{"id":60641,"date":"2023-10-24T15:22:56","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T22:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=60641"},"modified":"2023-10-24T15:22:56","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T22:22:56","slug":"we-want-to-become-visible-new-leaders-rise-to-defend-guatemalas-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=60641","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We Want to Become Visible\u2019 \u2013 New Leaders Rise to Defend Guatemala\u2019s Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Mary Jo McConahay<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Neighborhood leaders, heads of student groups and village associations, and indigenous organizations are challenging Guatemala’s corrupt political establishment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Above: Marta Tecun, 52, is among the tens of thousands across Guatemala protesting efforts by the current administration of Alejandro Giammattei to derail recent elections that saw left-leaning social democrat Bernardo Arevalo win in a landslide victory. (Image credit: Mary Jo McConahay)<\/em><\/p>\n

GUATEMALA CITY \u2013 Hundreds of feet below a shiny silver bridge that daily carries tens of thousands of speeding cars to the city center, Guatemala\u2019s political crisis is sparking hope among people living in this steep urban canyon called El Incienso.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis may be our last chance to change things around, to get rid of corruption and get a real democracy,\u201d said Erwin Rivera, president of the neighbors\u2019 committee of this 80-year old community of about 5,000.\u00a0 \u201cWe want to become visible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivera, 48, was taking his first break after 15 days manning a barricade of burning tires on the bridge, one of dozens of roadblocks set up by demonstrators countrywide to protest government attempts to derail the January inauguration of social democrat President-Elect Bernardo Arevalo. \u201cWe asked pardon of the drivers,\u201d Rivera said. \u201cBut we consider that we are defending ourselves by defending the election.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Erwin Rivera, president of the El Incienco neighbors\u2019 committee. (Image credit: Mary Jo McConahay)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

El Incienso is a crowded\u00a0colonia<\/em>\u00a0where there is no clinic, no place to buy milk, where a priest arrives only once a year to say mass in its small yellow church, a \u201cred zone\u201d considered too dangerous for companies to send workers to install telephone or internet connections. Inhabitants appear to have nothing to lose by protesting the status quo. Concrete paths too narrow for a car connect small abodes that appear pegged almost miraculously to steep slopes.\u00a0The deeper you descend into the ravine the poorer the houses look, until the paths disappear altogether into winding stairs. Sometimes, a body falling from the silvery bridge \u2013 a favorite jumping place for suicides \u2013 will crash into a house below, neighbors say, or fall onto a patio.<\/p>\n

According to researchers from the international study group TECHO, funded by the European Union, some 57 marginalized settlements like El Incienso exist in Guatemala City, with 97 others in zones on the urban fringes, precariously built, often subject to landslides, lacking one or more basic services such as water, electricity or sewage, conditions that help\u00a0drive the outflow of migrants<\/a>\u00a0to the US border.<\/p>\n

Neighborhood leaders, meanwhile, complain that if they are not connected to the ruling party, their colonias must struggle to receive municipal benefits. This makes Bernardo Arevalo\u2019s anti-graft campaign resonate with residents like Rivera, who voted for the president-elect but does not belong to his Semilla (\u201cSeed\u201d) party.<\/p>\n

Indeed, in a country where party flags have always been ubiquitous at political gatherings, from the night of August 20 when throngs gathered to celebrate Arevalo\u2019s victory, to now when supporters demonstrate on the streets and highways, the only banner they carry is the blue and white national flag.<\/p>\n

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El Incienso is one of dozens of marginalized settlements in Guatemala City where basic services are scarce. (Image credit: Mary Jo McConahay)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Erwin Rivera is part of an\u00a0emerging national leadership<\/a>\u00a0being forged during the crisis outside traditional parties. They are neighborhood leaders who once were more likely to organize sports teams than protest actions, representatives of peasant organizations, university students, labor unions like employees of Coca-Cola and the national university. Representatives of hundreds of indigenous communities, once barely acknowledged outside their rural locales, have been at the forefront of national organizing against government attempts to steal Arevalo\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n

The new leadership\u2019s allegiance is not to parties but to a countrywide movement to protect Guatemala\u2019s 37-year-old democracy, which under outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei has been battered by allegations of widespread corruption, with officials forcing a number of honest magistrates into exile and throwing journalists who exposed the graft into jail. An exhausted population cast its vote for Arevalo, a relatively unknown congress member who promised deep change.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0current crisis began<\/a>\u00a0when authorities questioned \u2013 Trump style \u2013 the validity of Arevalo\u2019s win. Attorney General Consuelo Porras suspended Semilla\u2019s legal standing, launching court cases against the party as well as the federal voting authority, known by its initials TSE, which had validated the landslide election. Prosecutors sent black-masked police to raid Semilla and the TSE. Videos show heavily armed units\u00a0hitting the offices like SWAT teams<\/a>, leaving with armfuls of document boxes. It was the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

Crowds poured into the streets, blocking urban arteries and rural highways at more than a hundred points, demanding protection for the democratic system.\u00a0Led by indigenous Maya authorities, thousands descended on the Public Ministry \u2013 the Attorney General\u2019s offices \u2013 in the capital, where many remain today, calling for the resignation of Porras and three other figures behind what they call \u201ca coup in slow motion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to interrupt the inauguration,\u201d said 58-year-old Mateo Comatz of Pixabaj, a Maya community 47 miles east of the capital.\u00a0Comatz, who said he had slept on the sidewalk outside the ministry wrapped in a blanket for the previous sixteen nights, carried the ceremonial staff that marked him as an\u00a0alcalde indigena<\/em>, a local leader unpaid but responsible for the wellbeing of his community for a certain term. \u201cThey had no right to go into the TSE. They are doing much damage. We are going to stay here until they leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the capital, noisy marches of market sellers interrupted traffic. \u201cI am losing money by not being in my stall today, by being here instead,\u201d said Marta Tecun, 52, who sells used clothing at the Landivar market. \u201cBut if what we are doing \u2013 defending democracy \u2013 doesn\u2019t work, I will lose much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent days protesters are modifying tactics, led by an indigenous entity, the Council of Authorities of the 48 Cantones (districts) of Totonicap\u00e1n department, which has met with Giammattei, with the president of the congress, and national police. Some roadblocks have opened two of four highway lanes, for instance, and ordinary employees of the Attorney General\u2019s office along with citizens with business inside are being allowed to enter.\u00a0 But the force of opposition to stealing the presidential election appears unwavering.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday the streets and highways of our country are inundated with peaceful protest, with rejection of the coup and its perpetrators,\u201d Arevalo told a cheering crowd during a commemoration of the democratic \u201cOctober Revolution\u201d of 1944. That event led to elections won by Arevalo\u2019s father, inaugurating what has been called the \u201cTen Years of Spring,\u201d an era of reforms that ended with a CIA coup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are coming to a new spring,\u201d Arevalo told the crowd, calling for \u201ca new revolution in peace and harmony.\u201d The people of Guatemala, he said, \u201cdo not give up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mary Jo McConahay is a prize-winning author, documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist whose books include \u201cMaya Roads\u201d about her three decades of traveling and living in Central America\u2019s remote landscapes.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByMary Jo McConahay Oct 24, 2023...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60642,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60641\/revisions\/60642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}