DOSES, a
Guatemalan NGO concerned with journalism, has published some analysis of
election coverage in all media. The September edition of Sala
de Redacción, DOSES’s
magazine, carries the result of a study it carried out and a
poll of eighteen journalists it interviewed.
Its study was critical of the coverage of the
election, finding it to be superficial and covering a largely limited range of
issues: electoral violence, candidates’ activities and electoral logistics such
as financing. Fundamental issues which might allow voters to make an informed
choice were not really covered and how each party’s offering might match up to
the demands of sectors of the population were not addressed. Women, young
people and the indigenous, for example, seemed to be only shown as passive voters;
what their opinions and aspirations for a new government might be were never
explored. Equally, other controversial issues such as free trade, mining and other
“mega-projects” such as dams and highways did not get discussed.
The
poll of journalists indicated that editorial policy often led to small parties,
the left and social organisations not being covered, though this was dressed up
as “covering the poll leaders”. Non-television media generally seemed to make more efforts to be inclusive
though. In this respect a comment by one journalist polled that “Todos los medios son empresas y todo se mueve por
intereses” is interesting when we consider that all four TV channels in Guatemala are private and are owned by the
Mexican Ángel González. Anecdotally one hears that at the start of an election
season the leaders of the main, and best financed, parties troop off to Miami to discuss access to television coverage
with Sr G. A discussion, produced in 2001, of the state of Guatemalan media can
be found here.
While pointing out that there was
not as much overt bias as in 2003 and that there are some encouraging signs,
nevertheless the analysts at DOSES conclude that “there is a long way to go to
get equitable and inclusive coverage”.
This excellent weekly report can't be found on the web- we publish it here with kind permission from CDHG on this blog. INFORME SEMANAL SOBRE DERECHOS HUMANOS Comision de Derechos Humanos de Guatemala No. 34/07 Report 19 - 25 October
======================================= Fuentes directas CDHG, Prensa Libre, Siglo Veintiuno, El Periódico, Guatemala Hoy ======================================= CDHG 2 Av. 4-66, apto. C-4, zona 1. Tel/Fax: (502) 22203576 /22534285 E-mail: cdhg@intelnett.com =======================================
These are the headlines- for the full report click on 'more':
- Conmemoran 63 años de la gesta revolucionaria del 44
- Ex comisionados y ex patrulleros amenazan a familiares de victimas del conflicto armado
- Organización de víctimas presentó demanda contra militar
- Despiden a 32 trabajadores de municipalidad de Huehuetenango
- Bush solicita a Congreso de EEUU US $550 millones para combatir narcotráfico en la región more»
To ask the Secretary of State
for International Development what steps he is taking to help tackle
the problem of violence against street children in Guatemala.
In Guatemala between 2004-05 DFID contributed $150,000 through the InterAmerican Development Bank to NGOs working with street children. This funding provided education, psycho-social care and work opportunities.
The British Embassy in Guatemala City
has supported many local NGO projects on child rights including a
sustainable training programme for police officers in the city centre.
This aims to improve officers' dealings with street children, ensure
the inclusion of child rights in the Police Academy training curriculum and encourage efforts to bring child abusers to justice.
Written by Kimberly Kern “On September 23rd Marco Tulio Portela Ramirez, a union organizer, was brutally gunned down outside his home as he prepared to go to work at the Bandegua banana plantation, a subsidiary of Del Monte Fresh Produce.”
Do you eat Del Monte bananas? Do you notice where your bananas come from? Are you willing to take a moment of your time to help the workers whose labor sends over a million tons of bananas to the Unites States each year?
The production of bananas in Guatemala takes place in large monoculture plantations where labor conditions are very poor. Workers receive low wages which often don’t cover the basic needs of their families and endure long 12-hour work days and exposure to dangerous chemicals. Yet employees lack the freedom to organize independent trade unions and negotiate agreements with their employers in order to improve these working conditions. Those who have tried to organize have come under attack from both transnational banana companies and independent banana producers. Illegal firings, plantation closures, temporary contracts, civil law suits, trumped up criminal charges, and violence targeting union leaders have all become commonplace. So far in 2007, four unionists have been assassinated in Guatemala and no charges have been made against the guilty parties.
According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the Guatemalan Constitution recognizes workers' freedom of association and states that all workers retain the right to form and join trade unions. Workers have the right to organize and bargain collectively under the condition that 25% of the total workers are in agreement and possess the right to strike provided that 50% support the strike.
The Constitution also provides for a judicial system to rule specifically on violations of the Labor Code. Unfortunately, the labor courts in Guatemala are overrun with backlogged cases that can drag on for years. Even when they issue rulings, the courts have insufficient power to ensure that their decisions are respected. Consequently, employers tend to dismiss the Labor Code and are rarely held accountable for illegal firings, negligent work conditions and violence against union organizers.
Del Monte, the third largest producer of bananas, is owned and controlled by the Chilean-based IAT Group (their capital is held in the United Arab Emirates) and maintains its headquarters in Miami, Florida. As of 2005, Del Monte controlled about 15% of the world banana trade. Along with the other major banana producers like Chiquita and Dole, they yield a great deal of power in Latin America and can sell bananas to the northern markets at an extremely cut-rate price. According to a French research institute CIRAD, “only 12% of the final retail price stays in the producing countries. An even smaller proportion goes to small farmers (5-7%) or to plantation workers (1-3%)”. The rest is profit in the pockets of the CEO’s and investors.
Bandegua, the Guatemalan subsidiary of Del Monte, is one of many companies with a long history of targeting trade unionists. In 1999, Bandegua dismissed 900 workers who were involved in the Banana Workers Union of Izabal (SITRABI), the oldest and one of the most powerful unions in Guatemala. On October 13th of that year, a heavily armed attack was led against the union organizers who were planning a massive protest in response to the dismissals. Consequently, seven members of SITRABI fled to the US to defend their lives and pursued a case against Bandegua. As a response, the US government placed Guatemala's trade benefits on probation until Guatemalan courts convicted the criminals. Unfortunately, due to the sustained violence in Guatemala, the seven organizers continue to live in the US.
On March 7th, 2000, The International Union of Food and Agriculture Workers (UIF) signed an agreement with Del Monte Fresh Produce, which set up local negotiations between Bandegua and SITRABI and committed the company to respecting minimum labor standards. The new agreement ensured that all 900 workers who were illegally fired be allowed to return to their jobs and explicitly stated that all workers had the right to join SITRABI.
Although all parties signed the agreement, acts of violence and intimidation continue. In November of 2006, Cesar Humberto Guerra, the Labor and Conflicts Secretary of SITRABI, was followed by three armed men while driving through the Chicasaw banana plantations in a vehicle owned by SITRABI. The men fired their guns in the air and threw a stone at the windshield of the car.
In July, 2007, military officers forcibly entered a SITRABI union meeting demanding to know the identity of the union’s leaders, the size of its membership and the nature of its occupation. In response, SITRABI filed complaints with the Public Ministry and the Ministry of Defense in Guatemala, who promised there would be an “internal investigation.” According to a statement by the Solidarity Center, “Military officers had been disciplined by the Ministry of Defense in response to SITRABI complaints about the unlawful entry.”
Five days later, on the morning of September 23, Marco Tulio Portela Ramirez was brutally gunned down in front of his house by armed masked men carrying high caliber weapons as he prepared to go to work at the Bandegua banana plantation. Marco was the Secretary of Culture and Sport at SITRABI and his brother Noé Ramirez is the General Secretary. According to STITCH, a nationwide group of women organizing for social justice, SITRABI strongly believes that this killing is directly related to their fight to end the intimidation and harassment of the union.
In his statement on September 30th, Noé Ramirez declared, “At the wake and burial of my brother’s mortal remains, I saw how hundreds of workers who were there with us cried at the loss of a fellow unionist, but also how we all committed ourselves to continue forward with our struggle, refusing to be silenced, because we are not alone: we are supported by allies all over the world….I would like to ask you all to keep pressuring the government and the rest of the Guatemalan authorities so that they will immediately investigate and solve Marco Tulio’s murder, and punish both the material and intellectual perpetrators of this crime and their accomplices.”
In response to this assassination, Solidarity Center Executive Director Ellie Larson said, “The systematic attacks on SITRABI constitute backsliding on worker rights enforcement in Guatemala. No worker should lose his life for exercising a fundamental right to participate in a union. Together we must break down the wall of impunity and rebuild respect for worker and human rights.”
Please take a moment of your time to contact the Guatemalan Ambassador in the United States and urge the Guatemalan government to investigate this case and bring those responsible to justice. You can mail this sample letter from STITCH or write one of your own to ambassador@guatemala-embassy.org.
Ambassador Jose Guillermo Castillo, 2220 R Street, NW Washington , DC 20008 Tel:(202) 745 4952 Fax:(202) 745 1908 ambassador@guatemala-embassy.org
Dear Ambassador Guillermo Castillo,
I am writing to ask your government to take strong and decisive action to stop the violence against unionists in Guatemala. The recent assassination of SITRABI Executive Committee Member, Marco Tulio Portela Ramirez on Sunday, September 23 is a stark reminder of the incredible danger workers face when trying to exercise their right to organize for better wages and more humane conditions in their work places. I urge your government to thoroughly investigate and prosecute the murderers of Mr. Ramirez and other trade unionist in Guatemala, including Mr. Pedro Zamora of the port workers union.
As you may recall, the SITRABI union leadership was violently intimidated in 1999 and forced to leave their country. Their case became an important test case on impunity for the U.S. government.
The government of Guatemala must also publicly condemn the violence against Guatemalan trade unions.
In addition, it is vital that the Guatemalan government take responsibility for the safety of the remaining leaders of SITRABI and ensure that they are protected from all violence and intimidation. The Guatemalan government must protect those that organize for basic their human rights. I will be monitoring the news as well as following updates from labor rights organizations to ensure that this case is taken seriously and that labor unions are protected throughout Guatemala.
Sincerely,
Your name
========================== Kimberly Kern (Austin, TX) lives in Guatemala and works with the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA). She can be reached at kimika [at] riseup.net
This excellent weekly report can't be found on the web- we publish it here with kind permission from CDHG on this blog. INFORME SEMANAL SOBRE DERECHOS HUMANOS Comision de Derechos Humanos de Guatemala No. 34/07 Report 12 - 18 October
======================================= Fuentes directas CDHG, Prensa Libre, Siglo Veintiuno, El Periódico, Guatemala Hoy ======================================= CDHG 2 Av. 4-66, apto. C-4, zona 1. Tel/Fax: (502) 22203576 /22534285 E-mail: cdhg@intelnett.com =======================================
These are the headlines- for the full report click on 'more':
- Conmemoran 63 años de la gesta revolucionaria del 44
- Ex comisionados y ex patrulleros amenazan a familiares de victimas del conflicto armado
- Organización de víctimas presentó demanda contra militar
- Despiden a 32 trabajadores de municipalidad de Huehuetenango
- Bush solicita a Congreso de EEUU US $550 millones para combatir narcotráfico en la región more»
The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington)
mentioned the importance of our contacts in dealing with such
matters—not just international bodies, but our bilateral relationships.
Let me give him a specific example. In September,
I visited Mexico and while I was there, I discussed the major human
rights issues that it faces with a range of contacts, specifically
civil society and Mexican non-governmental organisations. We discussed
the need to modernise the judicial system in order to end impunity and
to tackle corruption. I heard also about the excellent work on justice
reform that we have been able to carry out with the Mexican authorities
through the Foreign Office's global opportunities fund. Such support is being given to a range of countries around the world.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning Mexico. During her visit, was she able to raise the issue of migrants from Guatemala,
Nicaragua and Honduras who are harassed routinely while trying to
travel through Mexico, the problems of the appalling treatment of some
women in the states bordering the United States, and the disappearances that occur because of that? I know that human rights groups in Mexico often take up that matter.
This excellent weekly report can't be found on the web- we publish it here with kind permission from CDHG on this blog. INFORME SEMANAL SOBRE DERECHOS HUMANOS Comision de Derechos Humanos de Guatemala No. 34/07
======================================= Fuentes directas CDHG, Prensa Libre, Siglo Veintiuno, El Periódico, Guatemala Hoy ======================================= CDHG 2 Av. 4-66, apto. C-4, zona 1. Tel/Fax: (502) 22203576 /22534285 E-mail: cdhg@intelnett.com =======================================
These are the headlines- for the full report click on 'more':
- Por construcción de carretera Interamericana, pobladores de Chupol, Chichicastenango, son objetos de discriminación y abuso de poder
- FAMDEGUA señaló obstáculos y robo de evidencias en procesos de exhumación
- Protestan frente al Congreso para pedir proyectos habitacionales
- Organizaciones exigen a candidatos que respeten resultados de consultas
- Huehuetenango: fuerza pública rescata a alcalde y a miembros del concejo retenidos en Colotenango more»
Members of Guatemalan armed forces visited the community of Ilóm in the municipality of Chajul , Quiché last week in a purported attempt to recruit youth. Ilóm is home to the President of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) and other witnesses participating in the legal cases charging Guatemala ’s military high command with genocide and crimes against humanity.
On October 3, 2007 at 9:00 AM, armed members of the Guatemalan military entered Ilóm. For the next seven hours, they proceeded door-to-door through the community, physically entering some homes, and attempted to recruit youth to join the army. About a dozen young men left with the troops. The military returned the following day and again on October 7.
It appears that Ilóm has been singled out for this recruitment endeavor, as the military has not visited nearby communities. The presence of armed forces incited fear among Ilóm’s inhabitants who survived military violence in the 1980s.
The actions in Ilóm violate the Peace Accords and the Ibero-American Convention on the Rights of Youth. The military’s acts also infringe the legal methods and timelines for recruitment set out by Guatemala's Civil Service Law signed in 2003.
The AJR and its legal advisors at the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH) are requesting a full investigation, including a disclosure of those responsible for sending the military to Ilóm. They have filed official complaints with the Human Rights Procurator (PDH) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR).
We just received this statement from Amnesty International's Central America team:
Una serie de ataques y asesinatos de defensores y defensoras de derechos humanos ha otra vez puesto a prueba el compromiso del gobierno de Guatemala de garantizar su seguridad. Según información recibida por Amnistía Internacional, más de 150 ataques, actos de intimidación y asesinatos contra defensores y defensoras de derechos humanos han ocurrido en los primeros ocho meses del año.
En las últimas seis semanas, 13 activistas han sufrido ataques y tres de ellos fueron asesinados. Los 13 defensores de derechos humanos trabajan en diferentes puntos del país y en su mayoría se concentran en defender derechos económicos, sociales y culturales.
“En vísperas de la primera ronda electoral, Amnistía Internacional reiteró su llamado al gobierno a detener la violencia relacionada con la campaña” dijo Amnistía Internacional. “Esta nueva ola de ataques evidencia aún más la falta de compromiso de parte del gobierno con la protección del derecho de defender los derechos humanos”.
Amnistía Internacional acoge con satisfacción algunas iniciativas como la creación de una unidad especializada dentro de la Policía Nacional Civil para la investigación de crímenes en contra de defensores y defensoras de derechos humanos. Sin embargo, la efectividad de estas medidas se pondrá de manifiesto cuando los responsables de ataques contra defensores y defensoras de derechos humanos sean llevados ante la justicia.
“Mientras el gobierno de Guatemala continúe sin investigar efectivamente a los denominados cuerpos clandestinos y sin obtener resultados concretos, los ataques contra defensores de derechos humanos y otros actos de violencia que ocurren en vísperas de la segunda ronda de las elecciones presidenciales seguirán sucediendo”, dijo Amnistía Internacional. “El gobierno debe enviar una señal clara de que no tolerará más este tipo de incidentes, que esclarecerá los casos y que llevará a los responsables ante la justicia.”
Información Complementaria El 16 de septiembre Fidelino López y Emilio García, ambos miembros de la organización campesina Comunidades para el Desarrollo Integral de la Region Chortí (COMUNDICH), fueron asesinados. La organización labora en casos de despojo de tierra y en oposición a actividades mineras e hidroeléctricas
El 23 de septiembre Marco Tulio Ramírez fue asesinado al salir de su hogar. Marco Tulio era parte de la directiva del Sindicato de Trabajadores Bananeros de Izabal (SITRABI) y laboraba en representación de los derechos de sus colegas.
El 25 de septiembre el Presidente de la Junta Directiva de la Asociación de Comités de Desarrollo Campesino (CODECA), Estanislao Calel, fue sujeto de un intento de asesinato. Hombres desconocidos le dispararon con armas de fuego sin logar impactar en su cuerpo. CODECA acompaña a desplazados de Finca Nueva Linda y otras fincas de la Costa Sur.
El 24 de septiembre fueron allanadas las oficinas de Gente Positiva en Ciudad de Guatemala, una asociación que trabaja por las personas que viven con VIH/SIDA. La organización perdió información valiosa para su trabajo.
Entre el 8 de agosto y 24 de septiembre miembros de la Asociación de Desarrollo comunitario del Canton Panabaj (ADECCAP) en Santiago Atitlán recibieron aproximadamente seis amenazas. Según informes estas amenazas se relacionan con el trabajo de ADECCAP en proyectos de reconstrucción a favor de víctimas del huracán Stan.
El 4 y 11 de septiembre fueron atacadas las instalaciones de Radio Nuevo Mundo en Ciudad de Guatemala culminando este último incidente en la destrucción de su transmisor. Se presume que los ataques están vinculados al contexto electoral y a las transmisiones de la radio.
Amnistía Internacional hizo pública sus preocupaciones en cuanto a la violencia electoral y ataques a defensores y defensoras de derechos humanos, previo a la primera ronda de las elecciones presidenciales el 9 de septiembre (ver comunicado: Guatemala: Los candidatos presidenciales deben resolver el legado del conflicto, 29 de agosto 2007). La segunda ronda electoral se llevará a cabo el 4 de noviembre.
This excellent weekly report can't be found on the web- we publish it here with kind permission from CDHG on this blog. INFORME SEMANAL SOBRE DERECHOS HUMANOS Comision de Derechos Humanos de Guatemala No. 34/07
======================================= Fuentes directas CDHG, Prensa Libre, Siglo Veintiuno, El Periódico, Guatemala Hoy ======================================= CDHG 2 Av. 4-66, apto. C-4, zona 1. Tel/Fax: (502) 22203576 /22534285 E-mail: cdhg@intelnett.com =======================================
These are the headlines- for the full report click on 'more':
- Aumentó frecuencia de ataques contra defensores de derechos humanos en 2007
- FAFG localizó 21 osamentas en cementerio clandestino, en Alta Verapaz
- En el Día Nacional del Niño, organizaciones conmemoran y demanda acciones a favor de la niñez
- Nuevas carreteras del PPP causarán contaminación y deforestación
- Human Rights Watch exigió al Congreso que rechace iniciativa de ley sobre la familia more»
Welcome, Guatemala Solidarity Network (GSN) based in the United Kingdom supports the people of Guatemala who continue to struggle for change after centuries of oppression, violence, racism and exploitation.
You can keep in touch with all the news and views on Guatemala in many, many blogs and sources of information here via Pageflakes.
Jeremy Corbyn
Meg Munn
