Lucía Ixchiu / Pikara Magazine
There is always something very complex about providing context about what is happening in the country we now know as Guatemala. I think you won’t believe what I have to tell you, it’s a mix between a comedy and a dystopian or parallel reality in the 21st century and amid a rise of fascism and an increasing closure of democratic spaces on a global scale.
From the perspective of lawyers and professionals, Guatemala has been a judicial dictatorship since 2017 because it violated the constitutional order and arbitrarily and illegally maintained a Supreme Court over the relevant period, thereby violating the ratified international treaties. Apart from the dictatorship, the colonial agricultural system still prevails in Guatemala.
In countries that are supposed to be democracies, a transition takes place after the elections to install the new government and take office. And this is where things start to get interesting, if you can call it that. In the impunity pact, all forces are aligned to function at will.
In Guatemala, the parliament is co-opted by the mafias, who pass laws responsible for protecting corrupt and unpunished actors. The country’s presidency under Alejandro Giammattei is leading the looting. The Supreme Court has not been elected for more than five years and therefore the dictatorship has a juridical character and thus breaks the separation of powers of the so-called democracies.
On the other side of the coin There are the economic elites who have accumulated their wealth since the colony at the expense of expropriation, slavery and servitude. Extractive, mining, hydroelectric companies and monoculture plantations are the new economic way to continue this expropriation, ensuring that the elite continue to benefit and that in this way Guatemala remains a “banana republic” with the approval of the government of the USA.
This dictatorship has more than 50 people in exile, including prosecutors and officials of the highest judiciary, journalists, activists and defenders of the territory. Inconvenient people for power. In addition, several people are in prison for fabricating false and false cases to justify impunity and illegality. The prisoners also include lawyer Virginia Laparra, who was named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International this year.
Last June, an electoral process took place in Guatemala in which deputies, mayors and the presidential duo were elected in the first round. But the Impunity Pact, as it was called, had its plans for at least one of its more than 25 candidates and parties to serve as president so that the political class and elites could continue the looting. They did not expect that the rebellious youth would vote, so that a social democratic option would make it to the runoff in the second round.
After almost 70 years of extreme and rancid right-wing government, the possibility of a personal election between the social democratic party Movimiento Semilla, led by Bernardo Arévalo and Karin Herrera, and the center-right National Unity of Hope party reached the second round. UNE, led by Sandra Torres and Romeo Estuardo Guerra.
A flame of hope flared up and the population chose the Semilla movement, which won clearly with a lead of over 30 percent. We cried, we laughed, and this opened up the possibility for the exiles to return.
Without hiding much, the economic elites and leaders of the dictatorship had to at least publicly acknowledge the results. The electoral process was questioned from the start and the entire country could not believe what we were seeing, even those of us outside as migrants or exiled diaspora. The excitement lasted five minutes. Remember, we are a banana republic and the bishop of impunity and responsible for the criminalization, imprisonment and exile of many people is the Attorney General’s Office, which, from the Public Ministry led by Consuelo Porras and Rafael Curruchiche, has undertaken what is now happening experts speak of a “technical electoral coup”. They began to fabricate and spread the story that Semilla had forged signatures under the party’s statutes, and the criminalization and persecution of party people began; some had to go into exile.
The final straw was the literal hijacking by the Secretary of State of the ballot boxes containing the votes cast by citizens on August 20th. Never in the country’s democratic history has there been such a situation, according to the population in general and the indigenous organizations led by the 48 cantons of Totonicapán, the Indigenous Mayor’s Office of Sololá, the Xinka Parliament and the Departmental Council of Indigenous Authorities of Totonicapán, called to take to the streets to defend the fragile and almost non-existent Guatemalan democracy.
Guatemala is in crisis and is undergoing a coup. The dictatorship refuses to lose its power and privileges, it refuses to recognize the results of popular decisions, and it has had enough of impoverishment. And he is doing everything he can to prevent those who won the elections peacefully and democratically from taking office. The judiciary has just suspended the Semilla movement.
For more than 40 days of mobilization, the country’s main routes have been almost completely paralyzed. This makes me think that the colonial farm or banana republic suddenly has at least cracks in these structures. People have come down from the mountains to retrieve what was theirs and stolen.
The streets of Guatemala are full of indigenous dignity and the most legitimate and oldest indigenous world organizations in the country have asserted the authority and command they have always held.. An indigenous leadership that survived genocide and colonial dictatorship and continues to survive current dispossession.
Indigenous resistance is not due to any political party, our Indigenous authorities have been saying since day one of the strike. These peaceful demonstrations serve to respect democracy and the people’s decision.
A part of Iximulew awakens and begins to recognize itself for what it is: an indigenous land, an indigenous land; A part of the country is no longer ashamed of being who it is. For the first time in more than 500 years, colonial thinking towards the indigenous population is beginning to dismantle.
Another part of the country never stopped fighting, they were always on the streets with their veins open, surviving the genocide, giving birth to life and dignity, the original world that was always awake, waiting for the dawn, in mobilization and resistance. .
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