Amnesty International have just released their report that looks in detail at the catalogue of human rights abuses against campesinos in Guatemala. "These human rights violations are committed with impunity and with the indifference of the authorities, says Amnesty. The report exposes a justice system fundamentally weighted in favour of large landowners who own most of the productive land in Guatemala." The report has been put together during field reports to Guatemala 2004-6. Click here for a copy of the full report.

When GSN met with Juan Tiney, of the National Indigenous and Campesino Coordinating Committee (CONIC), last year, he made the point that "food security is the root of popular resistance. With empty stomachs Guatemalans can't stand up for their rights".

In terms of per capita income, Guatemala is a comparatively rich country and the persistence and level of chronic hunger is absurd. But could a Guatemalan government seeking to undermine resistance today, allow such an absurdity to continue?

Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, in his report on his recent trip to Guatemala (26th January- 4th February 2006) noted the following about Guatemala's current ability to provide food security to Guatemalans:

* Chronic child malnutrition is more than twice as high in Guatemala than in most countries of Latin America and among the highest in the world (only higher in Yemen and Bangladesh).
* Today, half of Guatemalan children under the age of five are stunted, far more indigenous (70 per cent) than non-indigenous (36 per cent).
* Acute malnutrition is concentrated in the poorest regions, particularly the northeast, although in the wake of recent crises, including the collapse in world coffee prices and localized droughts in 2001, acute malnutrition levels have increased in the east, south coast and the west, and there has even been the reappearance of kwashiorkor.
* More than 15,000 Guatemalan children under the age of five die every year.

Given that Guatemala produces more than enough food for its citizens, theoretically at least, Ziegler's explanation for this widespread hunger and malnutrition is that this situation "is more related to inequities in the distribution of resources and people’s access to food".

These inequities which Ziegler summarises and which are widely known: highly concentrated land ownership, widespread poverty, job insecurity, the list is long. While it is true that the historical legacy of civil war and foreign intervention make any solution to the problem far from straight forward, the Government's approach to dissenting voices on land ownership, poverty, job insecurity, etc. leaves a lot to be desired.

The Berger Government's has continued to brand those who speak out about issues contributing to food insecurity as dissenters, law breakers or, more seriously, as terrorists. Ziegler refers to this tendency as the "criminalisation of social protest". As an example he cites the recent conflicts over land where workers have been evicted from their homes on fincas around Guatemala:

"While the non-payment of salaries to workers is classed as a minor misdemeanour, social protest and land occupation is considered a crime and the full force of the law is brought down on peasants and indigenous populations. There remains a tendency to privilege the interests of the economic elite over those of the majority of people, as seen in the policy of forced evictions which put a higher priority on defending private property than on defending the right to life and the right to food."

To put it crudely, the political calculation that political leaders have made over the last decades has continued to equate one Guatemalan's right to profit with another's right to life.

Now that is really absurd. 

"La juventud Guatemalteca participa a las democracias del mundo, el nacimiento de su anhelada libertad".

This footage is from the time of the coming to power of Juan Jose Arevalo in 1944 in Guatemala. I think this clip was originally posted by Guatemalan time lapse website - Guatemala: Jugando con el Tiempo. Interesting is the choice of music this clip is set to, somehow slightly bizarrely Radiohead's Sail to the Moon seems to add to its poignancy. Don't know what the exact date is, but it looks like parts of this are clips from a typical 15th September celebration...

Has someone from Buckingham being writing letters about Guatemala to their Conservative MP John Bercow? It's great to see his interest in Guatemala. He recently asked two questions in as many days in the House of Commons about the current situation in Guatemala with regards death squads and after hurricane Stan in October 2005.

Here is part of Gareth Thomas's (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for International Development) response on the situation in Guatemala after Stan.

A key reconstruction priority was ensuring access to safe reliable water, and much of the rehabilitation effort has focused on this. Waterborne disease remains a risk for affected communities and the Ministry of Health have been supported in the provision of transportation services, basic health kits including mosquito nets, and training for communities in health and nutrition awareness. Overall progress in reconstructing sanitation units has been slow, which in many cases has only reached 10 per cent. of target so far. However, some areas have benefited from intensive NGO efforts to ensure safe water, with as many as 10,000 water filters being provided and treatment plants in three municipalities. The installation of systems has been undertaken in close conjunction with local government authorities and communities to ensure sustainability.

Children have been badly affected by the hurricane the most, and those who remain in shelters will continue to receive psychological and educational support from rehabilitation partners. A continuing concern is the restoration of the livelihoods of the communities affected, either through agricultural support to those who returned to their homes, or through income generation opportunities for those who remain in shelters or have been relocated. DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have been in discussions with the Guatemalan Government to assess how those worst affected by Stan can begin to rehabilitate their livelihoods."

According to Namnews, Wal-Mart (the world's largest retailer) yesterday (15-03-2006) raised its stake Central American Retail Holding Co. (CARHCO) to 51% and will change the name of the Central America grocery operator to Wal-Mart Central America.

CARHCO has 375 supermarkets and other stores in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica and posted sales of about $2.2bn in 2005. CARHCO was formed in 2001 as a joint venture among three equal partners: Ahold, the Paiz family, who are the major shareholders of La Fragua; and Corporacion de Supermercados Unidos (CSU). Wal-Mart acquired Ahold's 33% stake in CARHCO in September 2005.

For an article heavily based on the Wal-Mart CARHCO press release, see CNN money.

In 2004, La Fragua, led by chairman Fernando Paiz, prospective vice-chairman of Wal-Mart Central America, ran into problems with its joint venture with Dutch company Royal Ahold. This episode culminated in Wal-Mart's intervention in 2005 broadening the US retail giant's reach into Guatemala.

La Fragua is the group that brings together Dispensa Familiar and La Despensa de Don Juan discount stores, Supertienda Paiz  supermarkets, Hiper Paiz hypermarkets, Maxi Bodega warehouse stores and Club Co., a membership wholesale club. Most are familiar names in Guatemala.

Wal-Mart's impact on local suppliers is notorious. You don't have to search far to find out the otherside of it's low price philosophy. For a summary of Wal-Mart's costs you could do worse than read Charles Fishman's article in Fast Company or watch the documentary Wal-Mart- The High Cost of Low Price. Wikipedia also has a really great overview of the issues involved in the Wal-Mart effect.

Of course in the UK, we don't escape the Wal-Mart empire with ASDA, becoming "part of the Wal-Mart family" in 1999. ASDA is Wal-Mart's largest overseas subsidiary, accounting for almost half of the company's international sales. For background information on ASDA and its Wal-Mart owners, check out Corporate Watch.

Watch this space for news on the implications for Guatemala's retail sector of having the world's largest retailer take control, at a stroke, of the country's largest retailer.

The House of Commons debated the issue of violence against women yesterday (09-03-06). The debate coincided with International Women's Day. David Taylor, Labour MP for North West Leicestershire rose the issue of the violence against women in Guatemala. He called on the UK Minsters to work on improving links with their counterparts in Guatemala to help improve the current situation.

Special thanks to Megan Anderson, Sophie Barker, Gemma Haywood and James Grant of Ibstock community college for writing to their MP and raising this issue. Solidarity in action!

Here is the full text of David Taylor's contribution to the debate:

"I am grateful to be called today and, in the light of the large number of hon. Members here, I shall try to keep my remarks very brief indeed.

The Minister referred to the co-operation between our Government and European and worldwide Governments. I should like to bring to the Chamber's attention the position in Guatemala, which is a particularly appalling case in terms of the treatment of women. I pay tribute to Megan Anderson, Sophie Barker, Gemma Haywood and James Grant of Ibstock community college in my constituency, who recently wrote to alert me to the appalling crimes that are being committed in that country.

I contacted the two Ministers in the Department for International Development earlier this year, asking what was being done to help the Guatemalan authorities to reduce the incidence of violent crime against Guatemalan women. To put the matter into context, 1,000 Guatemalan women have been murdered in the past two years. That is in a country of about 13 million people—a fifth of the size of this country. One could only imagine the impact of such appalling atrocities if 5,000 women were killed over a two-year period in this country. The Under-Secretary of State for International Development reassured me about the contacts that had been made with the Guatemalan presidential commission on human rights and the fact that our country, I am pleased to say, provides 18 per cent. of the funding for European Community programmes to Guatemala in that respect.

The second question that I raised was with the Minister for Europe, asking what contacts he had had with his Guatemalan counterpart about the status and treatment of Guatemalan women. Although that had not been discussed in any detail, on 7 October 2005, officials from the British embassy in Guatemala met a representative from the Guatemalan human rights prosecutors office to discuss the serious rise in violent acts against women in that country. A representative from Guatemala's network for the prevention of violence against women was also present.

I was relieved to hear the Minister talk about the European and international links that have been established by our Government, because the position in Guatemala is extraordinarily depressing and tragic. Many women and girls in Guatemala live with gender-based violence. Violence against women in the family, rape and sexual harassment in the workplace are common, and women and young girls are the victims of commercial trafficking and, as we have heard from two speakers, sexual exploitation. Most appallingly of all, police officers have been implicated in cases of sexual violence in that country. A number of victims of the killings—I have given an indication of the scale—were under 18 years of age.

The United Nations special rapporteur on violence looked into this dreadful example of a country allowing violence against women, and he found that the Guatemalan Government were failing in their international obligation to prevent, investigate and prosecute violence against women. Last year, a special police unit was established to investigate and prevent crimes against women, but it was reportedly insufficiently resourced to deal with the scale of the problem.

It is not all bleak in Guatemala: more women there go out to work than have ever done so before, and they stay in education for longer and express themselves more freely than ever before. However, in much of the country their reward is the perpetual fear of violent, sudden death. Prostitutes and female gang members are at the most serious risk, but the death toll includes women from all walks of life.

Let me conclude with a reference to Amnesty International that links with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty). Independent assessors have established the reasons for the dreadful position in Guatemala, where three and a half decades of internal conflict have produced cheap guns and a culture of violence, which has worsened the position. First, there is no respect for the body; people feel that they can treat women however they like—that is almost a cultural expectation. Secondly and finally, there is the idea that women are somebody's property. Those values need to be challenged. In a recent report, Amnesty International called on the Guatemalan Government to improve public education, inject real urgency into criminal investigations and reform outdated laws on rape and sexual violence.

Yesterday was international women's day, and I am delighted with the achievements of our Government. I come from a female-dominated household, with four daughters and lots of sisters and sisters-in-law, so I feel that I have the privilege of being able to contribute to the debate on their behalf. Our Government's natural focus and priority has been within the United Kingdom, but they will reach out to other countries. I urge both Ministers present to see what they can do to establish links with, and improve the appalling position of, women in Guatemala."

You can read the speech in the context of the debate here.

In early February, over 300 survivors of the 1982 Plan de Sánchez massacre in Rabinal finally began receiving the first of three reparations payments from the Guatemalan government as ordered by an Inter-American Court of Human Rights sentence in 2004.  The community had accepted a proposal from the state to make the three payments of approximately $8,000 each in February 2006, December 2006 and December 2007. While the original sentence mandates that the total amount of approximately $25,000 per beneficiary be paid in December 2005, the government proposed otherwise.
 
The survivors’ receipts of these payments are definitely a victory for a community that has struggled for justice over the course of 20-plus years, but this process MUST not be considered complete now that the first payment has been made.  The sentence also requires the government to provide the community with health care, mental health services, multicultural education, water systems, roads and a dignified housing. It also requires that the intellectual and material authors be investigated, tried and convicted.  This last point provides further impetus for bringing to trial the genocide cases against former dictators Lucas Garcia and Rios Montt, which have been stuck in the investigative phase within the Guatemalan Attorney General’s office (Ministerio Público) for more than five years, due in large part to a lack of political will to see the cases move forward.  NISGUA has been providing human rights accompaniment to the witnesses of these cases throughout Guatemala since the charges were first filed in 2000 and 2001.  For more information about accompaniment work or how to become an accompanier, visit Guatemala Solidarity Network in the UK or www.nisgua.org in the U.S. 
 
NISGUA is committed to ongoing monitoring of this historic process in Plan de Sánchez and will continue to keep you updated on the situation. Please read the below testimony from one of our accompaniers on the ground in Guatemala, Ellen Moore, who has witnessed first-hand the deceit and manipulation surrounding the government’s payments.

  
Eye Witness: Ellen Moore

A fierce mountain sun beats down on Gloria and me as we make our way up the hill to the Plan de Sánchez chapel.  I look over to the 78 year-old woman and see that she is equally swept up in the excitement and anticipation of the day.  Gloria is on her way to the public ceremony to commemorate the first of three payments to be issued to survivors of the Plan de Sánchez massacre by the Guatemalan State as mandated by an Inter-American Court sentence.  The government has brought in clowns, jugglers and at least 40 members of its staff for the event.  We sit on the ground as other members of the Plan de Sánchez community join us and wait for the ceremony to begin. Frank La Rue, the director of COPREDEH (the Presidential Commission for Human Rights) stands in front of the crowd, microphone in hand and begins to speak. His voice echoes throughout the mountains, as he exclaims that "this is a victorious day won by the truth."
 
As he continues his speech, the soft chatter of the crowd, which had been constant up until this point, ceases so as to produce unusual silence. The 300-plus beneficiaries of the Inter-American Court case have gathered at the chapel in Plan de Sánchez, the site of the massacre that occurred there twenty-four years ago. As the former director of CALDH (the Center for Legal Action on Human Rights), the legal organisation responsible for bringing the Plan de Sánchez case before the Inter-American system, La Rue played a key role in the birth of the Plan de Sánchez case before leaving his position to work for the Guatemalan government. Despite this change in affiliation, community members know and continue to respect La Rue. He claims that he has been with the community from the start, and now he has come to finish the job. Today La Rue stands before the survivors and tells them what they have been waiting to hear. This is their victory. Today they will receive the first fruit of their fourteen year battle.  Unfortunately, the words that La Rue proceeds to voice reflect a strategy of deception and manipulation that has consistently characterized the work of COPREDEH regarding the Government of Guatemala’s compliance with the Inter-American Court sentence.
 
I scribble notes throughout La Rue’s speech. The final victory…transaction has been completed…must sign today to get out money tomorrow…he has been with them for years…must have trust. It becomes disturbingly clear that Frank La Rue has an agenda. First, he reminds the community of his previous affiliation with CALDH and his continued, personal commitment to their struggle. He then launches into an attack of the very organisation that he just finished exalting, discretely but openly criticising CALDH’s commitment to the case and to the community.
 
Next Frank La Rue reveals the driving political force behind the completion of the first payment. He makes sure to mention at least three times that the Berger administration was not responsible for the horror that occurred on July 18, 1982, but it should be given credit for the completion of the first payment to the survivors.  He assures the beneficiaries that the deposits have been completed and that the money has been distributed to the individual accounts.  La Rue concludes by stating that the final step is for the beneficiaries to sign the paperwork that will allow them to withdraw their money the following day.     
 
Because COPREDEH only notified CALDH of the ceremony less than 24 hours in advance, and in order to make a public statement about the illegitimacy of the event, the legal organisation chose not to attend. Instead, two CALDH representatives went to the bank with a number of beneficiaries to see for themselves if what Frank La Rue and the director of the bank said was true. What they encountered were completely empty accounts and a growing list of lies. CALDH and the beneficiaries returned to Plan de Sánchez to relay the bad news. I watch as looks of confusion and panic sweep across the community member’s faces, as they realize that they have been deceived.
 
After a community member states that he is not going to sign paperwork if the money is not in the bank, the man is pulled into the chapel to face Frank La Rue. "What do you mean the money is not there?!" La Rue yells at the community member. La Rue then tells the man that if he does not complete the paperwork today, he will lose his money. The community leader does not believe him. La Rue tries another, softer tactic, explaining that folks must sign in order for the money to be deposited in their accounts, a direct contradiction to what he had stated less than an hour before. This pitch works, and La Rue convinces the community member that he has no alternative but to sign.  The man later tells me that he felt bad questioning the word of La Rue and did not want to offend him by not complying. The same reluctance but eventual resignation is evident throughout the crowd, as one by one, the members of the Plan de Sánchez community sign. The survivors know that their money is not there and that they have been lied to, but with more than forty COPREDEH representatives swarming, they feel as though they have no choice. Community members succumb to the pressure and sign paperwork acknowledging receipt of payment when their bank accounts are, in fact, empty.

The following afternoon, I visit Gloria at her home. She brings me a steaming cup of coffee and sits down heavily on the bench. I ask her if she is feeling alright and she says no. Gloria had gotten up early that morning to make the hour trip in the back of a large cargo truck down the mountain to the bank in Rabinal. She waited in line for another hour to check her account balance. Gloria was informed by the bank attendant that her account was empty. Nobody explained why the money had not
arrived or when it would be coming. With COPREDEH long gone and no other alternatives, Gloria returned home feeling worried, confused and helpless. By the time I arrived, she had a headache and had thrown up the small amount of tortilla that she had been able to eat for lunch.
 
After days of travel and worry, the money promised by COPREDEH finally began to arrive. It is not enough, however, to complete payments if the people involved are not treated with respect and if the recognition for the wrongs committed is not sincere.  COPREDEH believed that it could lie to people, not just on February 2nd, but throughout the process. Because those involved are poor indigenous people, COPREDEH decided it could cut corners and do away with legal formalities.  It is doubtful that such laxity would be acceptable in dealing with other high-profile ladino cases based out of Guatemala City.  Would Helen Mack, for example, have been asked to sign paperwork indicating receipt of payment before she ever saw a cent of government reparations?
 
Frank La Rue, a supposed ally of the community, did not take the time to have his speech translated into Achi, even though he knows that Spanish is not the first language of the majority of the beneficiaries. Likewise, La Rue seemed to think it too time consuming to make sure that each beneficiary had read or had read to them the document they were to sign.  Witnessing such blatant disrespect, one feels that not much has changed since the time of the conflict, as government lies are once again undermining trust and organisation within the community.
 
The fulfilment of portions of the Inter-American Court sentence in Plan de Sánchez is a painful reminder of the work that remains to be done in the search for justice throughout Guatemala.  While the survivors of one massacre have won an important victory, there are hundreds of communities that are still fighting for recognition and even hundreds more for which exhumations remain to be done.  Therefore, it is vitally important that Plan de Sánchez serve as an example of what can be accomplished, as well as a reminder of the struggles that remain.  The first payment has shown that, for the government, paying people is easy. What is not easy, and what the government has yet to comply with in the Plan de Sánchez sentence, is justice for the victims of genocide.  
 
It is easily forgotten or conveniently overlooked that the sentence dictates numerous other essential steps that the government must complete, including providing the community with health care, mental health services, multicultural education, water systems, roads and dignified housing.  The ruling also mandates that the intellectual and material authors of the Plan de Sánchez massacre be investigated, tried, and convicted, which would be concrete steps towards real justice.
 
Instead of investing resources in the above measures, the State of Guatemala is hoping that the beneficiaries of the Plan de Sánchez case will take their money and fade into the background.  It hopes that the survivors will forget that Rios Montt and Lucas Garcia continue to walk free, unpunished for the crimes they committed.  Fortunately, the beneficiaries of Plan de Sánchez have not forgotten.  Just yesterday the community gathered once again at the chapel. The community members did something that COPREDEH has not done – they cast blame and named names. Monetary reparations may pay back that which was stolen during the war, but the community of Plan de Sánchez stands firm in its belief that money does not equal justice.

---

Further Information

You can read a recent article (26-02-06) on the first compensation payment to be made to victims in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz that appeared in Prensa Libre. More...

CERIGUA (Centro de Reportes Informativos de Guatemala) also has a section dedicated to news on compensation and reparations which is regularly updated. More...

If you are interested in volunteering as an international accompanier, we have more information on volunteering and links to different accompaniment programmes.

UPDATE: Ellen Moore has done an interview with her local paper in the US, the Daily Citizen WISC News. "It blew my mind, in the beginning, that people felt safer because I was there. To me, that was ridiculous," Moore said in April, while at home in Juneau.

"I'm a dissuasive presence," she said, referring to supporters of former Guatemalen dictators Rios Montt and Lucas Garcia who still threaten survivors of massacres investigated by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights.

Roddy Brett has just written a book, "Movimiento social, etnicidad y democratización en Guatemala, 1985-1996" published in Spanish by F&G Editores in Guatemala.

You can download the prologue in Spanish here.

Here's the publisher's biog of Roddy Brett in Spanish:

"Es británico de origen. Ha vivido en América Latina por seis años, de los cuales aproximadamente cinco años en Guatemala. Especialista en temas de movimientos sociales, democratización, conflicto armado, derechos humanos y justicia y racismo.

Es Maestro en Antropología Social de la Universidad de Cambridge, Maestro en Estudios Culturales de la Universidad de Kent, y Doctor en Ciencias Políticas de la Universidad de Londres. Ha sido Profesor en materia de Ciencias Sociales en diversas universidades en Inglaterra, incluyendo Cambridge, Kent y Londres, y ha trabajado en varios proyectos de la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales Guatemala (FLACSO).

Ha trabajado en temas de derechos humanos y justicia, incluyendo con Amnistía Internacional, The Carter Center, International IDEA, y en varias organizaciones no gubernamentales guatemaltecas, particularmente sobre el tema de genocidio y violencia política. Ha publicado ampliamente sobre dichos temas."

He's also been a supporter of GSN, and we'd like to take this opportunity to recommend his book to any interested students of recent Guatemalan political history.

You can find more information about the book with information about how to buy it, and a testimonial from Dr. Rachel Sieder, Senior Lecturer in Politics at London's Institute for the Study of the Americas, here on the F&G Editores website.

"De contraportada: El trabajo que el lector tiene en sus manos es un aporte importante a los estudios sociopolíticos de los movimientos sociales en América Latina y a los análisis de las oportunidades y limitaciones del largo y accidentado proceso de democratización en Guatemala.

Roddy Brett nos presenta un análisis crítico de la relación entre el proceso de democratización desde principios de los años ochenta, el proceso de paz, y los actores de la sociedad civil en Guatemala. Basado en un extenso trabajo de investigación etnográfica y documental, el autor nos demuestra cómo las transformaciones institucionales y cambios en las políticas nacionales impactaron en las prácticas de los actores populares.

Demuestra cómo en los años ochenta los primeros movimientos populares en emerger después del genocidio perpetrado por el Estado militar utilizaron el marco de acción colectiva de los derechos humanos para perseguir sus demandas políticas, económicas y sociales.

Como Brett señala, el trabajo de las organizaciones populares ha sembrado una incipiente cultura de derechos en Guatemala y como tal representa una contribución singular a la profundización de una democracia que sigue siendo débil. Sin embargo, mientras no haya una transformación socioeconómica más profunda para enfrentar las agudas desigualdades que siguen caracterizando al país, tal democracia será siempre incompleta."

This is a brief post to flag up examples of media coverage for the work of two development organisations who have been working in Guatemala in the aftermath of Hurricane Stan in October 2005.

The first example is from CAFOD who have been involved in various projects through partners on the ground in Guatemala. This is an article published in the Tablet is from CAFOD's Fiona Callister. She makes the interesting point that although here the disaster was forgotten quickly, solidarity has been impressively strong in Guatemala itself crossing the religious divide between Catholics and Protestants.

"For example in the diocese of Jalapa, which contains San Carlos, desperately poor parishioners collected an impressive $20,000 (£11,500) to help those affected by Stan. Even more remarkably, the decision was taken that, although their diocese had been brought to its knees by the hurricane, they would donate the money to another parish which they considered had been worse hit.

This solidarity has been a strong feature of the disaster response, with Churches organising themselves almost immediately to take it in turns to feed those who had lost everything. So the Pentecostal Church would find 100 eggs for breakfast, then the Catholic Church would provide lunch in the shelters and dinner would come courtesy of the Evangelicals.

Miguel Marroquin, the director of Cafod partner FGER Nahuala community radio, which has helped distribute blankets and food, said: “People who are already poor and have suffered themselves have responded one hundred per cent. It is very humbling and inspiring. There is a great sense of solidarity and unity. The age-old religious divisions have been transformed and everyone is pulling together. This is something we must build on.” "

Fiona Callister mentions CAFOD's lenten fundraising- one example is St Margaret's Church, Richmond, in the UK already mentioned on this blog last month. For more information on their 26th March event, see this post.

The other example is an article that appeared in AlertNet on the work of World Emergency Relief in supporting the rebuilding of houses in affected areas of Guatemala.

"WER has released funds to local partner agency, Cosecha Trust, to purchase land and materials to rebuild houses for families who were left homeless in the aftermath of the disaster. These new homes will provide housing for over 100 people in the town of Tecpan."

The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival is taking place in London 15th-25th March and brings together a collection of very interesting films this year. OneWorld.net resumes the festival here.

The full film schedule: here.

The festival includes the premiere of Killer's Paradise on the issue of violence against women in Guatemala. In particular, the film documents the story of Claudina Isabel Velasquez, a 19 year-old student, who was found dead in August 2005. Claudina's case was supported by Amnesty International as part of its campaign against violence against women.

Killer's Paradise is to be shown: Monday, 20th March at 6pm at the Ritzy.

Brixton Oval, Coldharbour Lane
Brixton, London SW2 1JG
box office: 0870 7550 062
www.picturehouses.co.uk

Tickets cost £6.75 and include the following film, "How To Plan A Revolution". You can book online here. Both films are distributed by BBC Worldwide TV.

Here's the film's synopsis on the HRW film festival website:

"In this powerful film, the award-winning team of Olenka Frenkiel and Giselle Portenier (Murder in Purdah, Israel’s Secret Weapon) document the story of the brutal killings of women in Guatemala. Since 1999, more than 2,000 women have been murdered there, with the numbers rising every year. In 2005 alone, 640 women, nearly two a day, were killed. That’s one woman in every twelve thousand murdered last year, almost ten times as many, per capita, as in Britain.

And in Guatemala, the murders are rarely investigated. Few statistics are kept, details rarely are logged, potential forensic evidence is often ignored or contaminated, so the killers invariably go free and no one, not even the country’s president, has any idea who they are or why so many women are murdered.

The answer, at least in part, is the failure of Guatemalan authorities to pursue justice for perpetrators of abuses during a civil war which killed 200,000 people. Three generations of killers have gone free; though the country is trying to show it has changed, old habits die hard.

KILLER’S PARADISE documents the story of Claudina Isabel Velasquez, a 19 year old law student murdered in summer 2005, as her family urges the authorities to investigate who killed her".

The Guatemalan's Human Rights Ombudsmen (PDH) went to the press last week to give an update on the discovery of millions of old police files dating back over the last century. For many human rights groups in Guatemala, the hope is that the files' contents hold the key to future prosecutions of past human rights abuses.

Reports appeared by Reuters (Mica Rosenberg) in AlertNet and Associated Press (Juan Carlos Llorca) in the Guardian. There was even a very brief mention in the Times.

It is a race against time for the PDH, which aims to begin scanning and storing the written information contained in the files electronically. Around a million pages are ready for scanning at the moment- a fraction of the estimated 48 millions pages in total. However, of those million, 750,000 pages were compiled by the office of the National Police director between 1980 and 1985 - when many of the war's worst massacres and other human rights violations occurred. The challenge now is to advance this work before the documents succumb to the elements, are vandalised or stolen.

Llorca writes: "With $2.5 million from Sweden, the Guatemalans plan to buy high-speed scanners and build a digital archive of the files. The U.N. Development Program is providing advice and Spain has promised to send archive specialists."

Rosenberg quotes Gustavo Meono, lead investigator and formerly of the Rigoberta Menchu Foundation: "Prosecutions using the files as evidence are still a long way off, since many of those implicated in state crimes are still in power".