Guatemalan citizens unite against corruption, protesting in more than 200 locations across the country. The resistance spans diverse sectors, from indigenous leaders to the youth, marking a struggle for democracy with historical roots and a hopeful gaze towards the future.
By Diana Fuentes
Journalist FOROS HUMANOS
This October 2023, despite the situation of authoritarianism in Guatemala, citizens dancing to the rhythm of the marimba created anti-corruption festivals of art, speeches, cacerolazos and a lot of conviction, they stood in more than 200 points nationwide to demand that their vote would be respected during the elections.
Many were infected with enthusiasm and took to the streets, said DiegoKeto, member of theIndigenous mayor’s office of Cotzal, Quiche. “We are going to resist here as long as necessary.”
Juan Pablo Romero, educator, said in one of the strikes: “here we are creating a sense of community in peace without violence.”
Even members of the informal economy and communal markets came out and said “we are not the markets that are here, it is the people of Guatemala tired of so much cynicism, that is why we continue and support the 48 cantons.”
Faced with this massive movement, the expertAstrid Escobedo highlights: “Because the power of the Guatemalan people, at least in the last hundred years, has managed to remove dictators from power. He passed with Manuel Estrada Cabrera, possibly not the entire population, but it was the military group that took him out. Also the revolution of 1944 with Jorge Ubico removed Idigoras Fuentes and the most recent case of Otto Perez Molina.”
Pain of families for their imprisoned daughters
Marcela Blanco’s family suffered an atrocious situation when she saw her daughter behind bars for 11 days. Brenda Fuentes said during her daughter’s detention: “How sad that she is raising her voice because that is why my daughter is in this situation of persecution.” policy».
“Our native peoples have helped ensure that this coup has not been carried out yet. Guatemala City we need support, we need to raise our voices and take to the streets to defend the little democracy we have. We cannot continue in this, with tears and despair Brenda Fuentes concluded: “let’s not let a group of corrupt people who want to continue embezzling from the state, it’s time to start a change.”
Guatemalan in the 70s and early 80s.
Astrid Escobedo highlights: “This last case from the University of San Carlos is the most shameful. If you compare it with the Guatemalan past, the entire period of armed conflict, which was at the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s. The Guatemalan academy was exterminated, the intellectuals were either murdered or went into exile. What happens now? «Either they go into exile or they are put in jail and here we must be careful, which is what happens in terms of democracy in Guatemala and it is where we have to see how the population reacts.»
“This is not new because this plan comes from 1985 when the new constitution was approved and because they decided this. The constitution, for example, leaves the issue of nomination commissions, how many years did it take to implement the law of nomination commissions and for this to be put into operation? So the delay was because while the nomination commissions were being formed, a whole mechanism of graduating more lawyers, of recruiting more lawyers, of forming those groups began to work, which is why we talk about parallel commissions and of beginning to speak as operators.”
Without democracy violence increases
Violence and democracy are not separate. Democracy is not just voting, it is the rule of law. At the core of the rule of law is respect for institutions and laws.
According to Escobedo, “we must do an analysis, there is a study by the University of Notre Dame on homicides and what the situation was like before CICIG started its work and how it was during the 12 years it operated. There was a decline, now after Cicig, the phenomena that happened in 2007, which is the hitman, are now returning.”
Violence increases due to lack of development and money, when there is no real democracy, violence rates increase. According to a study published on January 27, 2023, UNDP It is revealed that “the homicide rate is growing, although at lower levels than pre-pandemic. If the year 2019 is taken as a reference, prior to the covid pandemic, a period in which people’s mobility is restricted, the rate then was 21.5 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants.”
However, “after a significant decrease in 2020 (15.2), the homicide rate began to increase to 17.3 violent deaths per one hundred thousand people according to information recorded last year. However, the country is far from rates higher than 40 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, such as those recorded more than a decade ago.”
According to the page of Data Macros.comreveals that GuatemalaWith 3,520 murders in 2021, 228 more than in 2020, it ranks 162nd worldwide in terms of violence. Regarding the rate of intentional homicides per one hundred thousand inhabitants of the 178 that was published in Datamacro.com, in Guatemala at least 10 murders are carried out every day.
Challenges in access to information in Guatemala
Dr. Escobedo says“They used new technologies to attack and discredit, but they were not used for the campaign, they never thought about the reach that social networks already had.”
There is the idea that only a very limited group of privileged people has access to the internet, because it is not only about having access to the internet but also about having the intellectual privilege and following accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to be informed.
Escobedo concluded: “they thought it was a small group and it turned out not to be. Because those who moved the votes for seed were the youth. From my close experience, my father, who is a man over 70 years old, said we have to vote by seed because he followed social networks and the university students are going to vote by seed.”
There is some hope that young people are convinced and much more educated; Furthermore, they have grown since 2015 in an environment of denunciation of corruption and other inequalities. It seems that the youth were the ones who convinced adults, friends, family or neighbors to go out and vote, this was the part that no one expected.