Both Felipe Gómez and Jakelin Caal came from remote indigenous communities, where migration has long been seen a reasonable response to Guatemala’s hardship, racism and violence.
theguardian.com/world/2018/dec…
theguardian.com/world/2018/dec…
They also both came from regions deeply scarred by the civil war - a conflict in which the US-backed Guatemalan military committed genocide on the indigenous population nytimes.com/1999/02/26/wor…
“Children were torn from mothers' arms and eviscerated by knives or beheaded by machetes. The rampaging troops killed all they found, shooting some villagers, blowing some up with grenades, hacking some to death, burning some or crushing them under... falling buildings.”
That’s from a description of a 1982 massacre in the municipality of Nentón - Felipe Gómez’s home nytimes.com/1999/02/23/sci…
“There was also a land dimension to the genocide, where people where forcibly displaced to make way for large-scale farming, mining, and hydroelectric programmes.” theconversation.com/guatemalas-his…
Meanwhile, the Reagan White House offered material and moral support to the genocidaires, increasing military aid to $104 million in 1986, from $11 million in 1980 nytimes.com/roomfordebate/…
After meeting dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Mont in 1982, Reagan described him as a man of “great personal integrity”. Two days later Guatemalan troops massacred some 300 people in the village of Dos Erres ghrc-usa.org/our-work/impor…
After the war, traumatised communities received little help to rebuild. Farming has become unprofitable after “regional free trade agreements flooded local markets with cheap maize, tomatoes and eggs from Mexico and the US.” theguardian.com/world/2016/may…
Climate change has added another layer of difficulty for Guatemalan campesinos theguardian.com/world/2018/oct…
In villages like those where Felipe Gómez and Jakelin Caal lives, people subsist on corn tortillas and coffee, reports
“And there is scant help from the government, which has little money to spend. Guatemala’s government collects a smaller share of tax revenues, relative to the size of its economy, than any other country in the world, according to the World Bank.” nytimes.com/2018/12/18/wor…
In some parts of rural Guatemala up to a third of the local population has migrated in search of work. In 2017, remittances accounted for 10% of the country’s GDP theguardian.com/world/2018/jun…
Anyway you should follow these great people who report from Guatemala and know their shit @sofismenchu @ninalakhani @ElisabethMalkin @PlazaPublicaGT @KirkSemple @mayaaverbuch
@sofismenchu @ninalakhani @ElisabethMalkin @PlazaPublicaGT @KirkSemple @mayaaverbuch One last point! During the civil war, the Reagan administration decided that Guatemalans *fleeing a genocide* should be classified as "economic migrants"
The US actively discouraged Guatemalans and Salvadorans (also fleeing from a civil war in which a US-backed military committed widespread abuses) from applying for political asylum.
"Just like today, the government intimidated the people arriving at the border seeking asylum by coercing them to drop their claims and threatening to take away their children." washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-h…
