Guatemala Human Rights Commission Call to Action

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October 16, 2023


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** Guatemala Election Watch #35
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** Call on US Government to Apply Sanctions on Corrupt Actors in Guatemala
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Rights Action encourages folks to read GHRC alert below, and to pressure your Member of Congress and Senator to apply sanctions on the corrupt, anti-democracy actors in Guatemala.

Day 15 - Nationwide pro-democracy strike

2 months, 28 days until Jan.14, 2024 transfer of power

This is far from over
From: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2023 9:42 AM
To: Grahame Russell
Subject: URGENT: Take Action to Protect the Right to Protest in Guatemala
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Dear Friend,

We are very concerned for the safety of peaceful protesters and for the state of democracy in Guatemala. The Biden Administration has made strong statements of concern and repudiation related to events in Guatemala but has not taken strong action. Now the courageous Guatemalan people who are in the streets to demand that democratic principles be respected are in danger.

Take Action ([link removed]) : ([link removed])

Email your member of Congress. Demand that the US government promptly apply Magnitsky sanctions to those undermining democracy in Guatemala. Insist that the US government make clear that Guatemalans’ right to protest must be respected. Any use of force that interferes with that right should be strongly condemned.

Background:

Until October 9, mass protests of the Attorney General's efforts to overturn the results of the August 20 election ([link removed]) were peaceful, even joyful. Indigenous authorities, students, unions, teachers, many sectors of society had come together and had blocked up to 100 strategic points on roads throughout the country, demanding the resignation of Attorney General Consuelo Porras. The protests were sparked by the September 29 raid on the offices of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal; in the raid ([link removed]) , the Public Ministry forcibly seized 125,000 documents and original records of the general elections, in what President-elect Bernardo Arévalo called a slow-motion coup and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights referred to as a “theft.” The US government, responding to the raid through State
Department spokesman Matthew Miller,stated ([link removed]) that visas would be denied for individuals implicated in efforts to obstruct the democratic process. Attorney General Consuelo Porras, Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, and Judge Fredy Orellana already are under such restrictions, along with a number of other Guatemalans on theEngel List ([link removed]) , and this measure has not had any corrective effect.

On the night of October 9, following a week of peaceful protests, apparent Infiltrators vandalized statues and broke windows. The vandalism seems to have been presaged by top Guatemalan officials. On October 8, referring to the growing protests, Interior Minister General David Napoleón Barrientos Girón announced ([link removed]) that, if there were vandalism, the police would have to use force. The next morning Attorney General Consuelo Porras publicly repeated the samemessage ([link removed]) . On the night of October 9, President Giammattei gave a speech ([link removed]) , which had been recorded beforehand, as was evident from the cuts, saying there was currently violence being carried out by protesters. The President in
his broadcast announced that the protesters were "not peaceful protesters" but trained shock groups whose leaders had been identified, and he said arrest warrants would be issued for them. He also said the protests were funded by international NGOs and that there has been foreign participation in the "destabilization" in Guatemala.

Very shortly after his speech aired, police ([link removed]) helicopters dropped teargas ([link removed]) on demonstrators in front of the National Palace. Those demonstrations, according to various accounts, had been infiltrated by men said to be connected with the Ministry of the Interior. Some of these alleged infiltrators reportedly were seen ([link removed]) by various people being dropped off in ministry vehicles, and in videos they can to seen to be carrying weapons. The vandals broke windows and pulled chairs from the municipal buildings out into the street, destroyed the bicentennial statue, and destroyed the memorial to the dozens of girls killed by state neglect in the Virgin of the Assumption Home fire. Riot
police watched, without intervening ([link removed]) .

The Ministry of the Interior on October 10 announced ([link removed]) that the most important roads would be forcibly cleared if protesters do not move, and the Constitutional Court, in response to a request by the Public Ministry, ruled ([link removed]) on October 11 ruled that Giammattei, the Minister of the Interior, and the National Civil Police must clear roads blocked by protesters.

Although a team from the Organization of American States, at the request of the Guatemalan government, is in Guatemala now with the aim of negotiating a solution, the protesters have been clear that the solution they want is the resignation of Porras, as well as of Rafael Curruchiche, head of the Special Prosecutors Office Against Impunity. President Giammattei has called on ([link removed]) President-elect Bernardo Arévalo to meet with the OAS team; Arévalo has responded that it is the Indigenous leaders who convoked the demonstrations that OAS and president must negotiate with.

Riot police ([link removed]) have been amassing in locations of the protests. The Guatemalan people need your support.

Click the link below to take action! ([link removed])
Take Action! ([link removed])
Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA
3321 12th St NE | Washington, District of Columbia 20017-4008
202-998-2191 | [email protected]

More information
• Rights Action’s “Guatemala Election Watch” alerts (www.rightsaction.org/emails)
• Guatemala Human Rights Commission (www.ghrc-usa.org ([link removed]) )
• Twitter feeds of Festivales Solidarios (@festivalesgt) & Prensa Comunitaria (@PrensaCommunitar)
• Prensa Comunitaria’s daily news ([link removed])

Electoral coup d’etat: ‘Death by a 1000 cuts’

It is impossible to keep up with the attacks being carried out, daily, by the ‘covenant of the corrupt’ government and allies on the electoral process and against the Semilla Party – a ‘death by a 1000 cuts’ strategy, let alone increasing repression against protesters, judges, lawyers and prosecutors.

Rights Action calls for Americans and Canadians to keep sharing these informations widely (including media outlets), and to contact your Senators, Members of Congress and Parliamentarian, urge them to publicly support the Semilla Party and President-elect Bernardo Arevalo and VP-elect Karin Herrera, and to support calls for the main coup plotters to resign: Attorney General Consuelo Porras, special prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, Judge Fredy Orellana.
• U.S. Senate: [link removed]
• U.S. House: [link removed]
• Canadian Parliament: [link removed]

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Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)

To support land and environmental defenders, and human rights, justice and democracy defense struggles in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
* U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
* Canada: Box 82858, RPO Cabbagetown Toronto, ON, M5A 3Y2

Credit-Card Donations: [link removed]
Direct deposits, write to: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
Donations of securities, write to: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

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