GUATEMALA TODAY
Guatemala has seen the worst of what humanity has to offer over the last 50 years. In 1954, a CIA-led military coup ushered in decades of misery stemming from one military dictator to the next. An internal armed conflict began in 1960 lasting until the Peace Accords were signed in 1996. In the meantime, Guatemala suffered rape, torture, extra-judicial killing and a campaign of genocide against the indigenous peoples leaving 600 villages massacred, 400,000 people dead and 40,000 missing. Although armed combat is over, the conditions that produced the violence still remain. Scratch the surface of Guatemala's phenomenal natural splendor and beautiful traditions and you'll find a people still bearing the scars and nightmares of the violence. This legacy lives on today, almost a decade after the peace was signed.
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© Jonathan Moller
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As
Guatemala makes the transition from military rule to
democratically-elected government, it faces not only the hardships many
countries in the Global South face, but has its own personal legacy
with which to come to terms. Although there is widespread corruption
and violence against human rights and social justice workers, the
post-war period has seen some amazing progress toward peace and
reconciliation including long-term prison sentences for high-ranking
military officials for extra-judicial murder of Bishop Gerardi and
anthropologist Myrna Mack. Further, genocide
cases against the war's most
notorious dictators are moving closer to the courts every day. However,
there are still many grave concerns such as...
Although regional mega-projects have been planned for years, Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) is not only as potentially devastating as earlier projects it is also the most viable. President Fox of Mexico has packaged these plans in a new "regional integration" proposal.
PPP will include the construction of highway, rail, ports and canals in an effort to extract and transport resources from all seven Central American countries and southern Mexico, a region encompassing 102 million square kilometers and 63 million citizens, an area extremely rich in cultural and biological diversity. The PPP proposes to link the trans-oceanic megaprojects with the development of a north-south industrial and transportation infrastructure. Funding is coming from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Central American Development Bank. With such financial backing it's easy see to why analysts have labeled Plan Puebla Panama as potentially the most devastating development for the environment and indigenous culture in the Americas since the Conquest by Spain.
Mexican president Fox touts PPP as bringing "the fruits of globalization" to southern Mexico and Central America, advancing Bush's Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) south to Panama. PPP visionaries have their eyes set on important petroleum assets, 34 million hectares of virgin timber, spectacular fresh water reserves, 30 million low-wage workers, and the World Bank-created "Meso-American Biological Corridor," a treasure trove of biodiversity.
In essence, the PPP has three goals: Increase the transportation and industrial infrastructure in the region, improving the capacity for export industries, propel the region's economy from agriculture to assembly plant maquiladoras and manufacturing, and expand private control over the vast natural resources in the region, the latter of which being integral to the success of the plan as a whole. It is thus clear that PPP would forcibly remove rural and indigenous communities from their lands resulting in their convenient relocation in urban slums and sweatshops.
What does this all mean for La Quetzal, our beloved little community of 175 families? Officials from all over Central America are quick to deny specific plans but civil organizations have predicted that these proposed dams could flood 10-12 million square kilometers or nearly one-third of the Peten, Guatemala's largest province. Given La Quetzal's proximity to the Usumacinta river and thus its potential submerging, it's easy to see that the community could be facing some difficult times ahead perhaps not unlike what led them to the refugee camps to begin with.
To date, details on PPP are jealously guarded and getting reliable information around which to organize has proven daunting. This hasn't stopped critics from a range of movements and countries have organized to protest this disastrous project. Several forums and conferences have taken place to begin to mount a defense against PPP and its projects. These conferences have taken place been truly international in scope and have been attended by environmental, labor, indigenous and human rights groups of all stripes. While there is much to be done, the foundations for resistance have been laid. The first thing we need to do is get ourselves better educated. CIEPAC and ACERCA have information with which to begin to educate ourselves. NISGUA sells a wonderful booklet of writings opposing this plan and suggesting alternatives.