Day Ten: Environmental Injustices and Military Talk

Today during the half hour break at the Spanish school, there was a mini presentation given by a few young people who have been here for several weeks. They just got back from visiting some communities in rural Guatemala who have been struggling lately. What is happening right now is they are being forcefully evicted from their properties by sugar and palm oil companies, so that there crops can be planted (to create biofuel and earn carbon tax credits). Many of these people are decendents of the massacres that happened during the civil war´s scorched earth policy where entire villages were wiped out. As as result of these injustices, the land of their ancestors was stolen. Many of them bought it back, but were given false documents or the people from whom they bought the land did not truly own it in the first place. So, there is a lot of legal gray area which leaves the largely illiterate population at the mercy of these large companies. The companies have their own police who patrol the area with their guns during the day, and at night have been murdering the leaders of the community. This is happening as we speak. 


The international pressure has only had limited success as they have called for the Guatemalan government to intervene and provide housing for these people. The people who were talking this morning, sat in on some meetings and the government responded that they could not find these villages or people. I want to learn more and the people are heading back to that part of Guatemala to use their influence as ¨white people¨ to help the village (the village people asked for them to come back). Talking to the other students at the Spanish school was encouraging as there seems to be real ways in which we can make the world a better place or at least lend a helping hand in a serious way.


This afternoon we also got the chance to meet with a military official from the Guatemalan army who served during the civil war in intelligence work. He gave us the official stance of the military on the civil war, which was worth hearing. His perspective was primarily that those in the military are the military and must follow the letter of their instructions to the last period. He also said that the military only takes credit for about 60% of the deaths and harm that  the REMI project´s statistics claims that they were responsible for causing. We found out later that our speaker is actually on trial for human rights violations in the international court....


Lots to think about for sure!