It's almost 3:30 p.m. on Thursday and José López, a resident of Totonicapán, uses a megaphone to call on representatives of indigenous peoples to hold a sit-in in front of Guatemala's Ministry of Public Administration. It is day 102 of the resistance. Today it is the turn of the members of their community. They have traveled the nearly 125 miles that separate their territory from the capital to stand guard in front of the gray cement mass that serves as an operations center for those they accuse of undermining democracy in their country: Attorney General Consuelo Porras, the Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche and Judge Fredy Orellana.
President-elect Bernardo Arévalo accused the three of staging a coup through legal attacks to prevent his inauguration. With just a few hours until his inauguration, there is a festive atmosphere at the rally. The goal of a peaceful transfer of power and the preservation of democracy in Guatemala seems to be getting closer and closer. But don't be confused, the cantonal authorities present at the sit-in repeat again and again with their office employees who are awarding them: This is a non-political movement.
“We have always said it: We do not support any party, not even a president, we support the rule of law and democracy so that our country can breathe.” We don't need anything that is given to us. “We just want to work, we just want to have the conditions to work, and that's what we demand from every government,” López says. And he gives way to a group of students who delight the audience with a double marimba concert: seven play the national instrument and two others support it with maracas and percussion. In this movement that works for the common good, nothing works without teamwork.
The powerful movement was launched by the authorities of the 48 cantons of Totonicapán. The indigenous organization with a long history of peaceful resistance, representing about 140,000 people – mostly the K'iché Maya people of western Guatemala – began on October 2nd. Their first actions were to occupy city squares and set up a road blockade. They were quickly joined by other communities in the country, inhabited by other Maya peoples – such as the Ixil, the Kaqchikel and the Mam – as well as the Xinka people.
Although all decisions of the assemblies are made by consensus, Luis Pacheco – president of the 48 cantons of Totonicapán in 2023 – became the most prominent leader of these protests last year. As he explains, it was the “attacks” from the Public Ministry that led his community to start the strike in order to undermine properly verified election results.
Indigenous resistance at the center of political power
After the road blockade was lifted, the 48 cantons decided on November 20th to move the protest to the headquarters of the State Ministry. Gladys Tzul, a sociology doctor from Totonicapán, points out that the prosecutor's interference in the election results “contributes to a series of attacks on indigenous communities.” For this reason, the indigenous movements responded unanimously to the call for protest from all parts of the country when they saw the confiscation of the ballot boxes.
Indigenous leaders protest in front of the Public Ministry headquarters in Guatemala City on January 12, 2024. Monica González Islas
“The public ministry acts as a hinge, a kind of gearbox between the three branches of government: the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. And it is also the mechanism that gives way to the extractive model in administrative or scientific terms [of the exploitation of natural resources] “what we are experiencing and which has led to deaths, fear, displacement, migration and imprisonment,” he says in an interview with EL PAÍS.
In the capital, the various organizations have set up a rotation system to maintain the sit-in in front of the prosecutor's office, where demonstrators arrive daily from the assigned cities. This Thursday it is the turn of the authorities of the fourth zone of Totonicapán, including the municipal mayor Solomon Tax. “There have been fatigues, times of tension, of provocation, but one of our slogans is always that our protests are peaceful and do not become disorderly, so that none of our authorities suffer harassment,” he explains, playing marimba in a group with other community leaders during the event .
In more than 100 days of protest, the indigenous movements had to overcome attempts at displacement and rejection by some Guatemalans, but the population joined them en masse, bringing them food, tarpaulins and blankets to withstand the cold of the night. Volunteers like Lesvi Yanes, a 51-year-old woman from Jutiapa, also come to the sit-in. Yanes cooks meals for the protesters using food donated to indigenous resistance movements.
“It's only three days left!” says Yanes as she walks past a sign at the food stand counting down the change in government. She says she is a supporter of the Semilla movement and supported the president-elect in the second round of voting. “We believe in change and if they do all that, then that’s it [Arévalo] does not take office because he is different. Otherwise they would be celebrating,” she says, pointing to the State Ministry building.
“This has been maintained thanks to the unconditional support of the public,” admits Tax. “Of course we also had resistance, but more people joined us. “There were up to 189 lockdowns across the country [the protest’s] Summit.”
Gladys Tzul believes that this indigenous resistance movement will be a turning point for her country and that Guatemala's political system has been shaken by the local government system. “Serving the people means defending the collective will and dignity. It’s not just about the salary,” he emphasizes. “I feel that this has educated and politically educated the population of the capital, who are not indigenous and belong to a certain middle class. “It also made a lot of sense for the working class living in the cities, which also have organized political and assembly structures.”
Furthermore, this resistance has positioned indigenous movements as interlocutors of various sectors – from politics to economics – and they have also been taken into account by actors in the international community, who have been unusually active in responding to the Guatemalan crisis. “We have had dialogues looking for a better solution or alternative to avoid conflict and so that they do not think that indigenous peoples do not know where we are going,” says Pacheco, the former president of the 48 cantons. “Obviously it is generally accepted and that is why there is support, because in the end it has been shown that it is the defense of an inherent right of all people and not just a part of society.”
Challenge: The government will not ignore indigenous peoples again
This resistance has brought the struggle and the way of the indigenous movements to seek the common good to the center of Guatemalan politics and also represents a challenge for the new government of Arévalo. It must not leave behind the people who, according to the last Census accounts for 42% of the more than 17 million Guatemalans.
Indigenous leaders protest this Friday in Guatemala City in front of the headquarters of the Public Ministry (Prosecution) to demand the resignation of the Attorney General Consuelo Porras.Mónica González Islas
“We expect a lot from Arévalo, but the main expectation is that there is now truly an inclusive government for indigenous peoples and that they occupy the spaces that belong to them. And that the president governs with the indigenous people who managed to put him in office,” says Pacheco.
However, the president-elect started the counterattack negatively, as he himself admitted when he introduced the 14 members of his cabinet, among which there is only one indigenous woman, the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Miriam Roque. Arévalo acknowledged that “they were indebted to that [country’s] “Multiculturalism,” but showed his intention to bring these people into other levels of government.
After a meeting with his government team, the board of municipal mayors of the 48 cantons of Totonicapán regretted in a statement that Arévalo had not taken advantage of the historic opportunity to integrate an inclusive cabinet with officials of the people who make up the country – Mayan, Garifuna and Xinka – “something crucial for the implementation of a real public policy based on the living conditions” of each ethnic group.
For Tzul, Arévalo’s team must have “the ability to respect heterogeneous autonomy.” “This is a country of communities and this uprising has shown us that. But the fact that the rule of law was preserved, the democratic order was not broken and this transition was able to move forward has to do with the defense of the common good that the authorities have carried out,” he says.
During the sit-in, the indigenous authorities would prefer to express their confidence in Arévalo. “Such decisions logically make us a little sad,” says Salomon Tax about the composition of the cabinet. “We cannot judge something that has not yet begun, but we will monitor every movement and, if there are no results, we will demonstrate.” Their plan for now is to continue the protest until January 15, a day after the inauguration. “If everything goes as it should, we will celebrate having achieved the goals of maintaining democracy in the country.”
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