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NISGUA’s “500 Years of Resistance” Tour 2005: Speaker
Backgrounds
Macaria "Miriam" Jocop Guamuch represents the Alliance for Life and Peace of the Peten, a coalition of social and popular organizations seeking respect for peace and life (as their name suggests). This coalition is working against neoliberal policies including CAFTA and Plan Puebla Panama. The Alliance has been a leader in protests against CAFTA and has a bilingual newsletter they produce in Spanish and Q´eqchi´ to educate the communities on globalization topics. The group is also working on land, health, education, development and environment issues facing their communities. Ms. Jocop is currently the treasurer of the Alliance and is a member of the New Horizons Cooperative in the Peten. Ex-guerilla combatants from the 36 years long civil war formed the cooperative in 1998. More than 400 people live in this community with fish-farming, agricultural, sustainable forest management and ecotourism projects. Miriam has also worked with women’s groups throughout the Peten on strengthening their organizing efforts and promoting popular education.
Further info:
Alliance for
Life and Peace
NORTHWEST
Rolando Lopez Maya-Mam represents the Mayan Integral Development Association AJCHMOL (ADIMA), an indigenous rights organization whose name means “the one who weaves” – for the organization the names means the weaver of history and life for the Maya Mam and Sipakapense people. Rolando is the general coordinator of AJCHMOL and a law student. AJCHMOL works to strengthen organizing initiatives on the community level and on the defense and promotion of indigenous rights. The organization works in 60 communities in the San Marcos area of Guatemala. Recently, AJCHMOL has been focusing its efforts on accompanying community resistance to gold mining in San Miguel Ixtahuacán and Sipacapa in San Marcos. In June 2005, members of the community development councils of Sipacapa organized a consultation with residents in 13 communities, using traditional voting methods to judge community opinions of mining operations in the area. AJCHMOL observed the process and supports the communities’ right to decide. The consultation showed community opinion overwhelming against the mining activities, and AJCHMOL is advocating on behalf of the communities to ensure that the results of the consultation are legally binding. The legal basis for the consultations comes through ILO convention 169 on Indigenous Peoples, which Guatemala ratified as part of the 1996 Peace Accords, and recent Guatemalan decentralization laws.
Further info:
Communities, Ecology and Mining in Guatemala
NORTHEAST
Claudia Acevedo is a women’s rights activist and co-founder of LESBIRADAS, the only public lesbian organization in Guatemala. Founded in 1999, LESBIRADAS is a member of Coordinadora Ciudadana para la Diversidad Sexual (Citizens Coordinated for Sexual Diversity – CCDS). LESBIRADAS is working on raising awareness of sexual orientation and legislation to protect lesbians from discrimination. LESBIRADAS also works with other women’s groups to improve the condition of women and defend their rights in Guatemala. Currently, LESBIRADAS and other local organizations are concerned about the excessive levels of gender-based violence. According to Amnesty International, over 1,188 Guatemalan women and girls, mostly from the urban poor, have been brutally murdered from 2001-2004. Violence against women, including rape and murder, continues to increase at a substantially higher rate than overall violent crime in Guatemalan society. However, the Guatemalan government has failed to combat this trend, neither investigating nor prosecuting the vast majority of these crimes. Claudia will speak about how groups like LESBIRADAS are working to end widespread discrimination and violence against women and sexual minorities in Guatemala. Claudia has participated in international conferences and in 2003 did a North American speaking tour with Amnesty International.
Further info:
Short video of Claudia Acevedo
Amnesty International report on violence against women
Regional Lesbian Network (in Spanish)
SOUTH
Carlos Lopez from the National Table on Migration in Guatemala (MENAMIG) joins the NISGUA tour this year. MENAMIG is a multisectoral initiative that promotes and defends the human rights of the migrant population. The member organizations include universities and organizations doing research on migration, organizations who offer shelter and legal assistance to migrants and government agencies to name a few. The group monitors the situation of Guatemalans who migrate - primarily to the United States, migrants who come to Guatemala, migrants in transit and internal migration patterns in Guatemala. MENAMIG also advocates for public policies on migration issues based on the causes and impacts of migration. MENAMIG has noted repressive policies from the United States in the treatment of migrants that are being used in the region. They publicly denounce the mistreatment of migrants to the media and government agencies.
Further info:
U.S. Anti-Migration Efforts Move South
Click here for Biographies of NISGUA’s 2004 People over Profits Tour