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Elizabeth Hughes

Guatemala News | Guatemala creates national commission against Impunity and declassific... - 0 views

www.guatemala-times.com/...tion-of-military-archives.html

Impunity Guatemala War organized crime Clandestine Paramilitary

shared by Elizabeth Hughes on 15 Nov 09 - Cached
    • Elizabeth Hughes
      Elizabeth Hughes on 15 Nov 09
       
      Back in March 2009, Guatemala's President Alvaro Colom administered the Presidential Commission Against Impunity. The government will investigate the military archives in order to see what was happening during the war. This relates to the silence of the people, they won't talk about the war or the military. The president is demonstrating directly that the war is over, violence should end, and that people should not hide anything. The President's goal is to eliminate impunity in Guatemala.
Courtney Connors

The Relationship Between Genocide and Femicide in Guatemala (SB#4) - 0 views

kanan48.wordpress.com/...n-guatemala-by-colm-mcnaughton

Femicide Feminism Machismo Gender War Violence Corruption

shared by Courtney Connors on 18 Nov 09 - Cached
  • The war in Guatemala has never ceased
  • between January 2002 and January 2009 there were 197,538 acts of domestic violence
  • 13,895 rapes and 4,428 women were murdered
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • 97 percent impunity rate
  • It is a fiercely indigenous region which has resisted the colonialism and brutal immiseration forced upon the region since the times of the Spanish invasion
  • Centre for Forensic Analysis and Scientific Application (CAFTA) and it was part of their ongoing campaign against impunity for genocide in Guatemala
  • I talked and recorded survivors of the massacre
  • While at the community I met a young woman of sixteen who had a six month old baby, the father is a soldier and the conception method was rape
  • The community members began to really speak their minds to the soldiers
  • As she was leaving, one older woman said to the soldiers, “I am not afraid of you. Back in the eighties and nineties we used to kill you sort of people, and we’ll do it again if we have to.” The soldiers were visibly shaken by her words
  • Courtney Connors on 18 Nov 09
     
    In an effort to tie the three bookmarked articles together, this piece also discusses relevant material to Nelson's "Reckoning" alongside the movie, "When the Mountains Tremble". This article too discuses the idea and reality of Femicide or the genocide against women in Guatemala that still occurs to date. While the other readings set up an outline of what acts occur against women and the lack of influence police powers have, this article flashes numbers at the reader as a shock value to paint a picture of the immense number of women who have experienced brutality. While the other articles have mentioned the extent to which corruption influences the lack of punishment, this author seeks punishment in a different way. While doing research in Guatemala, he took victims who have been harmed themselves or have lost close ones to the war to the mountains to confront the militia men as a form of satisfaction or justice since the impunity rate is 97% in Guatemala. He explained that the gratitude of victims explaining their feelings to murderers would be far more reaching than formal punishment from the criminal justice system ever could be.
Aria Auerbach

Human Rights in Latin America - 0 views

www.derechos.org/...maine.html

human rights crime punishment Latin America impunity privileges justice

shared by Aria Auerbach on 08 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Aria Auerbach on 08 Sep 09
     
    This webpage, although short and succinct has a lot to offer about the basic principles of Human Rights in Latin America. Many of the links at the bottom of the page are also valuable in shaping our understanding of the peoples' rights throughout different countries. The United States grants freedom to the people and allows its citizens many rights and privileges that other countries do not. This website is especially interesting because it discusses the different levels of crime and punishment for each Latin American country.
Arabica Robusta

Alex Main, "Will New Report Pave the Way for Honduras' Reincorporation into the OAS?" - 0 views

mrzine.monthlyreview.org/...main030810.html

honduras coup instability democracy zelaya mrzine

shared by Arabica Robusta on 08 Aug 10 - Cached
  • The diverging positions of the commissioners are reflected in the text of the report.  On the one hand, several passages in the "Background" section suggest that President Porfirio Lobo, elected in controversial elections held under the coup regime late last year, has made significant efforts to repair the damage done by the coup with measures such as the creation of a so-called "Unity Government" and the Creation of a Truth Commission made up of "national and international personalities of prestige and proven track record," according to the authors.  This section of the report also highlights the Honduran Congress' decision to review an alleged case of corruption perpetrated under the coup regime of Roberto Micheletti and appears to belittle the widespread accusations of ongoing human rights violations and repression of the opposition (it states that "some sectors insist" that the violations are still occurring despite the fact that major human rights organizations, including the OAS' own Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, express the same concern in recent reports).
  • However, the final "Conclusions and Recommendations" section of the report is less favorable to the Lobo government.  In contrast with the "background" section, it explicitly recognizes the gravity of the human rights situation with a call for the "cessation of impunity for human rights violations" and the "adoption of measures to put an end to threats and harassments against human rights defenders, journalists . . . and members of the National Popular Resistance Front" (NPRF) as well as "measures issued to protect the lives and bodily integrity of numerous persons who are at risk."  Perhaps most significantly, it questions the Lobo government's justifications for maintaining some of the criminal charges against President Zelaya -- and thereby preventing him from returning without the risk of immediate prosecution -- and states that "the Commission considers it useful to put an end, in accordance with Honduran law, to the legal actions initiated against" the former president and his associates.
  • The NPRF may have the satisfaction of at last being recognized by the OAS as a significant Honduran actor -- indeed it is the first time that references to the group appear in an OAS document -- but the report makes no mention of its long-standing demand for a referendum on whether to convoke a constitutional assembly; nor does it take into account its demand for representation within the Truth Commission, whose Honduran members are all associated with Lobo's National Party.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  •  In all likelihood -- and despite the best efforts of Insulza and the State Department -- Honduras will not be readmitted any time soon to the hemispheric organization.  South America's refusal to bend to Washington's will is a distinct sign of the times and will hopefully serve as a lesson to any coup plotters in the region: that military coups can no longer be as easily whitewashed and forgotten as was so frequently the case in the 20th century.
Courtney Connors

To Fight Femicide in Guatemala, New Law, But Same Culture (SB#4) - 0 views

www.rhrealitycheck.org/...emala-new-law-but-same-culture

Femicide Feminism Machismo Violence War Corruption

shared by Courtney Connors on 18 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Women are being tortured, raped and murdered on a regular basis, with total or almost total impunity, regardless of numerous and unanimous claims for justice from the civil society and even from the international community
    • Courtney Connors
      Courtney Connors on 18 Nov 09
       
      It is going to take more than "urging the Guatemalan Government" to make effective changes for them to actually occur. International sanctions for war crimes against human rights must take place.
  • gone unpunished mainly because of negligence and the lack of effective investigation and prevention strategies of the Guatemalan authorities.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Guatemalan
  • The CEDAW Committee and the European Parliament have both urged the Guatemalan government to take all necessary steps to effectively combat violence against women, ensuring full respect for human rights
  • April 9, 2008 the Guatemalan Congress passed the Law against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women (Decree 22-2008), that aims to severely punish any kind of gender-based violence, guaranteeing the life, freedom, integrity, dignity and equality of all women, in the private or public sphere, promoting and implementing strategies to prevent and eradicate femicide and any kind of physical, psychological, sexual or economic violence against women.   
  • Decree literally recognizes that the violence and discrimination against women in the country has flourished because of the "power inequality between men and women in the social, economic, legal, political, cultural and family spheres." 
  • The Law typifies femicide as a crime and defines it as the murder of a woman committed because of her gender within a context of unequal exercise of power; it imposes punishments that range from 25 to 50 years imprisonment.
  • "forced prostitution and denying [a woman] the right to use contraceptive methods, whether natural or hormonal, or taking measures to prevent sexually transmitted infections" are considered sexual violence crimes. 
  • 25% of women consider their partner's disapproval as a reason for not using a family planning method. 
  • the dominant 'macho culture' in Guatemala will make it difficult to implement the law."
  • Courtney Connors on 18 Nov 09
     
    Although the previously bookmarked article seeks to establish an outline of the human or women rights violations that occur within Guatemala, here, author Karim Velasco, sheds light upon newly distinguished laws and explains despite their hopeful goals, why they have ceased to work effectively. She argues that because of the "lack of effective investigation and prevention strategies of the Guatemalan authorities", women continue to be raped, tortured, and murdered at an increasing rate. Because of pressures from the European Parliament to abide by human rights laws, "on April 9, 2008, Guatemalan Congressed passed the 'Law Against Femicide and other Forms of Violence against Women Act' to severely punish any kind of gender-based violence..." However, because the violence stems from the power inequality between men and women in the first place, there is little belief or evidence that this Act will be implemented or strongly enforced by the men in power who seek to represent masculinity or display a constant idea of machismo.
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