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Despite the grotesque political resistance of the judiciary, Bernardo Arévalo, son of the “revolutionary” former president Juan José Arévalo, took over the presidency of Guatemala 70 years after the beheading of the “National Revolution” carried out by his father. The paradox is that the Arévalo government is promoted and sponsored by the North American government.
Key Challenges of Government of Change
Arévalo, perhaps unconsciously, names his government the second democratic spring. The first would be the National Revolution (1944-1954) that his father led and which was violently aborted by the United States.
One of the most urgent challenges of this second democratic spring is the establishment of the institutionality of the state monopolized by crime. Two centuries after the Republic, Guatemala has no legal and reputable state institution. Crime operates from the internal structures of the state. This is reflected in criminal findings that were neither investigated nor punished by the defunct International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). This is evident in the recent and current embarrassing political-legal confrontation between oligarchic factions that obey or disobey the North American government.
Curing this terminal “state cancer” means an almost “lethal” operation by the state and even against North American interests.
Humanize and organize Guatemala’s “rush” on the US. Although no one knows exactly how many children and teenagers walk to the United States instead of going to school, it is estimated that an average of a thousand Guatemalans set out for this country every day in search of life. Washington Border Control speaks of almost 300,000 Guatemalan migrants in 2023. This is no longer migration. It is a human onslaught caused by the catastrophic effects of violent neoliberalism, unemployment and existential anomie.
Furthermore, since it is a forced passage to Mexico, it is inevitably forced to “allow” waves of migrants from other countries coming from the south to the north.
In addition to building an “existential sense and belonging,” Arévalo needs to focus on creating sources of work. And the deregulated free market is not creating good job opportunities anywhere.
Stop the chronic malnutrition of 65 percent of children. In departments with a majority of locals, eight to nine out of ten children under five are malnourished. A country with malnourished children is a country with a damaged “hard drive” for the present and the future.
This is increasing with the inexorable growth of the “dry corridor” due to the effects of climate change, more and more land no longer producing food, no matter how much effort farmers put in. Famine is a latent reality in a growing Guatemala that eats only twice a day.
Reorganize the internal security system. When there is hunger, unemployment and no state (authority), violence is the most common outlet. If you include the factor of “free possession and bearing of arms” (constitutionally established) in this equation, we have a country of “armies of armed hungry people” on the horizon. A consequence and a breeding ground for the growth of the unstoppable “drug trafficking industry”. And when political-military intervention from North America is added to this – as is the case – the fate of Guatemala is painful.
Health and education for survival. The neoliberal system introduced with the signing of the peace agreement (1996) destroyed all public services and, in many cases, turned them into lucrative businesses for drug investments. The truth is that the population's needs for health, education, housing and nutrition are increasing and the private sector cannot and does not want to respond to them. Furthermore, the effects of climate change and “natural disasters” add up and require education and health to survive.
A change as a “pain reliever” to avoid healing what hurts
The hope of the population sown in the second spring (mid-summer) under the leadership of Bernardo Arévalo was undeniable. This is despite Arévalo publicly declaring that his government will not be anti-neoliberal, but rather anti-corruption. With the formation of his cabinet of ministers and the dubious record of his political party Semilla, even the anti-corruption issue is being distorted, as the idea of ”good corruption” is now dangerously established in the country's imagination to the bad oligarchic corruption of those who disobey Washington .
His cabinet consists of members of the corporate sector (grouped in the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations (CACIF), a predator of rights) and advisers from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, acronym in Spanish English). Furthermore, the vast majority of its ministers were civil servants from previous governments. Be careful, his party promised “a government without CACIF” for Guatemala during the election campaign.
Another sign that the promised change is a euphemism is the unexpected formation of the executive board of the Congress of the Republic, led by deputy Samuel Pérez from the ruling party. According to a public complaint from the same MPs, this directive was the result of a “dark negotiation” with politicians from traditional right-wing parties, sponsored (under threat) by the North American Embassy.
This law reinforces the feeling that “corruption is good” as long as it is encouraged and encouraged by the North American government. By the way, the USA shamelessly prevented the State Department and the judiciary from continuing the proceedings against Semilla for signature forgery and the investigation into allegations of election fraud, using threats.
The North American government's “political occupation” of Guatemala was much more evident in the embarrassing act of the final transfer of command.
While international delegations left Guatemala embarrassed by the political joke (including the King of Spain), on January 14, North American planes carrying American diplomats landed in Guatemala and publicly threatened the “corrupt disobedient to the United States” who were delaying the transmission of the order. To the point that the country was left in “political limbo” without a president or Congress for several hours that same day.
Indigenous peoples manipulated by USAID to “legitimize” minimal effort.
The democratic spring, which is acting like a painkiller in Guatemala, has already had its first victim. And these are “the hereditary indigenous authorities” who have been and are being funded by USAID and are being manipulated by some indigenous leaders who believe that “strengthening the democracy of the bosses or the racist state” will achieve development and inclusion for the people.
The North American Embassy let dozens of impoverished Mayans and farmers sleep in the streets of Guatemala City for more than three months as part of the “Popular Resistance” collective action under the slogan “In Defense of Democracy.”
In return, according to published information, the embassy offered to build buildings for them or announced further projects and scholarships. There are 16 development programs that USAID operates in Guatemala. With this financial “investment” he succeeds in establishing his “North American progressivism” in this Central American country.
In fact, it is almost impossible for farmers or indigenous people to give up their crops to “protest for three months” when they are away from their fields. There is no body, no farming family that can exist.
The truth is that this protest aimed to overshadow and silence the demand and the indigenous actors who promote the proposal of plurinationality through the process of the Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly in Guatemala.
The award-winning and celebrated hereditary authorities (lauded as heroes of democracy by the bosses, the embassy and their caporales) have never raised the flag of defense of indigenous territories, indigenous self-government, prior consent, let alone the need for a plurinational federal state, in the almost 100 days of the Mayan protests.
The temporary unease of some Maya foremen in the service of North American colonialism arose when Arévalo presented his cabinet. He did not list any “Mayan heroes” who defended him on the streets. There, USAID had to appease them.
A similar situation exists in the legislature. Be careful, Guatemala has a population of 44 percent self-proclaimed indigenous people, and there are professional Mayans, but there are no indigenous people in the current Creole Republic Congress (with the exception of Sonia Gutiérrez for the old left coalition). .
Perhaps to hide this racist evidence from Semilla, the ruling party added the only indigenous congresswoman as a decoration in the “negotiations” for the board as the last member.
No matter how you look at it and no matter how hard you try to legitimize this political “minimum effort” to keep the patron state of Guatemala afloat, changes for the better are least visible in these parts.
The progressive or well-educated middle class in the United States will regain the traditional “job hope” in the state under a second democratic spring administration. But the country's large social majorities, especially the indigenous population, will actually continue to expand the migratory columns towards the United States with an uncertain destination.