Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Guatemala Today
Guatemalans are struggling. Over half the population lives below the poverty line and
gang membership is rising as an overwhelmed and under-resourced police force
struggles to maintain order. Against this increasingly bleak backdrop, scores of grass-
roots organizations have sprung up, tirelessly combatting Guatemala's many prob-
lems. While successive governments continue to make promises, it is Guatemalans
themselves who are delivering solutions.
The More Things Change...
In mid-January 2012, Otto Fernando Perez
Molina was sworn in as Guatemala's president.
Molina is a former army general who served
during Efraín Ríos Montt's dictatorship and
was stationed in the Ixíl region, where many of
the worst human rights abuses and massacres
of the civil war took place.
During his successful campaign, Molina
offered Guatemalans the two things that polls
consistently say they want - security and jobs.
In one of his first moves as president, Molina
announced a plan that would put 7000 soldiers
on the streets in the country's most dangerous
and criminally active areas. While arrest rates
skyrocketed, crime rates remained steady.
Recent years have shown that often the
worst criminal excesses are committed by se-
curity forces. In just one month in early 2012,
four police officers were charged with assault,
conspiracy and unlawful association while
various members of the Secret Service were
accused of being members of a countrywide
kidnapping gang.
Best on Film
Aquí me Quedo
(2010; Rodolfo Espinoza)
Subtle political commentary, black comedy and
satire abound in this story of a kidnapping, shot
in and around Quetzaltenango.
When the Mountains Tremble
(1983; Pamela
Yates & Newton Thomas Sigel) Documentary
featuring Susan Sarandon and Rigoberta
Menchú, telling the story of the civil war.
Capsulas
(2011; Verónica Riedel) A look at
greed, corruption and the drug trade from one of
Guatemala's few female directors.
El Norte
(1983; Gregory Nava) Young indigen-
ous siblings flee their village and begin the tor-
tuous journey to enter the US as illegal immig-
rants.
Best in Print
The President
(Miguel Ángel Asturias; 1946)
Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan author takes
some not-too-subtle jabs at the country's long
line of dictators.
A Mayan Life
(Gaspar Pedro Gonzáles; 1995)
The first published novel by a Maya author is an
excellent study of rural Guatemalan life.
The Art of Political Murder
(Francisco Gold-
man; 2008) Meticulously-researched account of
the assassination of Bishop Gerardi.
