By Jorge Santos
Hello dear Oliverio, I am writing to you for reasons, the first to wish you a happy birthday, yesterday you would have turned 68 years old, if cowardice and ignominy had not taken your life, just 45 years ago, in the struggles of the Guatemalan people, in particular the inhabitants of the Capital City to not allow the increase in the price of urban transport tickets. You, along with others, led the important feats of struggle so that the increase did not occur. Today, just like 45 years ago, the People in Guatemala are in the streets and that is my second reason for writing to you.
Dear Oliverio, I tell you that 27 years ago Guatemalan society was filled with hope, because the 36 years of Internal Armed Conflict culminated and could dedicate itself to building democracy and a series of changes that would have guaranteed a dignified life and human rights for all. However, the same as always, those who had precisely caused the start of the war, the exclusions, impoverishment, racism and discrimination, as well as those responsible for more than 200,000 victims of State terror, among whom you As you find, they discarded the commitments of the Peace Agreements, thus making it impossible to consolidate a different Guatemala. Today the last president in office, together with the oligarchy, the political and military elite and organized crime, have captured all the institutions of the State, very similar to 1978 when you fought leading the students and accompanying the Guatemalan people in their just social demands. , economic and political.
Currently, we are witnessing yet another breakdown of the legal order, by these groups that have historically plunged Guatemala into the absence of democracy, poverty and death. Today, President Giammattei, together with the Public Ministry, the Supreme Court of Justice, the majority of congressmen, the Constitutional Court and some judges have undertaken a Coup d’état, with which they intend to violate the popular will expressed in the last elections. You should know that the Guatemalan people voted at the polls for the son of Juan José Arévalo, a well-educated progressive, who after a long line of shameful presidents gives hope to a people tired of so much abuse. Today the People have taken to the streets to defend their possibility of building democracy, inclusion, equity and social justice, making human rights a reality.
Imagine that on October 2, the Peoples took to the streets, summoned by the Ancestral Authorities of the Indigenous Peoples and twelve days today there is already an Indefinite National Strike to stop the Coup d’état and allow whoever was elected at the polls to take office. as President of the Republic and that hopefully from there we can begin to move through democratic life and human rights. Dear Oliverio, I have no doubt that, if you were here with us, you would be there accompanying and fighting alongside the People.
Jorge Santos
jsantos@udefegua.org
Defender of human rights, lover of life, hopes and utopias, which has led me to work for another Guatemala, in student and peasant organizations, for victims of the Internal Armed Conflict and for the protection of human rights defenders. I faithfully believe, like Otto René Castillo, that those who build it beautiful find life beautiful.
Source The Hour
