A record number of activists are being killed in Latin America – and old methods of security aren’t working. How do we protect activists facing threats from shadowy actors and complicit governments?
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I recently met with Maria Auxiliadora Gualim López, the founder and general coordinator of AJWS grantee Nuevo Horizonte (New Horizons) in Chisec in the Guatemalan department of Alta Vera Paz.
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Peten is Guatemala’s Wild West. Throughout its history, this department—similar to a state—was known for its large fincas (plantations) and populated by landless laborers and small farmers, including indigenous people. Many migrants were often encouraged to move to Peten by the government. Despite its bucolic appearance, Peten has been roiled by several volatile conflicts: the drug trade, the battle over the damming of the region’s rivers, and the country’s long civil war.
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The Union of Peasant Organizations of the Vera Paz (UVOC) is a movement of indigenous small farmers—mainly of the Q’eqchi’ and Poqomchi’ ethnic groups—that organizes Mayan communities in north-central Guatemala to advocate for their rights to land and traditional territories. Supported by AJWS, UVOC runs a community radio station in Chamtaca, Alta Vera Paz. Gilberto, a young man with a slight frame and a deep baritone, is the station’s voice, a UVOC youth leader and the president of a Mesoamerican regional network of community radios.
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“The Time of Suffering”—what the Q’eqchi’ Mayans call the 30 plus years of conflict that ended in the mid 1990s—hit hard in Alta and Baja Vera Paz, two departments in north-central Guatemala that faced brutal massacres and violence. AJWS grantee Union of Peasant Organizations of Vera Paz (UVOC) works in this region.
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