A couple of reviews in the UK have been published in national newspapers today. Andrew Anthony in The Guardian and Matthew Campbell in The Sunday Times look at Francisco Goldman's book The Art of Political Murder about the killing of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi. The Sunday Times publishes an exclusive extract from the book on their website.

Toby Green has reviewed it in The Independent on Friday. The Guardian Review published this on Francisco Goldman (2nd Feb). The book has been discussed widely in the US and its good to see it being discussed in the UK media. Although it goes without saying that bloggers like Inner Diablog have been ahead of the mainstream journalists, encouraging this debate in the UK. Gillian has covered the book in a number of posts on this blog.

One of the aspects of this publication is the involvement of outsiders in writing about the internal workings of the Guatemalan criminal justice system in one of the most high profile cases that pitted many power blocks against one another: the Catholic church, the military, organised crime, and the political establishments past (Government of Alvaro Arzu) and of the moment at the time (Alfonso Portillo).

Francisco Goldman as US writer of Guatemalan origin steps into the debate following Maite Rico (Spanish) and Bertrand de la Grange (French) book "Quien mato al obispo?". In it, they point to the complicity of parts of the Catholic church, the human rights community and organised crime in the murder of Juan Gerardi. They maintain that the military men Byron Lima Estrada and Byron Lima Oliva (sentenced to 30 years prison) are innocent of the murder.

Rico and De la Grange's account was supported by many outsiders, including famously Mario Vargas Llosa in El Pais. When Goldman suggests in his book that Rico and De la Grange received money from Arzu to write their book, they responded angrily and in sarcastic tone in El Periodico. According to Inforpress Centroamericana is wasn't the only time Rico and De la Grange had been accused of receiving Government money for a book. Suspicions were raised that the Mexican Government had participated in the publication of their book (Marcos: La Genial Impostura) critical of subcommandante Marcos. It's a very tangled web to be sure. Whatever the truth, anyone following this tragic episode in any depth, beginning with the events of 26th April 1998, gets the nagging sense that the whole story and all its ins and outs, will ultimately remain elusive. At the very least, Goldman's work has reignited a hope that the contrary will one day be true.

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Background

The Open Society Institute hosted a discussion and reception with Francisco Goldman, author of The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? (Grove Press).

RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster, recently presented a radio programme from their Worlds Apart series on ‘Guatemala: The Indians and the Multinationals’. The presenter, Rodney Rice travelled to El Estor to find out the story behind the video posted on YouTube, of evictions held in the area of El Estor (in Izabal) in Guatemala. The video was posted in an effort to raise awareness and promote global support for the Quechi people who claim they are being ousted by nickel mining company CGN. He attends meetings with Defensoria Quechi and talks with the CGN, a member of Skye Resources, the Canadian natural resource extractor.

You can listen to the broadcast here.

There is a brief introduction with some pictures here. The broadcast, itself, begins about three minutes in, and you will have the pleasure of listening to some Irish language broadcasting prior to the programme starting. The programme itself lasts a little under thirty minutes and is well worth listening to.

Benetech's Patrick Ball gave a talk to the people at Apache. In his speech he explained how his interest in playing a role in working to make technology support the pursuit of human rights causes was cemented in Guatemala. Patrick worked on developing the technological infrastructure needed to gather and process the data for the CEH report (Commission for Historical Clarification) in the mid 1990's. Benetech continues support human rights work in Guatemala in storing and analysing data from the processing of the files held in the National Police archives.

You can hear Patrick's speech here at IT Conversations. Here's their intro to it:
Background

We've covered Benetech's important work in Guatemala previously on this blog:

Benetech Update: Police Archives in Guatemala
Guatemalan Police Archives: Race Against Time

It was great to see (and hear) the Simon Bolivar Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar) at the Proms a few days ago. Much has been written about El Sistema in Venezuela as a long running social project broadening access to classical music training and building one of the best youth orchestras in the world.

You can hear more about the Simon Bolivar Orchestra broadcast by the BBC during the interval here. Unfortunately not available on the iPlayer.


It's great to hear about a new initiative by World Vision in Guatemala to create the orquesta sinfónica rural.

There are more photos here on the BBC Mundo website along with a short audio report in Spanish.

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Background

Observer article - "Simon Rattle describes him as 'the most astonishingly gifted conductor he has ever met'. And yet 26-year-old Gustavo Dudamel grew up in poverty in Venezuela. Ed Vulliamy tells the story of El Sistema - a remarkable youth project which uses Beethoven and Brahms to save the children of the barrios"
Review of the Proms Concert - Independent
BBC Mundo feature on the Simon Bolivar Orchestra with video, photos and loads of articles and interviews

There's an interesting 15 minute interview with Dawn Paley on the Rabble Podcast Network reporting on the violent evictions that took place on land controversially owned by Canadian mining company Skye Resources. The interview gives a good overview of the current situation in Izabal, Guatemala at present.

In a recent open letter (posted on Upside Down World) to Ian Austin, Skye Resources CEO, Dawn Paley made the following two points:


As yet no response has been posted on the Skye Resources website to these latest open letters from Dawn Paley and Victoria Henderson.

Background

Dawn Paley, an independent journalist was in Izabal, with the photographer James Rodriguez and film maker Steven Schnoor during the forced evictions in early January. You can read more on Dawn's blog 'Reporter Zero', James' blog 'Mi Mundo' and watch Steven Schnoor's video of the evictions.

Cerigua have just (22-02-07) posted a report: "Campesinos/tierras: Narran historia de desalojo"


You can find other related links on the mining issue in Guatemala here. Mining is an issue that we've covered on a regular basis on this blog.

A number of recent released material on Guatemalan history raises this ever present question of whether it is better to leave the tragedies of the past buried and move on, or continue to face up and confront an ugly and unjust past. NPR is broadcasting a series of five reports by Xeni Jardin on the uses of technology in Guatemala today, and starts with "Group Works to Identify Remains in Guatemala".

In this report Xeni Jardin back from blogging in Guatemala, focuses on the work of the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) that has been exhuming clandestine graves that hold victims killed in political massacres. It's worth pointing out here that for more information on this subject Kathy Reichs recent book, "Grave Secrets" is a valuable and poignant account of the issues at stake in this facing up to buried history.

"Guatemala: la tierra arrasada" directed by José Gaya Organización and produced by Colectivo Miradas (2004) is now available online. There's also a trailer from a documentary, "Guatemala: De 11 a 3 - Histoire d'un massacre" in Spanish with French subtitles.

It's interesting to contrast these four glimpses of a violent past in Guatemala in the 70s and 80s with "Guatemala, sus cambios en los últimos 30 años", a lecture by Dr. Francisco Pérez de Antón at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (17-01-07). It's to be noted that Pérez de Antón's way of describing the period 1976-86 in particular makes no mention of massacres, let alone genocide. This reflection on the past prefers, for different reasons, to avoid any discussion of the human impact of the armed conflict.

Last week BBC Mundo ran a series of reports (15 mb) on its programme BBC Mundo Hoy by Margarita Rodriguez on Guatemala ten years after the Peace Accords. Rachel Sieder, Yolanda Aguilar, Dominga Vásquez and Guillermo Chen interviewed in the reports all took part in the panel discussion of the Peace Accords at Canning House in London.

On 29th December 2006 the day of the anniversary BBC Mundo ran this, "Guatemala: 10 años de los acuerdos", on their website.

This is a really interesting interview with Ann Wright on Radio 4's Saturday Live programme, who accompanied in Colombia with Peace Brigades International. She gives a really great explanation about what accompaniment is and what you can get out of it as a volunteer. She's taking in the context of Colombia, but it's equally applicable to accompaniment in Guatemala. You can listen to it here.  Here's the intro from the BBC Saturday Live blog (shame they couldn't spell Colombia :-)).

You can find more information about accompaniment in general here, and how to become an accompanier with GSN specifically here.

Just spotted this really great interview of Helen Woodcock, volunteer accompanier with Peace Brigades International and Dominga Vasquez, Mayoress of Solola. The interview (broadcast 13-12-2006) was as part of the BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour programme.

See more on this in a previous post on this blog.

In a seemingly inexplicable decision, a Guatemalan Court (Tribunal Quinto de Sentencia) has ruled that although six accused by the Spanish investigation (Audiencia Nacional de España) under judge Santiago Pedraz (7th July 2006) should be detained with a view to extraditing them, Rios Montt should not be. The Spanish investigation was into the deaths of six Spanish citizens in Guatemala in the 1980's. You can read more on this breaking story in Spanish from the Guatemalan press: [El Periodico] [Prensa Libre] [SigloXXi].

The six accused are: Benedicto Lucas García, Oscar Mejía Víctores, Ángel Guevara Rodríguez, Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz, Pedro García Arredondo y Germán Chupina Barahona.

From Prensa Libre today- "the black hand" and important legal documents that get "lost"- doing whatever it takes to avoid justice:
The Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco, US, has released the following press release.

The Guatemalan press are covering the follow-up arrests (or non-arrests). [El Periodico]

Next Installment: Spain forgot to mention that Rios Montt was wanted for genocide... Are they really expecting us to believe that this can be put down to a clerical error? See the following from Prensa Libre 09-11-2006 today:

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Background information



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Dennis Bernstein interviews atttorney Almudena Bernabeu, private prosecutor Center for Justice and Accountability, and Matt Eisenbrant, Director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, about the progress in the genocide cases in Guatemala (July 10, 2006) on San Francisco-based radio show, 'Flashpoints'.

Unreported World will be showing a documentary called "Guatemala: City of the Dead" this Friday 3 November 7.35pm. This is how it is trailed on the Channel 4 website:


We were contacted by researchers for this programme over a year ago. It's great to see that the programme is going to be broadcast. Let's hope though, it's balanced and shows the incredible of work of those fighting for justice in Guatemala, and goes beyond solely recounting the countless examples of impunity and injustice. It's got to be said that from the way it's being trailed- I'm not overly hopeful.

UPDATE: Well, having seen it I wasn't surprised- but I was bitterly disappointed. Not wanting to flatter a piece of television with the description of 'documentary' this was surely little more than shocking images of a 'foreign' land, wrapped up with a sensationalist narrative in which the 'reporter' was the central character.

Exposing the violent and unjust reality that many Guatemalans live with is of course a totally valid subject for press coverage, and worthy of much more attention than it currently gets from outside media. But parachuting in (it seemed that Ramita Navia, Unreported's reporter was in Guatemala for a matter of days) and parachuting out is not the ideal way of information gathering on a complex issue.

Of many criticisms that could be leveled at this programme, I guess my biggest is that it completely ignored, failed to cover or was just not interested in the work of the many Guatemalans fighting for justice in peaceful dignified ways (just look at this blog for examples).

What this type of television does at a stroke, is rip out the dignity of a whole country, by branding an unknown land with ugly, violent and seeming unredeeming awfulness. If you could assume the UK had a fairly rounded idea of Guatemala, then such extreme angled journalism would matter less. But the reality is that average understanding of life and the battle for justice is low in the UK. For this reason, there is a responsibility upon the reporter, attracted to the shock and awe aspects of this kind of story that dehumanises Guatemala, to equally tease out the 'force for good' that in effect puts Guatemala's humanity back in the picture.

It's disappointing that a series specialising in reporting the unreported- is so woefully lacking in any awareness of this weighty responsibility. The ultimate result is that the world continues to go as unreported as ever.

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-You can read a written version of Ramita Navia's report (03-11-2006) in The Times here.
-You can see another of Unreported World's documentaries looking at gang violence in Brazil in a very similar vein here.
-And you can go to Channel 4 Radio and hear Ramita Navia's report on for Unreported World as a podcast (if you can be bothered to go through Channel 4's painful registration process- why don't they just make the RSS openly available like everyone else?)

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- Unreported World was produced by Mentorn - it's now made by Quicksilver Media-  why not let them know what you think of this programme?
- If you want to watch something that achieves reporting the 'forces for good' in Guatemala as well as covering the vital issues such as justice and security in Guatemala- check out "Entremosle a Guate" (in Spanish)

You can now hear Rosemary Burnett's interview that was broadcast on Radio Scotland a few weeks ago as part of the 'A Journey' series. Rosemary talks about her experiences as an accompanier in Guatemala supporting human rights defenders.

GSN member Rosemary Burnett, talks her about her work as an international accompanier in Guatemala on Radio Scotland. She describes how she got involved, the plight of the witnesses to the genocide in Guatemala in the 1980s and everyday life volunteering in ACOGUATE, the Guatemala Accompaniment Programme. Rosemary has written about her experiences in a book Disent angling the Knots, you can get a copy from here.