Strategies of a New Cold War: US Marines and the Drug War in Guatemala
Here’s a piece I prepared for Toward Freedom recently. The Spanish version is forthcoming.
Strategies of a New Cold War: US Marines and the Drug War in Guatemala
GUATEMALA CITY—The news broke in the United States during the lazy summer days of late August: 200 US Marines were stationed in Guatemala as part of the war on drugs.[1] The deployment of US combat troops to Guatemala was part of Operation Martillo, a military plan meant to disrupt cocaine trafficking routes that pass through Central America on their way from Colombia to the United States.
Fighting organized crime and drug trafficking is the most recent justification for US incursions in Guatemala, also
US Huey Heli Crew takes off from Santa Elena, Peten as part of Op Martillo. Photo: US Southcom.
serving to justify the increased activity of Guatemalan military around the country. This militarization is taking place in areas where there are fierce social and land conflicts related to the imposition of mega-resource extraction projects, such as in mining and oil industries. In addition, communities that resist displacement and the extractive industries have been tarred with accusations that they are involved in the organized crime; in some cases entire peasant villages have even been labeled “narco-communities.”
“We have the sense that [fighting narcotrafficking] is a pretext to return to the level of military deployment that was maintained during the height of the armed conflict, which resulted in acts of genocide,” said Iduvina Hernandez Batres, of the Guatemala City-based NGO Security and Democracy (Sedem). The Guatemalan Army, which is still formally ineligible for receiving US military assistance, was responsible for the vast majority of the 200,000 killed and the 50,000 disappeared during the internal armed conflict, which officially ended in 1996.
The Guatemalan army was called upon “to put an end to the external threats and contribute to neutralizing illegal armed groups by means of military power,” by Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina the day after his inauguration in January 2012.[2] Pérez Molina, a former General and head of army intelligence, also promised to increase military spending. So far, he has kept his promise. According to Plaza Publica, a Guatemalan investigative journalism outlet, projected spending on military and security equipment in 2013 alone will surpass all such spending between 2004 and 2012.[3]
The arrival of US Marines in Guatemala represents more than a military maneuver to disrupt drug trafficking. It demonstrates that in allied countries like Guatemala, the US can champion a military invasion under the discourse of the war on drugs with little fanfare or criticism. The deployment of US troops to Guatemala is arguably the most blatant example of an evolving strategy that the US military establishment is betting on in order to expand and exercise control in the hemisphere, all within an international framework of formal democracy and law and order. (more…)
CREOMPAZ : La petite « École des Amériques » du Guatemala
Merci a Estelle et Carlos Debiasi de El Correo pour leur traduction de CREOMPAZ: Guatemala’s ‘Little School of the Americas’ aux français!
+
COBAN, GUATEMALA—Depuis février, les anthropologues légistes ont trouvé prés de 400 restes humains dans une base militaire
dans le Cobán, au Guatemala, dans ce qui est rapidement devenu la découverte de l’une des plus grandes fosses communes clandestines du pays. Pendant le conflit armé qui a saigné le pays pendant 36 ans et qui fut la scène d’actes génocidaires, la base de Cobán fut utilisée comme centre de renseignement pour la coordination d’opérations militaires.
Mais ce qui semble extraordinaire dans le cas en question, c’ est que la base militaire continue d’ être encore active aujourd’hui : Des effectifs militaires et policiers étrangers se rendent régulièrement à la base pour entraîner des troupes du Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras et de la République Dominicaine. (« Groupe de travail pour la stabilisation et la reconstruction ») En 2006, la zone militaire de Cobán a été rebaptisée avec le nom de CREOMPAZ, sigle pour« Comando Regional de Entrenamiento de Operaciones de Mantenimiento de Paz » (Commando Régional d’Entraînement d’Opérations de Maintien de Paix en espagnol).
L’histoire terrifiante de la base militaire de Cobán au Guatemala et l’impunité face à l’extermination d’hommes, femmes et d’enfants déploie une toile de fond inquiétante pour les « Opérations de paix » actuellement. (more…)
La «Guerre contre la drogue», alibi néolibéral en Colombie et au Mexique
La «Guerre contre la drogue», alibi néolibéral en Colombie et au Mexique
par Dawn Paley *
Dawn Paley sonde en profondeur la « guerre contre la drogue » en Colombie et au Mexique. Elle explore les mécanismes employés, quantifie le désastre humain et économique, analyse les raisons possibles pour lesquelles la guerre continue, en plus de suggérer d’autres champs d’enquête.
Tant aux États-Unis et qu’au Canada il y a eu des efforts soutenus de groupes militants pour souligner les emprisonnements de masse injustes et la criminalisation des gens pauvres, surtout des gens pauvres de couleur, en ce qui concerne les arrestations en relation avec la drogue. Mais on trouve très peu d’analyses concernant les causes qui sont derrière les mécanismes de cette guerre et l’impact économique qu’elle a sur le Mexique et au delà.
Même avant que le retrait d’Irak ou d’Afghanistan ne soit effectif, les États-Unis étaient déjà impliqués dans une série de conflits depuis la frontière du nord du Mexique jusqu’au Pérou. Les gouvernements et les médias l’ont cataloguée comme la « Guerre contre la drogue ». Il est important d’examiner comment la croissante « Guerre contre la drogue » est connectée à l’expansion de sociétés multinationales qui prennent le contrôle des marchés, des ouvriers et des ressources naturelles.
Au Honduras quatre indigènes ont été assassinés par balle en mai, quand la police hondurienne a ouvert le feu depuis un hélicoptère du Département d’État des Etats-Unis, le tout sous la supervision d’agents en uniforme des États-Unis. Au Mexique sous la conduite des États-Unis, du Canada, d’Israël et de la Colombie, la police et l’armée ont été transformées.
En Colombie, la guerre a duré déjà quatre décennies et des milliards de dollars US sont étés engloutis, pour le moment on la qualifie de lutte contre le crime. Pendant les années 80, l’État colombien est devenu un état paramilitairisé, dans un processus qui selon l’historien German Alfonso Palacio Castañeda « se manifeste par des menaces, attentats et assassinats ciblés et massacres collectifs de fonctionnaires gouvernementaux (principalement mais pas exclusivement de gauche), et de leaders politiques populaires, d’ouvriers, de paysans, de professeurs, de militants des droits de l’homme et membres d’organisations non gouvernementales. »
A travers le mode de financement des programmes anti-narcotiques, l’aide des Etats-Unis à la Colombie a eu pour résultat le renforcement des groupes paramilitaires et policiers non officiels, qui selon des rapports patrouillaient à côté de l’armée colombienne et se sont trouvés impliqués dans la majorité des massacres et des déplacements forcés dans ce pays.
« Dire que la guerre contre la drogue a échoué, c’est ne pas comprendre quelque chose », a expliqué Noam Chomsky, lors d’un discours du mois mai. « Nous avons à nous demander que ce qui est dans l’esprit des planificateurs devant tant d’évidence que ce qu’ils disent essayer d’obtenir ne marche pas. Quelles sont les intentions probables ? » [1]
Les commentaires de Chomsky désignent un champ d’enquête pour les militants et journalistes qui désirent comprendre les guerres actuelles contre la drogue. Chaque fois, c’est plus clair qu’il y a beaucoup de travail à faire pour reconstruire de façon conjointe les motifs de la militarisation dirigée par les États-Unis dans les Amériques. (more…)
Time to monitor Guatemala’s mining sector?
Last week I was interviewed during an episode of Inside Story Americas on Al Jazeera English where the topic at hand was Canadian mining in Guatemala. 
And as to the question above: Even effective monitoring wouldn’t come close to what’s needed to prevent further disasters like the one people are living in San Marcos because of the Marlin Mine. There is no sustainable way to take out five grams of gold per tonne of ore. Open pit gold mega-mining is pure greed and shouldn’t be permitted anywhere.
Anyhow, if you haven’t seen it already, do have a look!
Canadian Mining on Trial
I was lucky to have had the chance to visit El Estor, Guatemala again recently, for the first time since I reported on the evictions that took place there in late 2006 and early 2007.
Canadian Mining on Trial: Guatemalan delegation travelling to Canada to challenge corporate impunity
Published by The Dominion, November 21, 2012
EL ESTOR, GUATEMALA—The rain won’t let up. It muddies the ground and pounds the corrugated metal roof of Angelica Choc’s house on the edge of the Guatemalan town of El Estor, enveloping the small gathering on the porch in a curtain of water. If it wasn’t for the violence surrounding a proposed nickel mine near the community, the evening’s gathering would likely have included her husband, Adolfo Ich. Maybe, at the end of the gathering, Ich would have taken out his guitar and begun an impromptu sing-a-long.
But there’s no celebration here. Instead, Choc sits on a plastic chair, sipping sweet coffee, talking through the logistics of an upcoming trip to Toronto with her sister-in-law, Maria Cuc Choc and their friend German Chub. All three are worried about how German, who is paralyzed from the waist down, will manage on the flight. What if he has to go to the bathroom on the plane, they wonder. They discuss what kind of clothes they might need for the cold. There are another two women accompanying them on the trip, and none of them own suitcases. The conversation slips back and forth between Spanish and Q’eqchi’, punctuated by laughter.
On the wall near the front door of Choc’s small wooden house is a simple altar in memory of her late husband. Two framed photos of Ich hang on the wall, his gaze straight and serious. His guitar hangs on the wall, gathering dust. A longtime Q’eqchi’ activist involved in various land struggles, Ich was murdered in September 2009 by private security guards in the employ of Hudbay Minerals.
“We’re going to travel [to Canada] because we want to demand justice,” Choc told The Dominion. “I have faith and hope that we’ll be successful. That’s what we want.” Choc, Chub, Cuc, and two others will travel to Canada for cross-examination by Hudbay’s legal team during the last week in November.
“This will be the first time, as far as I know, that individuals harmed by Canadian mining projects in other countries will have travelled to Canada to provide evidence for use in Canadian courts,” according to Grahame Russell of Rights Action, a solidarity organization involved in supporting community members resisting nickel mining in the El Estor region. “The questioning, under oath, will take place out of court and may be used in court.” (more…)
CREOMPAZ: Guatemala’s ‘Little School of the Americas’
Here’s a short piece on CREOMPAZ, a military base with a history of terror and present-day peacekeeping 
operations. Published by Upside Down World.
COBAN, GUATEMALA—Since February, forensic anthropologists have turned up over 400 skeletons at a military base in Coban, Guatemala, in what has fast become one of the largest discoveries of a clandestine mass grave in the country. During the country’s 36 year long internal armed conflict that led to acts of genocide, the base at Coban was a center of military coordination and intelligence.
But what sets this dig apart is that it is taking place at a military base that remains active today: foreign military and police arrive regularly at the base to train troops from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic. In 2006, the military zone in Coban was renamed CREOMPAZ, which stands for Regional Training Command for Peacekeeping Operations.
The horrid history of the military base in Coban—and the impunity with which mass killings of men, women and children were carried out—provides a disturbing backdrop for present day “peacekeeping” operations.
Evidence of the ongoing excavation is all over Guatemala’s capital city, in the form of ads gracing billboards and bus stops. On the right hand side of the ad is a stock photo of a woman in a surgical mask, looking at a medical instrument. In Los Angeles, it might be a weight loss ad, in Houston, promotion for a private hospital. Not here. Instead, text across the top reads: “Do you have a family member disappeared between 1940 and 1996?” Then, “with DNA we are identifying them. A spit sample is enough.”
The Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) put the ad campaign together in attempt to identify the skeletons of the disappeared by matching them with DNA from their living family members. FAFG anthropologists are at work around Guatemala, digging, dusting, recording and finally exhuming human remains.
CREOMPAZ is one of the largest current excavations. (more…)
Nueva Esperanza, Guatemala
Aqui, la versión castellana de un articulo que fue publicado por Canadian Dimension en Agosto, 2012. Traducido por Nicolás Olucha Sánchez y publicado por Upside Down World en español.
En un sombrero lleno de tierra a punto de convertirse en barro, Rosli Oded y su marido, Aroldo Morales López, mecen a 
su hijo en la hamaca. La lluvia que resonaba sobre los tejados de chapa y los toldos durante la noche ha amainado finalmente, dando paso a una mañana fría y gris. La nueva familia nos ofrece café caliente y dulce, cocinado sobre una pequeña hoguera en un rincón de la chabola en la que llevan viviendo desde septiembre, cuando policías y soldados les obligaron a abandonar sus hogares.
Oded y Morales vuelven a ser campesinos sin tierras, como ya lo fueron cuando emigraron por primera vez a este lugar remoto de Guatemala para colaborar en la fundación de la comunidad de Nueva Esperanza, hace doce años. “Nos dijeron que había tierras, así que vinimos aquí”, afirma la madre de Oded, que vive en otra chabola al lado de su hija.
La comunidad original de Nueva Esperanza se estableció en el Parque Nacional Sierra del Lacandón, en el departamento de Petén, al norte de Guatemala, cerca de la frontera con México. El parque se creó en 1990, cuando la guerra civil todavía azotaba al país. Lo dirigen conjuntamente la organización no gubernamental privada Defensores de la Naturaleza y el Consejo Nacional de Áreas Protegidas (CONAP). Pero en lugar de ofrecer asistencia a una comunidad cuya huella ecológica es diminuta, (viven sin coches, agua corriente ni electricidad), el gobierno de Guatemala los echó. (more…)
Exigen a propietario británico de la principal empresa de electricidad en Guatemala respuesta ante asesinatos durante protestas
Publicado en The Guardian, versión traducida en SubVersiones.
Por Dawn Paley y Jonathan Watts, 12 de octubre, 2012.
Se le ha exigido tomar acciones al grupo financiero británico después de que en Guatemala militares acribillaron a ocho indígenas que protestaban contra la proveedora de servicios públicos que pertenece a este grupo financiero, por los aumentos en las tarifas de la luz.
Nueve soldados, incluido un coronel serán sometidos a juicio por la represión que pretendía dispersar a los manifestantes que se oponían al incremento en los recibos expedidos por Energuate, perteneciente a Actis, empresa de capital privado escindida de la Institución Británica Financiera para el Desarrollo en 2004. Los miembros de la comunidad que participaron en las protestas contra Energuate dijeron que sus dueños británicos, así como el gobierno guatemalteco, deben tomar acciones para evitar tragedias similares en un futuro.
“Necesitan escuchar nuestras demandas… Como pueblos indígenas, nosotros estamos consumiendo su energía, y ellos se están enriquecido a costa de la gente”, comentó Juana Celestina Batz Puac, habitante de Totonicapan y testigo de los asesinatos. “Nuestras acciones son a causa de la electricidad”, dijo. (more…)
Guatemala: Peaceful Resistance in the Face of Violence
I had the chance a couple of weeks ago to head over to San José del Golfo and visit some of the folks holding down a camp in front of the entrance to a proposed mine. Yesterday, folks from the company tried to enter the site, and this morning I received two more messages that the community is preparing for another attempted incursion by workers of the company. I’ll do my best to keep folks posted. In the mean time, here’s the piece I wrote up after my brief visit to the site last month.
Guatemala: Peaceful Resistance in the Face of Violence, Upside Down World, October 24, 2012
Telma Yolanda Oquelí Veliz, who was nearly killed for her activism against mining in San José del Golfo, Guatemala, 
spoke out publicly Monday morning for the first time since the attack against her in June.
“I want to tell the world that here in Guatemala there is a peaceful resistance that exists, and we are prepared to stay here as long as possible,” said Oquelí, sitting upright on a plastic chair inside a permanent camp blocking the entrance to a proposed gold mine about 30km from Guatemala City. “We always hoped no blood would be spilled in this struggle, and personally mine did, but I think it has been a very important test and today I am back in action, and I know that they will not quiet me, while god gives me life I will continue.”
While Oquelí spoke, many of those active on the blockade gathered under the cover of the simple roadside shelter to listen. Other men stacked firewood, while children played along the edge of the camp. Some of the women prepared warm drinks and food to feed everyone at the camp, which has been permanently occupied since March of this year.
“I haven’t wanted to make statements or give interviews because in truth I didn’t want to talk about myself, I want the focus to be on the resistance, on the people who are present here,” said Oquelí.
Banners against mining and in solidarity with the blockade grace the side of the road, while a beat-up gate closes off the main entrance to the concession. Traffic on the dirt road was sparse, as it is well off the main highway, serving community members going from one village to another. Most would honk and wave as they rolled past; others would stop and say “hi” to the people on the side of the road.
Six teams of at least 10 adults take a weekly 24-hour shift and each week one team stays over on Sundays. No one lives permanently at the camp: every night, those who spend the night light a fire and rest, rising again to make breakfast for their whole group in the morning.
“The group leaders meet and they each tell their groups when their shifts will be, what is planned for the weekend, if there are meetings, and if there is new information,” said Miguel Antonio Muraller, who has been active in the blockade since the outset. “That’s how we communicate so that we’re all aware of what’s going on.” (more…)
Co-ops for Social Change
Greetings from Guatemala! I’ve been here for about a month working on a radio documentary for Free Speech Radio News that will come out on December 25th, among other projects.
In the meantime, here’s a piece I filed at the end of the summer for Watershed Sentinel out of Comox, BC.
Co-ops for Social Change: Co-operatives are falling back into favour as a way to organize for sustainable economic alternatives and social change.
Though Canada has one of the largest co-operative movements in the world, it is – with some exceptions – a rather conservative sector, which has drifted away from grassroots organizing.
“There’s something on the order of a third of all Canadians that have a membership in a co-op … we’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars of assets, Canada has one of the biggest co-op movements anywhere in the world, and the worker co-op movement here is tiny,” said Hazel Corocan, the Executive Director of the Canadian Workers Co-op Federation. The Canadian Co-operative Association reports that there are approximately 9,000 co-ops in Canada, together employing 155,000 people and serving over 18 million members.
Diversity within the co-op sector in Canada makes generalizations difficult. Beyond the bylaws and a yearly meeting, it is hard to think of many parallels between, for example, small-scale workers’ co-ops, and credit unions with hundreds of billions of dollars in assets. Over the past years, the Harper government has taken an axe to many of the financial supports the government was providing to co-ops to start up and maintain their operations.
“My sense is that there’s growing interest in the worker co-op movement … The interest is growing but the availability of supports is, in most places, harder,” said Corocan, who pointed out that the federal government department devoted to co-operatives had their personnel slashed from 94 staffers to 15.
Co-ops During Quebec Tumult
Over the course of 2012, residents of Québec, and especially of larger urban areas like Montreal and Quebec, have lived through the most intense and tumultuous student strike in Canada. The sustained activities on the streets of Quebec raised the question of whether or not the co-op sector could have, in some way, helped the student movement. (more…)
1 comment