The following is a very brief overview of a very complex political situation in Guatemala. I encourage you to learn more through the links included throughout the article. I can only offer my personal reactions, but I am very excited to be in Quetzaltenango (Xela), the second largest city in Guatemala, at such a pivotal moment in their history. We have also been fortunate in our opportunities to have meetings with guest speakers, including an ex-guerilla member and a few university professors. Though I am not permitted to share their names, any non-cited information in the article comes from these sources.
In case you haven’t heard, especially as US news only recently started covering it, Guatemalan politics are a bit of a mess right now. Ex-president Otto Pérez Molina and ex-VP Roxana Baldetti (unfortunately, the first female VP) have both resigned, several months apart, and have been arrested for a major corruption scandal that first came to light in April. The scandal also involves more than 30 top officials, who used customs duties in order to bring in millions of dollars. Though this is the major scandal, other operations have been revealed through more than 60,000 wiretapped phone calls.
The idea of a Guatemalan president resigning amidst corruption scandals would have been unthinkable a few years ago, and not because there wasn’t corruption. Add in the fact that Otto Pérez is a former military general, responsible for fighting leftist guerillas during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, and even thinking a few months ago that he could be stripped of his immunity and arrested would have been overly optimistic. The driving forces behind these radical changes are the Guatemalan people themselves and a UN-backed organization called CICIG.
CICIG (International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala) was established in 2006 to help strengthen the judicial sector. It has since been involved in a number of high-profile cases, gaining credibility with each case that helped expose an official. CICIG is partially responsible for dragging Otto Pérez’s history back to haunt him when they linked him with the torture of indigenous villagers during the Guatemalan civil war. Though initially only created with a two year mandate, CICIG continues to be renewed, sometimes due to intense public pressure and other times due to intense international pressure, including from the Obama administration. I have encountered some anger in Guatemalan media at foreign meddling, but most people are much more concerned with the corruption that CICIG has proven exists.
Since CICIG produced arrest warrants for dozens of officials in April, the major cities have held weekly protests against Otto Pérez, government corruption, and the upcoming elections. The vice president was jailed on August 21, a few days after I arrived in Guatemala. From August 24-27, daily protests were held demanding the resignation of Otto Pérez. On the 27th, the biggest day of protests, schools and universities were closed, roads were blocked, businesses shut in support of the protests (including grocery stores, restaurants, and McDonalds), and government work was forced to halt due to the inaccessibility of their buildings.
We attended several of these protests throughout the week and the prior weeks. I was awed by the happiness of the protestors. Though their poster messages were serious and their frustration real, the overwhelming sentiment of the events was one of peace and unity. Families attended together, the small children clapping and the elderly supporting each other. Remarkably, these protests spanned all social classes; the middle class, for the first time in recent memory, joined ranks with the poor. Public university students continued to lead the charge, but private students also arrived en masse. At a national level, the private sector lobby, CACIF, did a complete turn around and threw all their support behind CICIG. Everybody was coming together to say one thing: #NoTengoPresident and #NoQueremosElecciones (‘We don’t have a president’ and ‘We don’t want elections.’).
!["Because [people] cannot read this sign, because [people] do not have health[care]; #NoTengoPresident"](https://findingmycorners.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/dsc_0837.jpg "DSC_0837")
The protests did bring in a large victory. Bending to public pressure, the Guatemalan Congress stripped Pérez Molina of his presidential immunity on September 1 in a 132-0 vote (26 members did not vote). Two days later, Pérez Molina resigned and was jailed hours after. The country rejoiced, but the fight is not over. The protests were never aimed solely at ousting Pérez Molina. They are aimed at the broad corruption that has taken over the Guatemalan democracy, at the fact that even with 15 presidential candidates, the people feel they have no choices, and at the extreme social disparity, poverty, and discrimination present in Guatemala.
Today, September 6, Guatemala’s elections are being held. Many are boycotting, many plan to submit null votes, and many others will vote but with deep dissatisfaction. To win the presidency, a candidate must gain over 50% of the vote; with so many candidates and such deep distrust, this is highly unlikely. A run-off election is tentatively scheduled for October 25. However, many are arguing that these elections are not the point. The point is long-term, long-lasting reform. The protests are far from over and the battle is far from won, but listening to the protestors gives much hope that they’re not done. One of our speakers stated that the Guatemalan people have been asleep since the Peace Accords failed to change anything at the end of the Civil War in 1996. It seems to me that they have woken up with a vengeance and are well-prepared for a long battle to create change.
Finding My Corners 