrap up research for another article, this one about historical memory of the Guatemalan genocide and how that is reflected and represented in museums, markers and monuments. 

Since I arrived, the newspapers in both countries were full of news about the migrant crisis in the U.S., since many of the migrants are Guatemalans, and during the past months, tens of thousands of Hondurans and Salvadorans have passed through Guatemala on their trip northwards.The Guatemalan take on things is obviously somewhat different-- depending upon the sources one reads.

It's hard to give a snapshot of what the country is like right now. During the short time I've been here (less than 2 weeks as I write this), in many ways everyday life seems largely unchanged in the macro-sense (obviously for some individuals I know, things have changed a lot. A few of my close friends have changed jobs, moved to different cities. Very often people change telephone numbers, or drop their Facebook accounts, or open Facebook accounts under new names. 

For example, I reach out to a friend via WhatsApp to tell her "Hey, I'm probably going to pass through [city where she working as far as I knew]." No answer. I contact her father, who tells me she has changed phone numbers, and gives me the new number. Turns out she is no longer in that city, no longer at that job, but back living in her hometown, where I may or may not visit this trip.

Another friend has had three different Facebook accounts, but hasn't closed the two that are no longer active. So I wrote to her when I was here in March and got no answer. Texted and WhatsApped her. Also no answer. This time I managed to find the right Facebook account and was able to get in touch. She, too, has changed jobs and changed locales and is moving around a lot for work, but we will perhaps be able to meet up.

The criminalization and attacks on human rights defenders --indigenous community organizers and leaders -- have continued and perhaps even intensified since I was here last year with a human rights delegation. More members of both organizations that we were looking into (CCDA and CODECA) have been killed, and just as I arrived, two leaders from the Garifuna community in Livingston were assassinated. 

This is just a very short introduction... more to come.