Guatemala's congress approves resolution denying genocide occurred during 36-year civil war

[Judi Lynn]

Guatemala's congress approves resolution denying genocide occurred during 36-year civil war
Article by: Associated Press
Updated: May 14, 2014 - 12:20 PM

GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemala's Congress approved a non-binding resolution that denies there was any attempt to commit genocide during the bloody 36-year civil war, while calling for "national reconciliation" in the Central American country.

"It is legally impossible ... that genocide could have occurred in our country's territory during the armed conflict," said the resolution, which passed late Tuesday with support from 87 of the 158 legislators.

The resolution was proposed by Luis Fernando Perez, a legislator for the party founded by former dictator Efrain Rios Montt. Rios Montt was convicted of genocide for crimes during his 1982-83 rule, but a court later annulled the 80-year sentence for the massacre of thousands of Mayans and ordered his trial re-started.

The vote apparently will have no effect on the trial, which is scheduled to begin again in January.

Groups representing Guatemala's Indians, the principal victims among the estimated 250,000 people killed during the 1960-96 civil war between a U.S.-supported government and leftist movements, have said the annulment of the Rios Montt verdict was a denial of justice.

More:
http://www.startribune.com/world/259239771.html

[Louisiana1976]

1. I wonder if this vote is a sign of racism by the elites against Indians.

[Judi Lynn]

2. I believe they are insisting no one they view as worthy to live was tortured and murdered.

They are filthy monsters, just as the European descendants who have controlled Bolivia are, based upon they way they have behaved toward the native citizens whose country it is.

Here's a quick reference on the subject:

Racism in Guatemala

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Ana Cancino
By Michael Smith

Guatemala has the largest indigenous population in Central America and is the most racist country in the region. It is difficult for many people to come to grips with the extent of the racism in Guatemala. Much of it is overt and violent, much of it subtle and invisible.

The situation for Indigenous Guatemalans is similar to that of American Blacks in the south after the Civil War. Both are ostensibly free to live, work and study where they please, but the reality for Blacks was that they had to continue working on the plantations for starvation wages and could not live in white areas. Since Brown v. Board of Education it is no longer debatable that education was separate and unequal. In Guatemala, extremely limited employment opportunities force Indigenous Guatemalans to work on the large coffee and cotton plantations where they are abused by the supervisors and often cheated out of their starvation wages. Indigenous children are discouraged or prevented from going to school (according to a World Bank Report, the average school attendance for Indigenous children is 1.9 years).

White men raped Black women in the south with impunity, a throwback to the droit du seigneur of the Middle Ages. In Guatemala, ladino (the Indigenous term for non-indigenous people) men feel that they can rape Indigenous women with impunity, which they can, and do. Middle class ladino men rape their Indigenous housekeepers and ladino plantation owners/supervisors rape indigenous workers, a continuation of the latifundio system of the Spanish Middle Ages. The situation is even worse vis a vis the National Civil Police (PNC). As most members of the PNC are ex-military, the same group responsible for the genocide and over 90% of the human rights abuses during the terrible Civil War, it should come as no surprise, that they are still human rights abusers as well as racists. To expect otherwise is to be blind to reality.

There is ample documentation of PNC abuses, including rapes, but as far as I know, the reports do not mention that the persecution is on account of racism.

The subtle effect of the racism, is seen in the human rights agencies where nearly all the workers are ladinos who seldom if ever go into Indigenous areas, which are often geographically isolated. I have visited three of the largest and most reputable agencies in Guatemala, GAM, CALDEH, and the Myrna Mack Institute and have spoken to their representatives in the United States. They universally admit that the situation might be bad in remote Indigenous areas, but they have different agendas, agendas that usually have to do with issues that primarily concern Ladinos. I do not wish to say anything bad about these agencies, because they do admirable and dangerous work. However, they are not concerned with current Indigenous problems. And because of the pervasive racism and mistrust, a ladino human rights worker from Guatemala City cannot go into a remote indigenous community and expect the people to trust and talk to her/him, just as unaccompanied whites could not go into Black communities in the South before and even during the Civil Rights Movement. This is precisely why there is a lack of documentation on continuing human rights abuses in Indigenous areas in Guatemala. The State Department Reports mention widespread discrimination and the extraordinarily high levels of violence in Guatemala, but fails to put these phenomena together. (Currently the State Dept is more concerned with drug trafficking which directly affects the United States).

More:
http://eastbaysanctuary.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/racism-in-guatemala/

[WhiteTara]

3. How terrible for the victims.

This will damage the psyche of that country for generations.