US-Colombia FTA ratified – but will it help workers?

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The United States Congress ratified a long-debated free trade agreement with Colombia, five years after it was signed by President George W. Bush. The agreement was supported by the Obama administration, which was pressured by US-based human rights and labor groups to insist the Colombian government provide more workers' rights protections. While this agreement is a step to improve labor rights in Colombia - one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a trade union member, rights advocates and Colombian workers fear that there will be little change on the ground. There will need to be more progress in Columbia during the implementation phase of the trade pact.
http://www.latinamericanpost.com/index.php?mod=seccion&secc=1&conn=6580

US-Colombia FTA ratified – but will it help workers?

Posted on by
The United States Congress ratified a long-debated free trade agreement with Colombia, five years after it was signed by President George W. Bush. The agreement was supported by the Obama administration, which was pressured by US-based human rights and labor groups to insist the Colombian government provide more workers' rights protections. While this agreement is a step to improve labor rights in Colombia - one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a trade union member, rights advocates and Colombian workers fear that there will be little change on the ground. There will need to be more progress in Columbia during the implementation phase of the trade pact.
http://www.latinamericanpost.com/index.php?mod=seccion&secc=1&conn=6580

Guatemala’s Mayan communities

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           Perera’s account of the planned ethnic extermination in Guatemala against Mayan communities weaves in accounts of notorious human rights abuses. The Guatemalan army wanted to wipe out the peasant support bases of the two leftist guerilla organizations most active in the highlands and bring four million Mayans under direct military control. This murderous regime was maintained by the C.I.A to lay to rest an artificially prolonged cold war. The Ixils, Perera maintains, have a history of rebellion against abusive employers and their government allies and to this day, this community continue to pay a steep price for the guerilla’s execution of their oppressors (p. 65). 
        Yet, there is also a trace of hope in Perera’s work: although the military's counter-insurgency strategy has caused acute dislocations in Mayan society, it has failed to destroy the fundamental Mayan identity. For instance, Ixil communities have largely maintained their traditional cultures. Further, the UN Verification Commission has issued a seven-point agreement that recognizes the identity of a majority of Mayans. This agreement promotes bilingual education and grants other cultural and religious safeguards to these indigenous communities (however, sticky issues remain however, such as the role of the army and the reintegration of guerillas into civilian life) (pp.361-362). Perera also states that a curtain of silence has fallen across Guatemala as the activities of human-rights groups have been subverted. For example, the rumors of gringas stealing children were fanned by government provocateurs, which impeded the work of foreign human rights investigators and diverted attention from government officials who reaped enormous profits from the illegal trafficking of children. Indeed, Perera emphasizes that the emergence of the indigenous Mayan population is a crucial force for political change in contemporary Guatemala (p.356). 

Guatemala’s Mayan communities

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           Perera’s account of the planned ethnic extermination in Guatemala against Mayan communities weaves in accounts of notorious human rights abuses. The Guatemalan army wanted to wipe out the peasant support bases of the two leftist guerilla organizations most active in the highlands and bring four million Mayans under direct military control. This murderous regime was maintained by the C.I.A to lay to rest an artificially prolonged cold war. The Ixils, Perera maintains, have a history of rebellion against abusive employers and their government allies and to this day, this community continue to pay a steep price for the guerilla’s execution of their oppressors (p. 65). 
        Yet, there is also a trace of hope in Perera’s work: although the military's counter-insurgency strategy has caused acute dislocations in Mayan society, it has failed to destroy the fundamental Mayan identity. For instance, Ixil communities have largely maintained their traditional cultures. Further, the UN Verification Commission has issued a seven-point agreement that recognizes the identity of a majority of Mayans. This agreement promotes bilingual education and grants other cultural and religious safeguards to these indigenous communities (however, sticky issues remain however, such as the role of the army and the reintegration of guerillas into civilian life) (pp.361-362). Perera also states that a curtain of silence has fallen across Guatemala as the activities of human-rights groups have been subverted. For example, the rumors of gringas stealing children were fanned by government provocateurs, which impeded the work of foreign human rights investigators and diverted attention from government officials who reaped enormous profits from the illegal trafficking of children. Indeed, Perera emphasizes that the emergence of the indigenous Mayan population is a crucial force for political change in contemporary Guatemala (p.356). 

AI Uruguay: Congress adopts landmark law to tackle impunity

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This week I went to Amnesty International's page to see their opinion of the latest events unfolding in Uruguay. I found the article to be quite informative and very optimistic. Guadalupe Marengo, Deputy Director of Americas Programme at Amnesty International was extremely positive: "Today’s decision by Congress brings Uruguay in line with its obligations under international law and implements part of the ruling made by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. All perpetrators of past crimes against humanity should now be brought to justice." I have yet to hear any thing new after the historic vote at the beginning of this month..

Uruguay: Congress adopts landmark law to tackle impunity

The Guatemalan Civil War

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This week’s reading focused on the civil war against the guerrilla insurgents in the Ixil Triangle in the Highlands of Guatemala which ravaged the country for 36 years. According to various sources the estimated dead and missing was around 200,000. The author, Victor Perera, wanders around Guatemala countless times during the War trying to comprehend the situation of his former homeland. The only issue I have with the book is that I would’ve wished that it was in chronological order. Instead, he jumps from past to present in a quite non-linear fashion. He intertwines oral narratives of Mayan Indians, military officers, mayors, priests and Evangelical pastors, with history of the region as well as denouncements by human rights organizations. He strove to capture the broader picture as well what was happening on the ground. However, he missed a main actor in the conflict: the voice of the guerrilla. I thought it was odd how he only slightly expounded upon the Guerrilla Army of the Poor though there were three other insurgent groups in the Guatemalan countryside. Perera also tended to critical of them (and with good reason) for what happened: “Nevertheless, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor—and the other three rebel organizations that make up the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union—must bear responsibility for jeopardizing the lives of thousands of native Guatemalans who believed their impossible of a swift victory over their oppressors and redress of their centuries-old grievances” (131). If the Guatemalan government would have been more attentive to the issues raised by the insurgents and the indigenous majority, they could have brought about solutions without any bloodshed.

It was rather humorous his dinner with the military captain. I thought that Perera and the other guests present were rather bold with what they said, especially the line about Marxism: “Yes, exactly. Ideas in history are meaningless until they become manifest in concrete events” stated the comandante. “You know, comandante, puts in George Lovell, “forgive my saying so, but that happens to be a fundamental Marxist concept” (80). Throughout the whole dinner, the military captain, takes it very nonchalantly and even months later was pointed out to Perera that he was winning their informal wager about how long Pinochet would stay in power.

At the end of the excerpts, he showed the involvement of the CIA and of the foreign aid coming from the United States. They can’t seem to get their mites off of Guatemala. I wonder why so many Guatemalans came to the United States then. Besides Mexico, is there a Guatemalan diaspora in other countries? I think the huge support in aid and evangelizing from the conservative Christian churches exacerbated the problem creating division between newly converted Evangelists and the traditional (anti-Liberation Theology) Catholic military leaders. Though they were both against Communism, they did not see eye to eye. And characters mentioned like Ronald Reagan and Pat Robertson are not the most esteemed figures in Latin America. Guatemala really got the brunt of the Cold War. In short, we could just blame the American government for the Arbenz coup d’état in 1954 as a plausible reason to why all the successive atrocities took place, which, in part, I think it’s true.

Final Post – Guatemala pt II.

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“I’m from where people worship the gods of their conquerors and practically every president’s a money launderer...”    
Immortal Technique, The 3rd World. 

“The Army killed us like chuchos...” (95)

This was again, a powerful reading. The first thing I can think of as I look back at all the chapters, is the feeling that first: the reading tied towards the end clearly with the Argentina case study, in particular with the ‘gringa’ character in the end and her mission, eerily reminiscent of the Argentine Madres. Second: that the two case studies for the session seem to represent the common experiences of the ‘Southern Cone’ with its dictatorships, and of the nations from Guatemala on down to about Bolivia, with their  very much contemporary history of internal (although with plenty of external [U.S.] help) insurgency-state conflicts. 
The first chapter we read, Nebaj, drew my attention from its second paragraph to the centrality of the institution that is the military in Guatemalan society. This was through its description of the barracks's placement in the town, although it would become evident throughout the readings as we learned of just how far Guatemalan life experience has been dictated by its Army in recent decades (centuries?). 
I did feel as though Nebaj’s historical context was a bit too Jared Diamond (which I don't particularly enjoy). From this chapter, I drew a parallel between the initial militarization of haciendas to the same process through which Colombia’s paramilitary nightmare was created. 
A clear theme here was a feeling throughout all chapters of a continuation, or rather a continuum, of The Conquest. The labor situation that first led to the arming of the peasants and guerrillas, was not anything unlike the slavery and peonage that has been occurring for 500 plus years now. And of course, the zealousness with which so many denominations of Christianity were salivating for the souls of the Guatemalan Original People also added to this theme significantly. 
In fact, the biggest theme perhaps, was that of hypocrisy: Absolute Christian hypocrisy, killing and torturing in the name of the lord, of civilization or of whatever else. Political hypocrisy, fighting an alleged global communist conspiracy with methods of turning the populace against itself clearly reminiscent of the Soviet Union and East Germany. Military hypocrisy, first immersing the population into a course on cruelty and torture, and then expecting peace to grow out of this. 
For the sake of business, of cheap labor, of modern day slavery, the Church, military and the law all came together to beat on the population that they are all supposed to service. Man, this reading pissed me off. 
I enjoyed the rebellions in the farms. It was reminiscent of Fernando Soto Aparicio’s La Rebelion de las Ratas. The author’s quick blame of these actions as causing more trouble to the population, while true, do seem quite a bit paternalistic, as it is clear that the authors would have needed generations of personally suffering torture, humiliation and death in order to give an informed judgment on why it was a stupid thing to act that way. Clearly, it was a time in which no logic held any kind of ground. This paternalism reared its ugly head, at least in my opinionated opinion, at the end, when it is suggested that the struggle of the Guatemalan people for the past few decades was only in need of a brave white woman to make real progress. I thought that was a tiny bit of BS, in particular due to the fact that, whatever the temporary hubbub in Washington, nothing really changed in the hills of the Ixil. 
Anyways, the emotions that this reading brought up have led me to rant. I will end by saying that this reading clearly demonstrates why in the culture that is Hip Hop, the letter agency so prominently involved in this case study (both parts) is known either as Criminals In Action, or the Cocaine Importing Agency. 
-Also of great interest: the word ‘racism’ never came up. Plenty of talk about ladinos this, Mayas that, Christians and gringos the other, even ethnic cleansing. Can we acknowledge that a lot of this is rooted in basic and pure racism? 
-And... what’s up with all the Satanism references? The pope was satanic, Gorbachev was the Anti-Christ, Rios-Montt, criminal-against-humanity par excellence was there to usher in the second-coming of Christ! .... Religious Psychological Warfare 101. 
Peace. 

Final Post – Guatemala pt II.

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“I’m from where people worship the gods of their conquerors and practically every president’s a money launderer...”    
Immortal Technique, The 3rd World. 

“The Army killed us like chuchos...” (95)

This was again, a powerful reading. The first thing I can think of as I look back at all the chapters, is the feeling that first: the reading tied towards the end clearly with the Argentina case study, in particular with the ‘gringa’ character in the end and her mission, eerily reminiscent of the Argentine Madres. Second: that the two case studies for the session seem to represent the common experiences of the ‘Southern Cone’ with its dictatorships, and of the nations from Guatemala on down to about Bolivia, with their  very much contemporary history of internal (although with plenty of external [U.S.] help) insurgency-state conflicts. 
The first chapter we read, Nebaj, drew my attention from its second paragraph to the centrality of the institution that is the military in Guatemalan society. This was through its description of the barracks's placement in the town, although it would become evident throughout the readings as we learned of just how far Guatemalan life experience has been dictated by its Army in recent decades (centuries?). 
I did feel as though Nebaj’s historical context was a bit too Jared Diamond (which I don't particularly enjoy). From this chapter, I drew a parallel between the initial militarization of haciendas to the same process through which Colombia’s paramilitary nightmare was created. 
A clear theme here was a feeling throughout all chapters of a continuation, or rather a continuum, of The Conquest. The labor situation that first led to the arming of the peasants and guerrillas, was not anything unlike the slavery and peonage that has been occurring for 500 plus years now. And of course, the zealousness with which so many denominations of Christianity were salivating for the souls of the Guatemalan Original People also added to this theme significantly. 
In fact, the biggest theme perhaps, was that of hypocrisy: Absolute Christian hypocrisy, killing and torturing in the name of the lord, of civilization or of whatever else. Political hypocrisy, fighting an alleged global communist conspiracy with methods of turning the populace against itself clearly reminiscent of the Soviet Union and East Germany. Military hypocrisy, first immersing the population into a course on cruelty and torture, and then expecting peace to grow out of this. 
For the sake of business, of cheap labor, of modern day slavery, the Church, military and the law all came together to beat on the population that they are all supposed to service. Man, this reading pissed me off. 
I enjoyed the rebellions in the farms. It was reminiscent of Fernando Soto Aparicio’s La Rebelion de las Ratas. The author’s quick blame of these actions as causing more trouble to the population, while true, do seem quite a bit paternalistic, as it is clear that the authors would have needed generations of personally suffering torture, humiliation and death in order to give an informed judgment on why it was a stupid thing to act that way. Clearly, it was a time in which no logic held any kind of ground. This paternalism reared its ugly head, at least in my opinionated opinion, at the end, when it is suggested that the struggle of the Guatemalan people for the past few decades was only in need of a brave white woman to make real progress. I thought that was a tiny bit of BS, in particular due to the fact that, whatever the temporary hubbub in Washington, nothing really changed in the hills of the Ixil. 
Anyways, the emotions that this reading brought up have led me to rant. I will end by saying that this reading clearly demonstrates why in the culture that is Hip Hop, the letter agency so prominently involved in this case study (both parts) is known either as Criminals In Action, or the Cocaine Importing Agency. 
-Also of great interest: the word ‘racism’ never came up. Plenty of talk about ladinos this, Mayas that, Christians and gringos the other, even ethnic cleansing. Can we acknowledge that a lot of this is rooted in basic and pure racism? 
-And... what’s up with all the Satanism references? The pope was satanic, Gorbachev was the Anti-Christ, Rios-Montt, criminal-against-humanity par excellence was there to usher in the second-coming of Christ! .... Religious Psychological Warfare 101. 
Peace. 

News Story – Belize – LGBT Rights.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/16/global-campaign-decriminalise-homosexuality-belize-court?newsfeed=true


Very interesting for several reasons: First, I wanted to look at those three countries East of V/zuela that we barely consider as Latino. Second, it describes steps taken from the U.K. to change the laws of another sovereign country. Third, the barbarity of outlawing homosexual intercourse. Lastly: it connects to our last case study in that we see the Church(es) side with the rights-abusing party in the conflict.


Peace!

News Story – Belize – LGBT Rights.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/16/global-campaign-decriminalise-homosexuality-belize-court?newsfeed=true


Very interesting for several reasons: First, I wanted to look at those three countries East of V/zuela that we barely consider as Latino. Second, it describes steps taken from the U.K. to change the laws of another sovereign country. Third, the barbarity of outlawing homosexual intercourse. Lastly: it connects to our last case study in that we see the Church(es) side with the rights-abusing party in the conflict.


Peace!

united fruit conquest yet another fabled tale of invested…

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united fruit conquest

yet another fabled tale of invested intrusion in latin america. enticed not by streets paved with gold, captain baker instead went bananas for bananas. and guatemala was ripe for the taking. the foundation for the united fruit company was laid upon dirty dictators and vulnerable poverty. thus, a few thousand bucks managed to secure sir baker 

Reading for Nov 21: Case Study Guatemala II

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I started to read this week's readings right after writing my weekly news blog post, which was about violence against an indigenous leader in Brazil. Therefore when I started reading "Nebaj" the first thing that really stood out to me was the part that talked about how certain families that came to Guatemala took indigenous women for their private brothels and skinned their husbands alive.  All I could really think after reading that was "what goes on in people's heads that makes them somehow think that just because someone is different, we can treat them like this!?" This is something that I've thought about a lot during this whole course as I have read about the various abuses we as human beings have inflicted upon each other - especially upon indigenous people of Latin America. I just don't understand the connection that some people in history have made between "different" and "must hurt them for that reason".
This week's readings discusses the growth of the EGP or Guerrilla Army of the Poor - a guerrilla group who fought back against those who had mistreated the indigenous people of Guatemala, first by "the white man" who came to Guatemala. It was the injustices that many indigenous people and their loved ones had suffered - paying fees, rapes, extortions - which caused them to join the EGP. The section also illustrates the civilian deaths - mostly suffered by the indigenous communities and Maya people -  that occurred as a result of the war which exploded in Guatemala between the guerrillas and the army.  Many civilian men, women and children were murdered by the army in the thoughts that this would deal "a mortal blow" to the guerrillas.
Apart from being extremely disturbed by the descriptions of the terrible acts committed by the army against guerrilla prisoners (the part about the prisoners being allegedly set on fire in a town plaza for example), I found the part about some sort of fiesta in Nebaj quite disturbing. Reading about the women becoming belligerently drunk and falling down made me feel really sad. Their drinking to me seemed to be more a way of masking their pain than truly celebrating anything... another form of destruction, though this time self-imposed.
Interestingly, my blog and readings have come full circle. In my very first news post for this class I wrote about the surfacing of information about US-orchestrated medical experimentation in Guatemala in the 1940s. Now I see that this, which at the time outraged me and still does, is just a very small part of what was a very large and gruesome problem which plagued the country for some 36 years. I also see that though the war may have been between the Guatemalan army and guerrillas (who were seen as terrorists), the USA's influence from the background never relented - not during the Cold War, nor into the 90s.  Having read this account of the amount of state-sponsored violence I also wish all the more that I could have gone to see the documentary at the film festival that Jon recommended about the violence suffered by the Maya community during this time.

Reading for Nov 21: Case Study Guatemala II

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I started to read this week's readings right after writing my weekly news blog post, which was about violence against an indigenous leader in Brazil. Therefore when I started reading "Nebaj" the first thing that really stood out to me was the part that talked about how certain families that came to Guatemala took indigenous women for their private brothels and skinned their husbands alive.  All I could really think after reading that was "what goes on in people's heads that makes them somehow think that just because someone is different, we can treat them like this!?" This is something that I've thought about a lot during this whole course as I have read about the various abuses we as human beings have inflicted upon each other - especially upon indigenous people of Latin America. I just don't understand the connection that some people in history have made between "different" and "must hurt them for that reason".
This week's readings discusses the growth of the EGP or Guerrilla Army of the Poor - a guerrilla group who fought back against those who had mistreated the indigenous people of Guatemala, first by "the white man" who came to Guatemala. It was the injustices that many indigenous people and their loved ones had suffered - paying fees, rapes, extortions - which caused them to join the EGP. The section also illustrates the civilian deaths - mostly suffered by the indigenous communities and Maya people -  that occurred as a result of the war which exploded in Guatemala between the guerrillas and the army.  Many civilian men, women and children were murdered by the army in the thoughts that this would deal "a mortal blow" to the guerrillas.
Apart from being extremely disturbed by the descriptions of the terrible acts committed by the army against guerrilla prisoners (the part about the prisoners being allegedly set on fire in a town plaza for example), I found the part about some sort of fiesta in Nebaj quite disturbing. Reading about the women becoming belligerently drunk and falling down made me feel really sad. Their drinking to me seemed to be more a way of masking their pain than truly celebrating anything... another form of destruction, though this time self-imposed.
Interestingly, my blog and readings have come full circle. In my very first news post for this class I wrote about the surfacing of information about US-orchestrated medical experimentation in Guatemala in the 1940s. Now I see that this, which at the time outraged me and still does, is just a very small part of what was a very large and gruesome problem which plagued the country for some 36 years. I also see that though the war may have been between the Guatemalan army and guerrillas (who were seen as terrorists), the USA's influence from the background never relented - not during the Cold War, nor into the 90s.  Having read this account of the amount of state-sponsored violence I also wish all the more that I could have gone to see the documentary at the film festival that Jon recommended about the violence suffered by the Maya community during this time.

Is Education a Right?

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Is education a right? If it’s not then should it be? Is it a privilege? We talked a little bit about it in class at one point, and after reading these articles and attending the round table discussion about Canadian mining in Latin America  on Thursday, I have been thinking a bit more about it.

Students in Chile have been protesting since May earlier this year for, from what I understand, more government funding for public education as the Chilean education system is one of the most privatized in the world.

Here’s a BBC article that gives a great overview and helped me to understand a bit more about the issue.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15431829

And here’s the latest development about the movement’s spread into Columbia with students coming together in solidarity.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/20445-colombia-chile-student-protesters-go-continental.html

One of the panelists at the round table said something along the lines of the way to solve poverty is education. I thought at the time that was a very bold statement. But maybe there’s some truth to it. I mean, I will be in quite a bit of debt once I graduate and will probably get a job that will pay me less than what I owe to the government. Not that I will be living in poverty by any means but with the majority of the educated population living in debt, how are we supposed to effect “real” change? But one of the doubts I have with the idea that education is the way to eliminate poverty is that I don’t think education alleviates greed – which I think is a huge reason for poverty.

Secondly, I think that a lot of hate in the world is caused by fear, by people fearing the unknown. The conquest of Latin America for example or sometimes situations of racism – where you’re scared of something or you don’t like someone or something. But, MAYBE if people were educated then they’d be less likely to make assumptions (right???).

Anyways, what I think is great about the students in Chile is that they are taking a stand. They acknowledge the system is not functioning and is alienating people in their society and they want it to change. I think they’re suggesting that education is a right, that it should be something which is available to everyone.

 

Case study Guatemala 2

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The Unfinished conquest: The Guatemalan Tragedy

When doing this weeks reading two things surprised me the most first the extent to which the people of Guatemala suffered so much abused, and second how recent these events have taken place. The recency of these events are surprising because all of the atrocities that happened in Guatemala happened when talk of human rights was at it's peaks. In these weeks readings I found a lot of similarities to the writings of Las Casas for example how the military would burn people alive in front of the town people in one account when they did this with young people it mentions that the militaries would laugh when the people were burning  showing the extent of the violence.  what impressed me the most is that in  places like Ixil the constant abuse and violence  against indigenous people had continued since the colonialism and it has never really stooped. The book shows clearly how indigenous people suffered a lot when they found themselves in between the military and the guerrila groups and even when they had nothing to do with the guerilla, they had to pay for attacks that the guerilla did.
I found it very concerning also that how just a few powerfully families could inflict so much pain to the indigenous people, for example the Brol Family and Luis Arenas the book describes it like this “Working conditions for the indigenous laborers on the fincas have mirrored the worst abuses by sixteenth century Spanish hacendados, who routinely seized Indian woman as their private chattel and hung their protesting husbands from trees, after skinning them alive”
The indigenous people were also forced to to work in bad conditions and for very small pay, they first entrapped people by lending them money and then they were really like slaves since they never really payed the debts off, these families took advantage of the poor economical situation of the indigenous people. They also took advantage of the fact that people were illiterate.  What surprised me the most is that this is still the case the book mentions that “300,000 still ligate” to work in plantations and that in “1989 90 percent of Ixils who speak Spanish could neither read nor write”

I was also impressed by the account of the dinner the writer of the book had with the comandante because it really transmitted how the military was powerfully and concided and arrogant where even international people like the writer had to make sure not to enrage the comandante. It gives us a glimpse on how fearful people had to live.
In the book it mentions that a census that the Guatemala supreme court conducted it says over 200,000 children lost one or two parents, but i found it interesting that how being in  a close supportive community have helped these kids deal with the lost.

finally I think that by adding images and photos the author really did a good job of showing and reminding us that the people that had to endure all these this are like us when we read  so many horrific account i think that we try not to relate to these people but by having images i think that the accounts have a bigger affect on the reader.