Here is the general context in which Festivales Solidarios carries out its action:
Since 2012, when General Otto Perez Molina took office, the extractive and dispossession agenda took root in Guatemala. On October 4, 2012 the government committed the first massacre in peacetime known as “The Alaska Massacre”1 as a watershed in the recent history of the country, changed the course of indigenous organization in Totonicapán, broke social fabric in the place, and is the beginning of Solidarity Festivals. 2
In recent years, since the peaceful demonstrations of 2015 (at which time Otto Pérez Molina was accused of being the leader of a criminal structure that embezzled the country), democratic institutions in Guatemala have suffered a rapid deterioration, as well as an increase in the persecution of human rights defenders, criminalization, harassment, defamation, slander and libel, political imprisonment and assassinations have been the way of operating of the so-called “corrupt pact” formed by the oligarchic elites, businessmen and political class (meaning officials of the three branches of government) executive, legislative and judicial, forming this pact as the political arm of the oligarchy and the narco-state that has co-opted the three state powers, up to the local powers, i.e. municipalities and local governments.
Part of this deterioration also has to do with the arrival to the presidency of Mr. Jimmy Morales3 in 2016, representative of the most reactionary wing of the Guatemalan army (from the political party Frente de Convergencia Nacional FCN-Nación) who, taking advantage of the anti-corruption discourse, came to power with the slogan “neither corrupt nor thief”. But it turned out to be the opposite, by strengthening the army and its repressive structures and took the luxury of dismantling the International Commission against Corruption in Guatemala-CICIG. This commission put the country’s political and economic elites in check at times, which led the Morales government to expel Commissioner Iván Velásquez and subsequently the systematic dismantling of the CICIG4 and the fight against impunity and corruption, a fight that emerged after the Peace Accords in Guatemala, signed 25 years ago.
The fight against corruption and impunity has become a spearhead in the defense of human rights in Guatemala, walking side by side with the struggles that the native peoples have sustained for more than 500 years in their territories, resisting the colony, liberal reforms, civil war and then the entry with all its devastating force of neo-liberalism in the region.
In the face of this, the elites, drug trafficking, the most conservative fundamentalist religious and military sectors have perfected their levels of impunity and have led Guatemala and the citizens in general to a state of totalitarianism, repression against indigenous peoples, journalists, human rights defenders, activists and activists to take precautions and protect themselves from the onslaught of the conservative and reactionary, fundamentalist and military right wing, which has total control of the three branches of government, in collusion with the three branches of government, activists and militants to take precautions and protect themselves from the onslaught of the conservative and reactionary, fundamentalist and military right wing that has total control of the 3 branches of government, in collusion with national and foreign businessmen, neo-Pentecostal churches and drug traffickers who attack with total impunity and without being prosecuted by the justice system that responds to the status quo in the country.
Notes
1 Plaza pública: https://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/toto-41012-primera-masacre-del-ejercito-tras-la- firma-de-la-paz
2 7 años Festivales Solidarios (7 years of Festivales Solidarios): https://panal.gt/festivalessolidarios/
3 El legado antidemocrático de Jimmy Morales en Guatemala (The anti-democratic legacy of Jimmy Morales in Guatemala): https://elpais.com/internacional/2020/01/03/america/1578083108_369564.html
4 Testimoniales: Lucía Ixchíu – Activista de Derechos Humanos (Testimonials: Lucia Ixchiu – Human Rights Activist) – YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayRAzdbXFc