Rights Action
December 6, 2019
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Guatemalan teen Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez writhes on floor for hours in U.S. Border Patrol custody, before dying
“Cellblock video shows Carlos writhing for at least 25 minutes on the floor and a concrete bench. It shows him staggering to the toilet and collapsing on the floor, where he remained in the same position for the next four and a half hours.”
Here, two moving reports in the U.S. and Canadian mainstream media about the brutal death of Carlos Gregorio, with links to the video where the viewer can watch Carlos die.
Two more media reports that do not explain how the U.S. and Canada help create and benefit from the very conditions that forced Carlos Gregorio to flee home and country in the first place. There is no investigation into how and why the U.S., Canada, the E.U. and multiple international banks and companies maintain profitable business, military and political relations with corrupt, repressive governments of Guatemala, Honduras, etc., that force tens of thousands of Hondurans and Guatemalans (recently 100s of thousands) to flee home and country, every year.
Once in exile, they are treated horribly by Mexican and U.S. authorities. Many die, like Carlos Gregorio.
"Our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering, and may
- in ways that we prefer not to imagine - be linked to their suffering.
As the wealth of some may imply the destitution of others."
(Susan Sontag)
Until our media, politicians and societies openly address and transform the underlying ‘local-to-global’ causes of so much inequality and exploitation, violence, corruption and despair, there will be no end to this pathologically violent and unjust human spectacle playing itself out inside violent, corrupt, unjust countries, and between rich, powerful exploiter countries and dominated, exploited countries.
Grahame Russell, Rights Action
[email protected]
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Background
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Rights Action (U.S. & Canada)
Since 1995, Rights Action has been directly funding community-based human rights, environment and territory defenders in Guatemala and Honduras. We provide relief funds to victims of repression and human rights violations, health harms and natural disasters. We work to hold accountable the U.S. and Canadian governments, companies and investors, international actors (World Bank, etc.) that cause, contribute to and profit from repression and human rights violations, environmental harms and forced evictions, corruption and impunity.
Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support our partner community groups in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
- U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- Canada: (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
