It's almost 3:30 p.m. on Thursday and José López, a resident of the communal mayor's office in zone 4 of Totonicapán, encourages with a microphone the representatives of the indigenous peoples who are holding a sit-in in front of the Public Ministry of Guatemala. It is day 102 of the resistance. Today it is the turn of the members of their community, who have traveled the almost 200 kilometers that separate their territory from the capital to stand guard in front of the gray cement mass that serves as an operations center for those who accuse of undermining democracy in his country: the attorney general, Consuelo Porras, the prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche and judge Fredy Orellana.
The three have been accused by the elected president, Bernardo Arévalo, of perpetrating a coup d'état through judicial attacks to prevent his inauguration. With just a few hours left before he takes office, the rally has a festive atmosphere. The goal of a peaceful transfer of power and preserving democracy in Guatemala seems closer and closer. But let no one be confused, the cantonal authorities present at the sit-in repeat over and over again with the command staff that distinguishes them: this is an apolitical movement.
“We have always said it: we are not supporting any party, not even a president, we are supporting the rule of law, democracy so that our country breathes and gives us the conditions. We don't need anything to be given to us. We just want to work, we just want to be given those conditions to work and that is what we demand from any Government,” López warns. And he gives way to a group of students who delight the audience with a double marimba concert: seven play the national instrument with batons and two others support with maracas and percussion. In this resistance that promotes the common good, nothing is understood without teamwork.
The powerful movement started by the authorities of the 48 cantons of Totonicapán, an indigenous organization with a long history of peaceful resistance and representing some 140,000 people—mainly the K'iché Mayan people of western Guatemala—began on October 2. with the seizure of communal plazas and a road blockade joined by other communities in the country, corresponding to other Mayan peoples—such as the Ixil, the Kaqchikel, or the Mam—and the Xinka.
Although all decisions are made by consensus in the assemblies, Luis Pacheco —president of the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán in 2023— emerged last year as the most recognized leader of these protests. As he explains, what moved his community to begin the strike were the “attacks” they saw on the part of the Public Ministry to undermine the results of elections that had been duly audited.
Indigenous resistance at the heart of political power
After lifting the road blockade, on November 20, the 48 Cantons decided to move the mobilization to the headquarters of the Public Ministry. Gladys Tzul, a doctor in Sociology originally from Totonicapán, points out that the intervention of the prosecutor's office in the electoral results “adds to a chain of attacks against indigenous communities.” For this reason, when they saw the kidnapping of the ballot boxes, the indigenous movements responded in unison to the call for protest from all parts of the country.
“The Public Ministry acts as a hinge, as a gear between the three powers: the executive, the legislative and the judicial. And it is also the gear that gives way in administrative or research terms to the extractive model in which we are living and that has caused deaths, anxiety, displacement, migration or imprisonment” in the communities, he says in an interview with EL PAÍS.
In the capital, the different organizations have established a rotating system to keep the sit-in in force before the prosecutor's office, where the assigned towns arrive every day. This Thursday, it is the turn of the authorities of zone 4 of Totonicapán, among whom is the communal mayor Salomon Tax. “There has been fatigue, moments of tension, of provocation, but one of our slogans is always that it be peaceful, without disturbing the order so that none of our authorities suffer harassment,” he explains in a group with other community leaders while the marimba plays. .
In the more than 100 days of resistance, the indigenous movements have had to overcome attempts at eviction and some signs of rejection, but the population has rallied to them en masse and brought them food, tarps and blankets to withstand the cold of the night. Volunteers such as Lesvi Yanes, a 51-year-old woman from Jutiapa, also come to the sit-in, who cooks dishes with food donated to the indigenous resistance movements.
“There are only three days left!” says Yanes as he passes by a sign that counts down the change of government that is above the food stand. She does say she is a supporter of the Semilla Movement and supported the president-elect in the second round of the elections. “We believe in change and, if they are doing all this so that [Arévalo] “Don't take possession, it's because it's different, otherwise they would already be celebrating,” he says, pointing to the Public Ministry building.
“This has been maintained due to the unconditional support of citizens,” Tax acknowledges. “We have also had opposition, it is logical, but more people have joined. “There were up to 189 lockdowns across the country at its peak.”
Gladys Tzul believes that this indigenous resistance movement is going to be a watershed in her country and that the Guatemalan political system has been shaken by the communal political system. “Serving the people means defending the collective will, defending dignity and it is not just for a salary,” she points out. “I feel that this formed and politically educated the population of the capital, the population that is not indigenous, a certain middle class, and it also made a lot of sense in the popular classes that live in the cities that also have organized political structures and structures.” assembly”.
Furthermore, this resistance has positioned indigenous movements as interlocutors with different sectors—from politicians to business—and they have also been taken into account by actors of the international community, unusually active in the response to the Guatemalan crisis. “They have been dialogues in which a better solution or an alternative has been sought to avoid creating conflicts and so that they do not believe that indigenous peoples do not know where we are going,” says Pacheco, the former president of the 48 cantons. “Clearly it has been widely accepted and that is why there is also support, because in the end it has been shown that it is a defense of a right inherent to all people and not just to one sector.”
Challenge: that the Government does not ignore them once again
This resistance that has brought the struggle and the ways of seeking the common good of the indigenous movements to the heart of Guatemalan politics also shows a challenge for the new Arévalo Government: that of not leaving aside some peoples who, accor
ding to According to the census, they represent 42% of the more than 17 million Guatemalans.
“We have many expectations with Arévalo, but the main one is that there really is now an inclusive Government for indigenous peoples, that they occupy the spaces they correspond to. And that he governs with the indigenous people who are the ones who managed to get him to take possession,” says Pacheco.
However, the president-elect has started the counter in the negative, as he himself acknowledged when he presented the 14 members of his cabinet, among whom there is only one indigenous woman, the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Miriam Roque. Arévalo acknowledged that “they were indebted to the multiculturalism” of the country, but showed his intention to incorporate these peoples into other levels of Government.
The Board of Directors of Communal Mayors of the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán regretted in a statement that it had not taken advantage of the historic opportunity to integrate an inclusive Government cabinet with officials from the peoples that make up the country – Mayan, Garifuna and Xinka -, “something vital for the implementation of real public policies attached to the conditions” of each of them.
For Tzul, Arévalo's team “must have the ability to respect heterogeneous autonomy.” “This is a communal country and this uprising has shown us that. But the fact that the rule of law is preserved, that the democratic order has not been broken, that this transition is generated has to do with the defense of the common good that the authorities have done,” he indicates.
At the sit-in, the indigenous authorities prefer to give Arévalo a vote of confidence. “Logically, these types of decisions make us a little sad,” says Salomon Tax regarding the composition of the Cabinet. “We cannot judge something that has not started, but we are going to be monitoring every movement and, if the results are not given, we are going to demonstrate.” At the moment, his plan is to maintain the protest until January 15, the day after the inauguration. “If everything goes as it should, we will be celebrating that we met the objectives of maintaining democracy in the country.”
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