 Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean code pinks weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region in partnership with friends of Latin America. Massachusetts peace action and task force on the Americas. We broadcast every Wednesday and for 30pm Pacific 730pm Eastern on code pink YouTube live. Today's episode is political prisoners indigenous land rights and the fight against neoliberalism in Guatemala. It's been a while since we brought to you news from Guatemala, a country that to this day suffers the consequences of neocolonialism and Reagan's dirty wars in Central America during the 1980s. Despite the mainstream media narrative currently have been emphasizing the struggles of Ukraine and the European Union. Let's not forget that Guatemala, specifically indigenous Guatemalans are still being persecuted and are still dying as a direct result of US intervention in US interventionism 40 years ago, and beyond. So today, we are welcoming to guests who will share with us their recent travel experiences and current work in Guatemala and really really excited about this, this program this episode and the guests that we have today and the information we're going to share with you. I will let all of you know that some of the information and some of our visuals today are going to be quite graphic, but all of us participating in this episode feel it's really really important to emphasize the horrors of neocolonialism extraction US interventionism in all its forms will be judicious in what we share with you but just so you're all aware that some of the information is going to be a little difficult. So I want to introduce our guests. First is Ben Goodman, who is an independent writer researcher and organizer pursuing a master's of art in global communication from the George Washington University. He's currently working on his capstone research and digital media project on the outsourcing of US border militarization to Guatemala, and he's working in collaboration with the Guatemala Solidarity Project and the promoters of migrant liberation. And in relation to Ben's work, we're really pleased to have Palmer Laguerre from the Guatemala Solidarity Project joining us today. So let me tell you a little bit about Palmer. He's got a very impressive activist background and some really formidable experience on the ground in Guatemala. So Palmer is the co-founder and volunteer coordinator of the Guatemala Solidarity Project. He has spent much of the past 20 years in Guatemala. He is a registered nurse and community organizer who has been detained for civil disobedience and other forms of nonviolent protest over a dozen times. He has spent months in jails and prisons for his work. He has been told directly by both the US ambassador to Guatemala and Guatemala's presidential commission on human rights to leave the country, or he will be arrested and or killed. So a very compelling episode for all of you today. So welcome Ben, welcome Palmer. And I also want to quickly introduce the audience to Leslie Salgado, who is the chair of Friends of Latin America, who is one of our broadcast partners, and Friends of Latin America has created a fundraiser for Guatemala prisoners, political prisoners in Guatemala. And we're going to talk a little bit about that at the end of the program but I want to just put that out there that given what you hear this evening, we're going to ask that you do contribute to this project and the project. The fundraiser can be found on Venmo and it's at Friends of Latin America at LATIN America. So, so as you listen tonight and are so motivated to help political prisoners in Guatemala please feel free to go to Venmo for that. So with that, rather lengthy introduction today and I apologize but there's such a, our guests are so compelling I want you to know as much about them as possible. So with that, I'd like to, I'd like to have Ben tell us a little bit about his experience in Guatemala and what led him to this project at George Washington and welcome Palmer as well. I'm going to leave tonight's project in gallery format because we'd like this to be a conversation among everyone as you watch and please feel free to participate in the chat and Twitter and if any of you are watching us on Zoom, please participate via Q&A. So welcome everybody. Sorry for the lengthy interview but introduction but all of you bring so much experience to this episode. So Ben, why don't we start with what you have such a great ground experience that really motivated you in this work and why don't you share that with us. Yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah, so the project. I had the opportunity to travel to Guatemala in November last year. I was in association with my research project at GW and the Guatemala without the Guatemala Solidarity Project which Palmer is a co founder of, I wouldn't have been able to visit the communities that I did. I was in the USP connected me with organizers on the ground there, who then took me to communities. I was able to visit two communities, both indigenous communities, one in Alta Verapas and one in Baja Verapas Departments. They're going through similar situations, repression from the government and the military, corporate led and western multilateral led banking led corporate projects like hydroelectric projects, mining projects that are displacing these communities. So without without those connections with the organizers on the ground I wouldn't have been able to go there because the situations extremely tenuous and violent in these communities and understandably there's a lot of mistrust from people are not from there. But one of the communities that I visited in a small town called Purula in Baja Verapas. I think Palmer is going to speak more about the situation there that's going on right now even today. When I went to this community, I sat down with a community leader named Sophia, and I had an incredible experience of talking with her and visiting her community walking around the community and getting her perspective on and observations and opinions on some of the things that they've been experiencing for a long long time now in relation to claims from Guatemala and oligarchs land claims indigenous territories and sexual indigenous lands that European mostly European descended landowners. So Finkettos claim these lands and they sell these these lands to corporations and other companies that install supposedly green technology like hydroelectric projects was really devastated, devastated lands and displace people. I had conversations with Sophia. She detailed a lot of the incursions paramilitary incursions and military incursions on against her community, trying to kick people off their land in order to install some of these hydroelectric and mining projects. And she also detail a lot of on the community resistance networks and how local communities in that region have have organized and formed coalitions to push back against some of these government and corporate led incursions on their land. And there's been some some news today. I don't know if Palmer wants Palmer wants to jump in to kind of give us a rundown what's going on today because there's breaking news from there. Yeah, thank you Ben. Thank you everyone for for putting this together. So a little bit of the, the international context to put a lot. This is an area with a lot of rivers receives a lot of rainfall. And because of that there's a lot of potential for hydroelectric energy production. And that's where where indigenous people in particular are are starving. I happen to be a registered nurse and spend a lot of time volunteering at a clinic there in in Florida. And most of the people who came in were parents who were were bringing their kids who are suffering from acute severe malnutrition, which basically means that they could starve to death at any time. A big reason that they were in this position is because their homes had been burned down and their crops had been destroyed by us backed military and police who were violently pushing them off of their lands to make way for the expansion of these illegal hydroelectric dams. So, so what happened today and it was another attack on these communities I don't know if anyone can share a few of the pictures but basically thousands of police and soldiers attack these communities. But we're not exactly sure at this point how many people as we speak there's a significant storm there's there's pretty hard rain going on so it's been really difficult for our partners to get to the scene and really assess exactly what's going on. The cell coverages is not great, but we know that there are numerous injuries. Another very important part of the context of this is that when the Biden administration stepped into power. And last year one of their very first sort of foreign policy statements towards Central America said that the way one of the main ways that they wanted to address the so called immigration crisis was by promoting the electricity in Guatemala. They actually stated that they wanted to double the production of electricity. Now the problem of this is is really clear in the case of poor law, because the clinic that I mentioned that I volunteered at where people were coming in, basically starving to death. This is a hydroelectric dam within a mile and a half of that clinic, and the clinic itself has no electricity. These hydroelectric dams, unlike what the Biden administration and many of the elite in the US are claiming, they do not promote development or any kind of good development in Guatemala they don't bring people jobs, but in fact they destroy local ecosystems, and then create electricity to then sell at the highest bidder, which most definitely is not indigenous communities in the area. So, just today was, unfortunately, another continuing and common example of us backs military and police violence against these communities. And at the same time something very positive happened today in that our our hero congresswoman Ilan Omar released a letter with around 10 signatures from from other members of the US House, calling on US military aid to Guatemala, as well as El Salvador and Honduras to be blocked to be blocked. She did that today. Yes, she did that today. And for folks listening, the letter is specifically actually addressed to congressman congresswoman Barbara Lee. Barbara Lee is in the state foreign operations state foreign and related operations subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. Basically, it's the very specific committee in the house that actually decides how much money is going to to many foreign operations programs. And Barbara Lee unfortunately has not always, and often has not sided with us on this issue, but she has taken courageous stands against militarism and other cases. So, folks who are listening, in addition to donating which I think we'll talk about more later as well. Please call Congress when Barbara Lee and ask her to include language in the upcoming fiscal year 2023 budget to block funding to to Guatemala block military funding and police funding specifically. Wow, this is that that is good news. Definitely something that all of us in our work can unite behind and lobby about particularly email call visit Barbara Lee's office district and DC offices about this. And I'll post some of that information in the chat here and also on the YouTube live. So, I just I'll just share I think, you know, Ben and Leslie know this Palmer I haven't shared this with you my, my Latin America work. It was produced to Mesoamerica and in the sixth grade and so I had a really fabulous teacher who really kind of cultivated my interest and it's been a lifelong passion and now work. Basically, outside of being a tourist to destinations. My first actual activism wasn't Guatemala 1984. I went as a human rights accompaniment and work for six months taking, you know, people the court and all those things that you're you and Ben are so familiar with and in 84 that was right in the middle of Reagan's dirty wars in Central America, and all these indigenous communities were basically annihilated, not unlike how the West was one quote unquote in the United States. And, and then I was out of Guatemala for many years went back just for personal travel in 2005 2009 and then in 2014. I was fortunate enough to join a school of the Americas watch delegation to Guatemala we spent most of our time in the Central Highlands and kitchen, and, and all of those communities that were exterminated in the 80s, or now either communities or have mining concessions assigned to them. So, you know, it's, it's the same. I tried to tell that to people in the states it is the same westward expansion, grab of land resources exploitation of human resources natural resources, to the extent, you know, of literally killing people. Those land grabs and resource grabs. And it's a really. It's a really heinous thing. And it's, it's also why I'm so, so pleased to have you and Ben join us tonight to because it's a really personal to how I got involved in, you know, really on the ground, Latin America activism. So, Ben, this experience that you had in November, really has, you know, tied your studies and, and your activism and it's really impressive. I wonder, especially with Palmer joining us today as well, that we could talk about US intervention is in the funding of the military and how this affects specifically affects the land that the military is used to secure the land is also used to prevent migration. So you have people being forced off their land, their waters been taken, think also the dry quarter and Central America is expanding due to climate change. So these people can't eat and yet there's a military presence in their country and on the border, Guatemala Mexico border funded by the United States, preventing these people from leaving. So can we talk about that a little bit. Yeah. I think I think it's important to point out and understand that. And I know people know this already but you know in the 60s. After the coup, after the CIA coup and 54, the US government rearranged and reconfigured the Guatemalan military industrial and security complex, employed counterinsurgency, you know, targeting civilians, military, you know, technique which is still used today it was never that same kind of intelligence and military, you know, formation is was not dismantled. Unlike, you know, in Nicaragua, after this enemies to revolution when the when the military was reconfigured. So that same. That same, that same type of that same military configurations used to this day today in fact against the community and in pudula and it's, it gains its funding, much of its funding and training from the US from the US government. And that was some of the some of the investigations that I tried to do for this research project was understand where where this funding is coming from where it's going. And it's very difficult to track down that information because it's not widely available the DOD doesn't release that data. There is, there is some information about the car seat security initiative, which is a Central American regional security initiative, which Guatemala is the biggest recipient of. And there are some there's some documentation on where this funding goes and where it goes through. I've just found that the car seat security funding is funneled through USA ID in Guatemala and it goes to militarization and that that means border militarization so it goes to the US created it. You know short D, which is on the Honduran border and there's a foreign total in the country that were created and funded by the US government. That that security funding also goes to training police and military and and funding equipment which has time and time again been proven to be going. Not towards the designated areas where they say it's going to go like combating drug trafficking and other things but is often used to repress indigenous communities. As was seen in El Estor on the siege of El Estor this this past year. I believe the Ilhan Omar and other representatives actually wrote a wrote a separate letter on this. Demanding the accountability for for these military funds. So there's definitely can there's there's an intricate connection between a counter insurgency policy that seeks to take indigenous lands kick kick indigenous people off their lands to install these, these projects. And when they're when they're displaced and they're forced to leave, then they're confronted with a whole other militarized apparatus with with this, these border militarization initiatives, and then all the way through Mexico. And, you know, you can talk for a long time about different initiatives in Mexico and other places. I think it's important to mention with these hydroelectric projects and mining projects is that they're, they're also funded by other other governments as well other development institutions and other Western governments, like Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, other other places. And I went to another community in Alta de la Paz, where a community called the tech community called Monte Olivo, where I visited a community members who have been terrorized by a company that owns the Santa Rita hydroelectric project. And this is a very well documented case. And it's received funding does can read up about the military the military incursions in this community how, and I was in my conversations with community members. I feel the horrific experience of getting other houses burn kicked out of their, their community forced to hide in the mountains. And this hydroelectric project, like many others in Guatemala is funded by Western governments, including this particular project, including the World Bank, was sponsored by the United Nations. I think it's also important to understand that it's not just, they're not just trying to extract natural resources for, you know, for supposedly green, you know, this development project to extract electricity and other resources but they're also actually financializing carbon emissions. And this is something that they would try to do with the Santa Rita hydroelectric project so they're basically trying to to financialize carbon emissions and put it on a profit from it. So I think that Western financial elites are trying to profit from this green supposedly green technology and financialized the carbon emissions counts. And there's been very few. I haven't seen that many much reporting on this, this this financialization of nature kind of turn this new evolution of extractivism and, you know, trying to try to profit from from extracting these resources. Can I ask you something real quick, because she's the financialization of carbon emissions. I'm sorry to interrupt but when you said this it really is that related to what in California was called cap and trade and does that also have something to do with the planting of these enormous destructive date palm plantations and Palmer shaking your head so it's not all related. I mean, because those deep plant palm plantations are related to the cap and trade. And specifically that was started with Governor Brown second term, my home state California, where, and it's kind of a myth, you know, the northern industrial countries just keep admitting, and then plant, and correct me if I'm wrong as I have a very rudimentary understanding of it, I have visited those date palm plantations they're heinous with they do the local communities. But it's all related. Yes. Go ahead, you want to step in. Sure, well I don't know the specifics of the California legislation but yes the point is that these companies in Guatemala. They're not that's not people on companies but the work they're doing in Guatemala is that they're destroying local ecosystems they're clear cutting for us they are violently displacing communities off of land that these communities have protected for generations. But then because these communities are supposedly doing creating green energy, they can then sell credits so that companies in other countries can pollute more. Because supposedly these Guatemala in Guatemala this other company is sequestering carbon. It's completely twisted it actually leads to the production of more carbon old growth forests which are being clear cut sequester significantly more carbon than these enormous African palm plantations, which not only don't sequester as much carbon, but they also require massive amounts of water pesticide. It's a huge scam. It's a terrible problem in Indonesia too, I believe, and it's destroyed the habitat of orangutans but it's a really, it's, it's quite something to actually go and see what it is because this myth of this carbon exchange thing is green that were that were taught and oriented in the in the northern hemisphere it's really it's a myth and it's just pushing it down on the global south. Again, the development of the north being you know those people in the south suffering for it. So Ben, when you were traveling, you, you did have a chance to meet with people who were protesting fighting, you know, fighting against doing some civil disobedience as Palmer so experienced with in communities in Guatemala and some of those people have ended up in prison because of their attempts to preserve land and water feed themselves and house themselves and their families. And some of those people are in prison for that beat for those actions. Yeah. Um, no, absolutely. There's the, when I was in Guatemala, I actually had the opportunity to go inside the jail in Kovan, which is a city and the bus department to visit to political prisoners. I was actually, I was asked to go inside by community members because they've been local community members are having a hard time getting inside the jails because they're black marked, and they won't let them inside or they're at risk of getting arrested if they try to visit their prison jail. So actually, I was asked by a member of the community and put a lot to go because a week before I visited put a lot, an organizer that was that was working with that community was kidnapped by the police and and and no one knew if he was even alive. So at the time, so I went into the jail to see if he was even alive and then to find out when his court day was so I was actually able to go inside and and talk with him and speak with him. And thankfully he was, you know, he was alive, you know, shaken up in his first week in jail it's not not a nice place in there. So I was I was also able to speak with but not local. Who's a very well known kekchi land offender who was actually recently released from jail. I believe because of good behavior or something like that. So that's another good piece of news that that he's now free. But unfortunately with what the news that we're getting about what's going on there today. It's hard to imagine that there's not going to be more. You know, community members being arbitrarily detained for defending their, their lands and their, you know, their families from these incursions. So, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's important to support political prisoners because, as I was told by local community members, it's very difficult to organize and to mobilize community members if they know that they're not going to get support when they're in jail and their families are not going to get support. So providing support to land indigenous land defenders and other, you know, organize an activist who have been incarcerated arbitrarily is very important to, to kind of keep keep morale high and keep people, you know, organizing and then involved and mobilized because another another theme that I definitely got when I was there was that it's it's been difficult to to convince young people that it's worth staying and fighting for these lands because they're seeing you know they're seeing what's happening. They want to get out they want to migrate. Many young people that I spoke to wanted to go to the US they have friends who had gone to the US and many of the organizers that I was with were veteran veteran organizers who were very active during the internal conflict. And so they're still going strong but a lot of the younger people, you know, it's, it's going to take a lot to kind of get the younger generation to, to mobilize and continue to fight and supporting supporting political prisoners is, is one way of doing that I guess. And for our audience it's important to understand that when the principal bread in the family is imprisoned, there is no other income for for the family. So it isn't just the person the individual in prison that suffers this ripples out, you know, through the immediate family and the extended family they all suffer. I mean the prison conditions are so horrible that if there isn't some out, you know, financial assistance given to the families where the prisoners eat gruel, unless their families have the ability to bring them meals. The prisoners sleep on the floor with no blankets, unless the family's friends community can bring them Betty. And it's just on and on fresh water, medicines, all of that. None of that is provided by the state when you are in prison. It all has to get all whatever, you know, assistance you get whatever little comforts you receive are from from the outside. And they're not smuggled in this is perfectly legal to bring up, but it's having the financial resources to to to help take care of somebody who is incarcerated for trying to, you know, protect clean water and land and housing. For themselves in their community and it's really, they're so little that has changed that it's got to be horrifically discouraging for young people to stay with it with this movement. One of Mullins were were recognized as suffering a genocide. In 2005 was it by the UN or the International Human Rights Commission, correct me if I'm wrong which actual entity did that they've, you know, there was the trial of Rios month who was in charge of the military and and, you know, exterminating these people in the 1980s and still still the the repression is there and the repression is there fully funded by the United States by our tax dollars by our tax dollars so this is not, you know, this is an occupying military presence. It's not a declared war by Congress, it is financed by public funds by all of our tax dollars all of us talking with you this evening. And, you know, it's a war against these people. It's a war to, you know, grab their land their water and their natural resources, and just really think it's important for people to understand it is a war, just because it's not declared by Congress doesn't mean, you know, there isn't funding and training going on, and, and this horrific treatment of watermelon specifically indigent indigenous people living in Guatemala. So. So I want to give that link. It's a Venmo account. And let me pull it up here real quick. Yeah, as you're pulling that up I just want to really reinforce that message that this government's policy of criminalization has been very effective only in the altar of our passes and only within the organizations we work with their. This is a relatively small area, but there are thousands of indigenous human rights leaders and land defenders with arrest warrants against them. They just mean that they're a danger of being arrested. It also means and this is really key that they can't go to court hearings about the rate of the land. So they a lot of these communities are in legal struggles to show and they have evidence that the land is theirs. But if they go to court with that evidence, they will be arrested. And the other piece of it is the folks who are actually arrested tend to be the most committed leaders and then when they're in prison. Not only did they face significant violence denial of food denial of medicine, but they're basically abandoned they often do not get visitors like Ben was saying, not because they don't have a ton of supporters they do. But because these family members and community members are at risk of being arrested themselves. So we are committed to going to the prison and visiting these folks regularly. And we're so thrilled that that Ben and friends Latin America are supporting these amazing leaders who are locked up in Guatemalan prisons. It's really, it's, it's so important, such important work and it's, it's really a wonderful thing to have been working with all of us to have a young, you know, graduate student interested motivated and pursuing this work. It's just, you know, for us older activists it's always so great, you know, Ben to to bring in young people like you. And so I want. So Ben is, you know, he said George Washington but he's also affiliated with friends of Latin America who is a broadcast director of this program and I want all of you to meet Leslie Salgado, who is the chair woman chair person of friends of Latin America, like her to tell you a little bit about friends of Latin America, and, and how you can donate to the political prisoners project. Welcome Leslie. Thank you. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Palmer. Thank you, Ben. This is really, it's very sad to see that so many years have gone by and the things haven't changed. The things exposition in the role of the United States and waging war and intervention in our countries and Latin America and not only Latin America's around the world is the same thing all over. But it continues and that people suffer the consequences of these, and that here in the United States people are told that we are doing it, because we are bringing democracy to these people. And it's nothing like it, you know, it is so, so very sad. We talk about racism a lot of times here in this country, and we don't think about the racism that US policies promote in countries like Guatemala, like Honduras, where indigenous people who have suffered at the consequence of colonialism for over 500 years 600 years, continue suffering the consequences of this possession of their land, because Europeans came and took their land without any respect to, or knowledge of the rights of indigenous people and that continues. And I'm so happy that Ben joined our group, and that he is interested in in Guatemala and this issue. Our organization started in the mid 1980s in opposition to US policies of war and intervention in Central America. We started as our county friends of Central America. And we actually started with a campaign, the national campaign that was called stop the lies campaign. The lies that, for example, that Nicaragua was going to take over the United States. The lies that the US was bringing democracy to Guatemala, to El Salvador, while they were funding the armies in the military and the killing. And in Guatemala, in particular, I mean the scorched earth techniques that were practiced. I mean committing all sorts of atrocities against those people. And those people, the people in Guatemala continue to resist that. That is the incredible thing that people, you know, continue to resist. And here is an opportunity for us, those of us who are in the north, also in a way trying to resist US policies into pressure for changes, which are hard to come by, but we are still trying. But we have to credit the people of Central America and in particular the people of Guatemala for resisting that. And I see this project of supporting political prisoners as an opportunity for us to be to be friends, lend a hand to the Guatemalan people, the people who are resisting these criminal actions against their people, their families, their land and against the environment that we all say we want protected. So I invite all of you who are listening to join us in supporting the political prisoners in Guatemala and their families. And as you said, Terry, it's not just the political prisoners who suffer the consequences as entire families, as the wives, as the children's as the parents, it's, it's, it's a family that suffers. And we should always be for families for peace for justice for respect of the environment, or mother earth. Thank you so very much again, Palmer, I hope we can continue to work with you. Guatemala reminds me very much about my country of origin Ecuador because we are also we also have a large indigenous population. And thank you again. Thank you. I wanted to share again with our audience that contributions can be made to be a Venmo to at foe Latin America so at F O Latin L A T I N America M a M a M. M a M a R I C a foe Latin America at Venmo. So, you know our last minutes here. I'm just, I want to again just so thank Ben for his project and his work and Palmer what a pleasure to meet you, and just an honor to be in conversation with you and your work is just incredibly impressive and I hope that both of you can come back and give us an update, keep us informed and we should follow this letter that Ilhan Omar wrote to Bargalee and and see where that goes and perhaps do a follow up episode on that letter and what, what is happening in Congress, that would be some really compelling and work for all of us. So, so is there anything that either one of you would like to say and closing. Just thank you again. So great to meet you thank you all and we will, in terms of what happened today, both with the letter and also the tack and Guatemala will be posting on social media folks younger than myself will be putting those together. So keep an eye out for that and really Terry I really appreciate your work and Leslie as well as great to meet you and then I'm excited to continue to talk and collaborate with you thank you. Thank you. Please check out Guatemala solidarity project. They're on Instagram. It was a lot of really informative stuff Twitter and also their website. Thank you everybody I want to remind our audience that you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America in the Caribbean. We broadcast every Wednesday for 30pm Pacific 730pm Eastern on code pink YouTube live. I also want to tell you about code pink radio, which broadcasts every Thursday morning 11am Eastern on WBA AI out of New York City and WPFW out of Washington DC both projects can be found on Apple podcast and be sure to tune in next Wednesday. And thank you again everyone just really so important to remind our audience and all of the US that you know worse continuing in Central America Guatemala specifically as we've discussed this evening is not just the should we say flavor of the month news coming out of Ukraine and Europe right now. There are people around the world, our work specifically being in Latin America who are still suffering US military incursions, and for many wars that were started 40 plus years ago have never have never stopped so. So thank you everyone, and we'll see you next week.