President Arévalo & Semilla Party win elections
Crucial questions for the U.S., Canada & international community
Dear Rights Action friends and supporters:
Thank-you for years of trust and support for our work in Guatemala and Honduras, and our work to try and hold accountable and transform the policies and actions of the ‘global north’ – specifically the U.S. and Canada. “Victories” in these by-definition long-term struggles are very hard to come by. This is an extraordinary achievement of the Guatemalan people, that should be fully celebrated, even as the anti-democratic, exploitative, corrupt and repressive forces – from inside and outside the country – are assuredly already scheming how they will try to ‘contain’ and limit, in every way possible, the efforts of the new government to bring about serious reforms and change.
So it goes.
Thank-you
Grahame Russell
Guatemala 1954-2023: What if?
Against enormous odds, Guatemala elects an actually democratic President for first time in 69 years. Crucial questions for U.S., Canada & international community
By Grahame Russell, Rights Action, August 21, 2023, Guatemala City
Yesterday, August 20, 2023, Bernardo Arevalo and Karin Herrera of the Semilla Party, were elected President and Vice-President of Guatemala for 2024-2028 (https://www.democracynow.org/2023/8/21/guatemala_election).
Source: Prensa Comunitaria
This election will bring a formal end to 69 years of anti-democratic, military-backed, corrupt, ‘open-for-global-business’ governments, when the transition of power takes place on January 14, 2024.
Forebodingly, it does not bring an end to the interests of the traditional ruling elites, those powerful political, economic and military sectors known, in recent years, as the Covenant of the Corrupt – el Pacto de Corruptos (https://nomada.gt/pais/la-corrupcion-no-es-normal/el-pacto-de-corruptos-2-0-resumido-en-5-puntos/).
These elites, who now have to vacate the executive branch of government for at least four years, retain considerable control over most branches of the State and most institutions of the government. They dominate all sectors of Guatemala’s exploitative, rapacious ‘open-for-global-business’ economy.
As millions of long dispossessed, impoverished Guatemalans (a majority being Indigenous Mayan peoples) celebrate the victory of the Semilla Party, there are seemingly impossible-to-overcome challenges inside Guatemala’s borders the incoming government will have to address and work to remedy.
What if?
Guatemala faces just as many challenges from outside its borders, namely the policies and actions of the U.S.-led “international community”, including Canada, the EU, World Bank, IMF and countless transnational companies operating in partnership with the Covenant of the Corrupt elites in the sectors of for-export food production, mining, tourism, hydro-electric dams and maquiladora ‘sweat-shop’ garment production.
To understand the challenges Guatemala faces from outside its borders going forward, there are important questions to ask about the role and responsibility of the U.S. and international community over the past 69 years of maintaining beneficial political, economic and economic relations with successive military-backed, Covenant of the Corrupt governments.
‘Bitter Fruit’: US military coup in 1954
What would Guatemala be like today as a country and people, State and government, if the U.S. had not planned and orchestrated a military coup in 1954?
The June 27, 1954 “bitter fruit” coup (https://www.stephenschlesinger.com/bitter-fruit/) violently ended Guatemala’s only period of actual democracy (1944-1954), crushing ten years of social, economic, land and human rights reforms that the governments of President Arévalo (father of the incoming President) and President Árbenz were implementing.
The coup restored to power the traditional military-backed economic and political elites who had been in power from 1931-1944, during the U.S.-backed dictatorship of General Jorge Ubico (https://prensacomunitaria.org/2022/09/el-gobierno-de-jorge-ubico-castaneda/), and who are precursors to the Covenant of the Corrupt governments of today.
Canada legitimizes 1954 coup, promotes mining
What would Guatemala be like today if Canada had not followed the lead of the U.S. in 1954?
After refusing to established diplomatic relations with the democratically elected governments in power from 1944-1954, Canada effectively legitimized the 1954 coup by establishing diplomatic relations with the military-backed government in 1961 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Guatemala).
Soon after, the Canadian government openly supported the arrival of INCO (International Nickel Company) into Guatemala to take control of a vast swath of Mayan Q’eqchi’ territories and begin a long history of violent, harmful, and corrupt mining that continues today (https://www.schnoorversuscanada.ca/timeline.html).
‘Scorched earth’ massacres and genocide against civilian population
What would Guatemala be like today if the U.S. had not – in the name of “fighting communism”– backed the Guatemalan military and death squads during the State repression and terrorism of the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s?
Hundreds of thousands of mainly Indigenous Mayan people – young and old, men and women – were assassinated and tortured, savagely massacred and “disappeared” in ‘scorched earth’ military campaigns in the highlands (https://www.odhag.org.gt/publicaciones/remhi-guatemala-nunca-mas/)
In four regions of the country, genocides were carried out against the local Mayan populations (https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/guatemalan-genocide-case). Millions of people were violently displaced from their homes and lands during the ‘scorched earth’ military campaigns, becoming desperately poor internally displaced people (still being hunted and killed by the regime) or refugees seeking safe haven Mexico, the U.S. and beyond.
Ignoring the “peace accords”
In 1996, comprehensive “peace accords” (https://www.guatemalaun.com/en/guatemala/peace-accords/) were signed, setting out serious reforms and changes to remedy most of Guatemala’s historic inequalities, racisms and injustices, formally ending decades of “internal conflict”. The U.S., Canada and much of the international community stated publicly they supported the full implementation of the all the “peace accords”.
What would Guatemala be like today if the “peace accords” had not be ignored, step by step, one by one, by the ensuring Covenant of the Corrupt governments and the U.S.-led international community (https://coha.org/guatemalas-crippled-peace-process-a-look-back-on-the-1996-peace-accords/)?
What if the U.S., Canada, and international community had actually demanded full implementation of and compliance with the “peace accords”, instead of getting right back to ‘business-as-usual’, maintaining and expanding economic interests with 25 more years of repressive, ‘open-for-global-business’ governments controlled by the ‘Covenant of the Corrupt’ traditional elites?
Right through until today.
The past can’t be changed, but asking the questions is more than rhetorical. Answering these questions will show what the actual policies and actions of the U.S., Canada, and international community have been, since 1954.
‘Before and after’ August 20, 2023?
Hopefully, August 20, 2023 will mark a transformational ‘before and after’ date in Guatemala’s history. The incoming Semilla Party government and Guatemalan people are already working hopefully, cautiously, nervously, to begin to address the almost impossible-to-overcome challenges confronting the needs and well-being of the majority population.
Will Americans and Canadians, our governments and politicians, media and governments ask the hard questions, and demand serious reforms and changes as to how we exercise and impose our power and interests on small, weak countries and people around the world, or will we quickly get back to insisting on ‘business-as-usual’ in support of our own political and economic interests?
(Grahame has worked on human rights issues in Guatemala since 1989. Since 1995, he has been director of Rights Action (www.rightsaction.org). A non-practicing lawyer and part-time adjunct professor at University of Northern British Columbia, Grahame, together with Catherine Nolin, co-authored and co-edited TESTIMONIO – Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala (https://btlbooks.com/book/testimonio, 2021).
