I had read about the horrendous civil war that had ripped Guatemala apart and wanted to visit some of the places most affected by this violent past, talk to the victims and make some sense of what had happened. This is how I ended up in a remote community in the heart of the Ixcán jungle, near the border with Mexico.
A Guatemalan Court dropped charges against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, which alleged the former general orchestrated a violent protest in 2003 that left one journalist dead. Rios Montt led a successful military coup in […]
The Guatemalan Episcopal Conference elected Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini, a defender of popular causes, as its new president on Friday. Ramazzini has been bishop of San Marcos, in western Guatemala for 17 years where he has […]
This is a story about the Mayan-Achi village of Plan de Sanchez that sits on a mountaintop in the department of Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. It is a story about survival and resistance in the face of ongoing injustices and inequalities. And it is a story about who the real human rights leaders are across the globe.
The Miami Herald, an unabashed free trade/right wing newspaper, especially when concerning Latin American affairs, recently published two articles that echo U.S. government claims that Venezuela is a threat to the region. In "Report: Diplomat […]
A top DEA official is claiming that Guatemala is at risk of becoming a "mini-Colombia." According to U.S. officials, "Guatemala has quietly become the transshipment point for more than 75 percent of the cocaine smuggled […]
A recent discovery of millions of pages of files from Guatemala’s National Police could help the country’s citizens, as well as the global community, take another small step towards ending impunity and establishing justice. The […]
Almost one year after the U.N.’s ten-year peacekeeping mission in Guatemala closed its doors, the world body has decided to return to the country to address the chronically bad human rights situation in Guatemala by establishing the Guatemalan Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OACNUDH). […]
Indigenous communities in the western highlands of Guatemala who are organizing against an illegal gold mine in the face of violence and repression are beginning to see the fruits of their labor. The Canadian/U.S. mining […]
On July 18th, Guatemala’s Vice President, Eduardo Stein, flew to Plan de Sanchez, 95 miles north of Guatemala City, to formally apologize for the government-directed 1982 massacre of more than 200 Achi Mayans in that […]
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