Sunday Roundup - May 18,2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. Today we look at Guatemala, Nigeria, Ukraine, and, in brief, the "American Spring" rally in Washington.

Guatemala
The United States has a long, sordid history of interference in Guatemala, a Central American nation with a population of about 14.6 million.  In 1954, the second freely-elected President in Guatemalan history, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the CIA.  His popular program of land reform, credit, and literacy began to diminish the extreme inequality in Guatemala.  Unfortunately, he was deemed unacceptable by both Cold Warriors and wealthy Guatemalans.  Between 1960 and 1996, Guatemala was immersed in a bloody internal armed conflict that pitted the army against guerrilla groups. The fighting was rife with human rights abuses by the government forces.  More than 200,000 men, women and children were murdered or disappeared during this 36-year-long war; most of them were indigenous.  At various periods during this 36 year civil war, the US provided "counter-insurgency" aid to the Guatemalan government.  In 2013, former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rioss Montt, who ruled in 1982-3, was convicted of genocide.  Less than two weeks later his conviction was overturned on a technicality by the Guatemalan supreme court.  Now Guatemala is back in the news.

On May 13, the Guatemalan Congress voted to deny that genocide had occurred during the 36 year conflict.  A blogger for IC Magazine writes: This deplorable decision is another step towards relieving Rios Montt...of all responsibilities for his crimes against humanity. There is no time limit on the penal responsibility regarding crimes of genocide. If the crimes are not considered to be crimes of genocide, then those accused can no longer be considered legally responsible for crimes committed some 30 years ago.  The hope that Rioss Montt's conviction had engendered - that injustice against Indigenous communities would no longer be tolerated, and that justice, even against the highest powers, could be sought - has pretty much been crushed.

Nobel Prize nominee Claudia Paz y Paz (Moises Castillo/AP)

The back-sliding in Guatemala began in earnest earlier this year when the prosecutor who won the case against Rioss Montt was removed from her position as attorney general.  As reported in The Guardian in February: War criminals, corrupt officials and drug traffickers let out a collective sigh of relief in Guatemala last week after another controversial ruling by the constitutional court appeared to fly in the face of justice and accountability.  Claudia Paz y Paz, the country's first female – and easily most effective – attorney general, will be forced to leave office seven months early after the court ruled in favour of a dubious technical challenge brought by corporate lawyer and businessman Ricardo Sagastume.   Paz y Paz was then removed from the list of possible replacements by the commission established to nominate a new attorney general.

On May 9 Guatemalan President Otto Perez delivered another slap to the face of anti-impunity reformers.  He named Thelma Aldana as Guatemala's new attorney general, a controversial decision that raises fears of a return to impunity after four years of judicial reform...The selection process that resulted in Aldana's appointment has been widely criticized both nationally and internationally for its apparent lack of impartiality...Given her ties to the country's political elite, it is unlikely Aldana will take the same tough stance on corruption and organized crime. Plaza Publica reported that Aldana also has links to the Guatemalan Republican Front, which was founded by former dictator Efrain Rios Montt. These allegations are especially troubling because as Attorney General, Aldana will be in charge of prosecuting Rios Montt when he returns to trial in January 2015.  [In Sight Crime website, May 12] That is, if he even returns to trial given the Guatemalan Congressional vote on May 13.

Funeral of Carlos Hernandez, a trade unionist shot last year (VICE News)

Besides corruption, organized crime, drug cartels and genocide, Guatemala needs to address anti-union violence.  According to the International Trade Union Confederation, 73 trade unionists have been murdered in the Central American nation since 2007. That makes it the most deadly place in the world to be a trade unionist, on a per-capita basis. No one has been convicted of the crimes... Having recently emerged from a bloody history of military dictatorship and civil war, Guatemala now finds itself caught up in another conflict being fought by the region’s drug cartels. According to human rights organizations, the country has a weak judicial system that fuels a culture of impunity and fear so when unionists campaign for better labor rights, it's easy for those with power and money to shut them up without repercussions...Guatemala is at a crossroads. The current government pledged to start a process to end anti-union violence and implemented several initiatives on social dialogue and consultation with trade unions. But when trade unionists are being murdered and threatened, dialogue alone is not going to put them at ease, or punish the killers. [VICE News, May 15]

Amnesty International's fact sheet on Guatemela's genocide trial (2013)


Nigeria
With a population of 175 million, Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation.  Its oil riches have yet to trickle down to its people. Recently $20 billion in oil revenues was discovered to be missing and an investigation is underway.  Nigeria is a divided nation.  Besides the ethnic divisions, there is the divide between the Muslim north and the Christian south.  The abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram bought the world's attention to the country.  Author Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani writes in The Guardian that the abduction of the school girls is uniting her country.  For a change, every Nigerian is united in his or her need for safety. The 234 missing girls are not being seen as Hausa or Igbo or Yoruba; they are simply people's children.  I hope this spirit of unity lives on, that it extends beyond grief and the need for security. In their attempt to tear Nigeria apart with their reckless destruction, the Boko Haram terrorists have inadvertently succeeded in showing just how much Nigerians can care about one another.

Muslim schoolgirls around the world react to the Nigerian abductions [The Guardian, May 8]

Background on religious conflict in Nigeria: As with so much in Nigeria, [the] violence has its roots in the colonial period.  [The Atlantic, July 10, 2013]

Ukraine
Turning a deaf ear to both Kiev and Moscow, Donetsk went ahead with its referendum last Sunday and voted overwhelmingly to separate from Ukraine.  As the country unravels amidst uncertainty and chaos, Eugene Rumer and Andrew S. Weiss, writing in Politico in a story picked up by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, propose a four-step solution to the crisis.  The West needs to recognize that the situation in eastern and southern Ukraine is now far more complex than a mere Russian ploy, ...[and] to acknowledge that their sanctions are not going to solve Ukraine’s problems or hold Russia at bay....[Kiev should take] a hard look at the possibility of postponing the May 25 election. It is difficult to see how it can be credibly conducted in the present circumstances...[and there ]...should be a no-holds-barred conversation involving all parties to the conflict about the way forward. What Ukraine really needs is a staggered process that postpones elections until after some combination of constitutional reform, parliamentary elections and national-level referendum on power-sharing between Kyiv and the regions. All sides have to be represented in that national conversation, and all of them will have to recognize that no side will come out on top, that compromise will be necessary to avoid the worst possible outcome: an outright civil war in Ukraine, in which all sides will be the losers.

In Case You Missed It
The organizers and supporters promised 10-30 million right-wingers would descend on Washington on Friday May 16 to take back America by demonstrating to force Obama out of office.  Looks like a few hundred showed up - appears the weather may have held attendance down a bit.  Wingnut “American Spring” Rally Flops Big Time [Balloon Juice website, May 16]