Ollantay Itzamná
Peasant demonstration. Guatemala City
They know that their demands will not be met by the government, nor by public institutions. But they are also aware that, despite the denigration they suffer from the corporate media, and the silence of several alternative media, the acclaim of the Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly process continues its expansive course in the collective imagination of the sectors increasingly hit by the system of neoliberal colonialism.
Guatemala is a tropical country where life flourishes with almost unparalleled inequality. A country illuminated by a radiant sun, but that almost silently endures the darkness of neoliberal colonial humiliation with almost no horizon of exits.
In the last few days, the cost of the basic food basket has gone up again. Natural gas increased up to 30%. Electricity, in spite of the decrease in the international price of oil, continued to rise. Students, not having access to the Internet, opted to leave school. The public debt rose as never before (in these times of pandemic); each Guatemalan is born with a public debt of Q. 13,000!
The central government, controlled by the national oligarchy, and monitored by the U.S. government, governs through a constant state of siege to repress social protest. The few honest judges and prosecutors, who fight against corruption, are politically and judicially persecuted.
And, thus, the country languishes in a long agony, under the complicit silence of its “revolutionary vanguards” and of its “civil society”, prey to its impotence.
In this context, once again, a clamor resounds with the aroma of earth and sweat: “We are moving to the Plurinational Strike for the process of the Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly”.
It is the uncomfortable voice of the communities and peoples in resistance articulated in the socio-political movement CODECA. They are announcing a 48-hour nationwide strike (November 15 and 16), with road occupations, because they are tired of the occupation of their territories, of the internal colonialism to which they have been subjected for two centuries by the Creole State and the current transnational corporations. They are tired of being humiliated as “internal enemies”, condemned to a controlled death!
CODECA, perhaps, in this bicentennial Creole Republic, is one of the few bastions of the “moral and intellectual reserve” of the country that did not give in, neither before the neoliberalizing financial hegemony of the international cooperation after the Peace Accords, nor before the “arrogant solidarity” of the USAID, so ubiquitous in these times.
It is not the first time that the “Guatemalan non-citizens” announce the message of emancipation through the process of a Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly for the country. Nor is it a novelty that, as their last weapon of struggle, they resort to blocking roads with their bodies as a sign of protest in a racist country that assumes: “nothing good can come out of the countryside”.
But, there go the CODECA again. Like prophets in the desert announcing messages of dignity and liberation. As free and rebellious as the wind. Engineering their own means of digital communication from their territories, even outside the fiber optics.
They demand the cessation of the “State of Siege” against the Q’echí people in El Estor Izabal, and the realization of free and informed prior consultation on the mining project in the area. They ask for the annulment of the 2019 electoral process, for having been fraudulent according to them. They propose the formation of a transitional government to convene the process of a Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly to create a Plurinational State for Full Life.
They know that their demands will not be met by the government, nor by public institutions. But they are also aware that, despite the denigration they suffer from the corporate media, and the silence of several alternative media, the acclaim of the Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly process continues its expansive course in the collective imagination of the sectors increasingly hit by the system of neoliberal colonialism.
Translation by Internationalist 360°
INTERNATIONALIST 360° 