Guatemala-what´s the story like?
Trip Start
Oct 10, 2006
1
18
110
Trip End
Ongoing
Still in Xela,
Guatemala
Monday, January 8, 2007
The second thing that I noticed in Guatamala was how lovely and helpful the people are and this has held true in every place that we encountered. This quality is obviously highly paradoxical when one considers the violence of the civil war and the incredible amount of murders committed in the country on a daily basis. It´s estimated that between 15 and 22 people are murdered every day and in 2004, a total of 3630 were murdered. Newspaper headlines over the Christmas right into the New Year involved more children than adults whilst a murder more horrific than that of Jamie Bulger was committed by two 19 year olds New years´eve.
Thankfully, most of the violence occurs in the country´s capital Guatamala city but, unfortunately, the mentality that a life is worth little more than a slice of bread also seeps into other cities and villages from time to time.
A very disquieting phenomenon has developed throughout Guatamala in the last ten years whereby Maras (gangs of criminals that contain a high percentage of Hondurans and El Salvadorans) call up a home and reveal the intimate knowledge they possess of the family´s every move...For example, "I know that Juan takes piano lessons at 5pm on a Friday and plays soccer on a Tuesday at 2pm.:". They threaten to use this knowledge for ill means if the family do not cooperate and hand over the requested sum. This phenomenon is not necessarily restricted to the very wealthy families of Guatamala, the middle class are also afected: the family I am staying here with in Xela had to part with 200 USd worth of mobile credit for some punk that rang up.(there is a massive mobile culture in Guatamala. It is not unusual to see a traditionally clad indigenous woman clutching a motorola phone in one hand and a basket of weaved clothes in the other) The likelihood is that this punk was just some petty criminal bluffing but this is not a chance one can afford to take in Guatamala where 200 USd worth of credit could equal five lives.
An equally, and in my eyes more disturbing, phenomenon is also becoming part and parcel of some Guatemalan lives whereby imprisoned criminals phone the houses that surround the prison "requesting" the "services" of the daughters in the house. A refusal of these services will result in the prisoners´ mates on the outside dealing with the familia as they please. The Father of the house is often placed in the compromising position of having to choose between his wife´s life or his daughters´chastity.
This phenomenon is still mainly unreported because the Guatemalans have nobody to turn to about it. These occurences were only revealed recently when an anonymous source wrote into a magazine about them. All was hush hush before this and still one of the teachers in our school hadn´t heard about it despite the fact that it had happened in the town of Equital, a mere five hours from Xela.
Guatamalans cannot turn to the police because they are generally highly corrupt. This fact has further led to a situation where Guatemalans have felt obliged to adopt a method of civil policing as one finds in Cairo, Egypt. They, themselves, deal with suspected thieves in a very brutal manner often resulting in death. Little is done about these deaths although Guatemalan police did arrest two people recently in an effort to appease international pressure. The persons in question had appeared in a newspaper photo; one of the men was speaking on his mobile whilst the other was watching as many others, whose faces were discernible, beat the living lard out of the thief.
Guatemalens are entirely disillusioned with the the legislature, executive and judiciary in the country and who can blame them? During the civil war, more than 400 Mayan were wiped out. One of the main perpetrators was a gentleman called Jose Efrain Rios Montt. He enacted a "scorched earth" policy whereby he attempted to "cleanse" society of suspected guerillas..the problem was that he killed man, woman and child without pity. Clandestine mass graves are still be discovered here in Guatamala and in many, the bones of children are the most common. It´s said that Rios Monnt is second only to Adolf Hitler in terms of the level of murders he committed per head of population.
Yet Rios Monnt is currently enjoying a prestigious postion in government! He ran for prez in 2002 after much controversy. Originally he wasn´t going to be allowed because of a clause in the constitution that said that anybody who had previously committed a coup (which Rios Monnt had) couldn´t run for Prez. This clause was overlooked following a massive, bloody demonstration in favour of him by the Indigenous..of all people! This day is now known as Bloody Thursday and shows that even the indigenous are subject to bribes.
Nothing much has been done about the other perpetrators either. Spain have sought to extradite these men but without success. They have six men on their hitlist, five of these are in Guatemalan jails away from the more "common" prisoners whilst the final one is in a top class hospital.
Other members of govt. are not above corruption either. Guatamala suffered a recent national embarrassment when it was revealed that one of its chief ministers, an owner of a petroleum franchise, was selling stolen gas! But he´s still happily positioned in govt. whilst Gutamalans shrug their shoulders in tired resignation.
A lot of the problems in Guatamala come from the age old problem of inequality. Like in Mexico where British bloke Bobby knew of a family who owned 11 cars, Guatamala is full of BMW owners who share the same village as non-drug users that search the bin every night for food. It´s said that the wealthiest twenty percent own thirty times more than the bottom twenty percent whilst 70% of the land is owned by 3% of the population.
There are also many American companies now entering the Guatemalen market and taking over companies such as Mr Walmart who has taken over Paiz, among other, supermarkets. This certainly won´t help the more humble in Guatamala.
Guatamala celebrated the tenth anniversary of the signing of peace accords on Dec 29th, 2006 but there is still a huge amount of work to be done towards attaining a real sense of peace and equality. I think the only solution is the presence of international authorities who would observe the practice of legislation, policing etc.
I´m not sure how welcome the US would be however considering the huge role they played in helping the military exercise its atrocities during the war. Prez "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms Lewinsky" Clinton formally apologized for this in Spring, 1999 but a great deal of bitterness still exists, particularly among the educated who were one of the chief targets while they were students at university.
Guatemalans are generally not proud of their government, police or basically anything that goes with the name tag Guatemalan: Entrepreneurial vendors selling chocolate, shampoo, nuts etc come onto the chicken buses (not sure if I mentioned them before. They´re old American school buses with an official capacity of 48 or 67 people but there are usually up to 100 people squashed in like sardines whilst some young fella at the top of the bus hollers the destinations' name looking for more business) in an effort to sell their product. One of the main selling points is usually that the product is imported, rather than of Guatamalan origin.
This is indeed sad as they have a lot to be proud of: The countryside is breathtaking, the people are lovely (well the ones not involved in Maras!) and there is a lot to do and see. Hopefully things will improve for them as time goes on but that they will still preserve their identity and culture.
Just after finishing my last lesson of Spanish. In a lot of ways, it was a bit of waste of time cos I don´t think I learnt much that I didn´t know before. But I photocopied lotsa pages on Saturday so I might see something on them....over 100 yoyos for photocopying eh!
Had a good weekend of it. Headed to a town called Huehuetenango on Saturday and the views on the chicken bus were spectacular. Think Ring of Kerry on a very sunny, clear day. Went to natural hot springs called Fuentes Georginas shrouded in the mountains on Sunday. Very hot, heaven!
Hoping to head towards El Salvador tomorrow so we´ll be waving goodbye to
