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Take Action!
2007 has begun with a series of alarming attacks against Guatemalan human rights organizations. Send an email to the Guatemalan government today. more >>> |
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Did You Know?
> Guatemala has the most unequal land distribution in the Western Hemisphere, with large landholders who comprise only 2% of the population possessing 70% of the productive lands. > Attacks against human rights defenders in Guatemala increased between 2004 and 2005. In 2005, El Movimiento Nacional por los Derechos Humanos documented 224 attacks against human rights defenders, in comparison with 122 attacks in 2004. > On March 30, 2006, the 11th anniversary of the signing of the indigenous accord, tens of thousands of workers, farmers and indigenous people marched in Guatemala City to demand the strengthening of indigenous rights, restriction of open pit mining licenses, and funds for the Ministry of Agriculture to purchase land for redistribution. |
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2006 NISGUA Speaking Tour
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Edwin Canil Vicente
Edwin
Canil Vicente of the Association for Justice and
Reconciliation (AJR) will discuss efforts to hold
Guatemala’s former military officials accountable for
genocide and crimes against humanity. For more than
five years, AJR has been working on domestic legal
cases against the former Guatemalan Military High
Commands for genocide and other crimes committed
against indigenous communities in the early 1980s. The
AJR is also a co-plaintiff in a legal case in Spain
against former Guatemalan military officials, which
recently resulted in an international arrest warrant
against three former Guatemalan presidents and other
government officials. Three officials named in the
warrant – former President Ríos Montt, Minister of
Defense Guevara Rodríguez, and Director of the National
Police Chupina Barahona – were trained at the School of
the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.
Edwin will speak about the exciting developments in the case in Spain as well as the AJR’s latest actions to propel the domestic case forward. His expertise comes from both formal legal training and his personal experience of war. A K’iche’ Maya, he is the sole survivor of the 1982 massacre in his community of Santa María Tzejá, Ixcán, Quiché. As a six-year-old, he managed to hide among the trees as the army killed his mother, grandmother, three sisters, a brother, and cousins. He fled with his remaining relatives to Mexico where they lived in refugee camps for 12 years. Back in Guatemala, Edwin finished high school at the Santiago Indigenous Institute and is in the final stages of completing a law degree at the University of San Carlos. He co-founded a regional students’ association that engages in political activism and community service.
The Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) is an association of witnesses from 22 communities that is legally represented by the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH) in the genocide cases before the Guatemalan courts.
Tour Action:
Show your support for AJR's efforts to obtain justice for genocide! Print out the letter, sign it and send it to the Guatemalan Attorney General
Related info:
Santa María Tzejá video (with Edwin’s story in chapter 3)
Tour Stops:
Nov. 5: Cleveland - IRTF Commemoration of the Martyrs dinner
Nov. 6-8: Copper Country, Michigan
Nov. 9-11: La Crosse and Viroqua, WI; Rochester, MN
Nov. 12-14: St Louis, Missouri
Nov. 16-17: Atlanta, Georgia
Nov. 18-19: SOA Vigil (Ft. Benning, GA)
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