Sunday links around Guatemala

Some links from Guatemala this morning.

First, Giovanna Dell'Orto takes on Starving in McMansions: Big homes in poor Guatemala.

There are homes like this throughout Mexico and Central America, experts say. But they are most visible in smaller towns like aldea San Antonio, where so many young men have left for work in the U.S.

Many of these homes essentially are deserted for a variety of reasons ... the construction was never finished, the owners never returned or because they're so different from the homes people here are used to that they're uncomfortable living in them.

The paradoxical strength of Guatemalan migrants' transnational dreams is nowhere more evident than in the clash between these McMansions — often decorated in red, white and blue — and below-subsistence everyday life in largely indigenous areas like Cabricán.

"Especially in the United States, the indigenous (migrants) go to the bottom of the ladder, but then coming back it's the opposite, they're at the top of the village," said Ruth Piedrasanta Herrera, an anthropologist at Guatemala's Universidad Rafael Landívar who has studied the growing "architecture of remittances" phenomenon.

"Here, they are the successful ones, and the social marker is the home. They told me they suffer less because they have a home."

This is a special story but it is nice to see Guatemalan academics from the Rafael Landivar cited in the story.

Second, Hayley Woodin is on Goldcorp’s Marlin mine: a decade of operations and controversy in Guatemala for Business Vancouver.

Despite the widely opposing views, confusion and disagreement, one thing is certain: mining in Guatemala has divided communities along hard lines, with both sides unable to see eye to eye.

Sandra Cuffe investigates Dam protests met with repression in Ixil region of Guatemala.

On April 28, the Guatemalan police force was sent in to evict local community residents blockading a road by Sotzil, approximately 20 kilometers north of Chajul. Directly affected by a tunnel for the Hidro Xacbal Delta dam, Sotzil residents had demanded fair compensation. Several communities in the area have been denouncing the impacts of the four-kilometer diversion tunnel since at least last year. The company failed to make the payments to Sotzil residents and didn’t show up to a scheduled dialogue session with locals, prompting the blockade, according to de León.

Finally, Jared Goyette takes a look at A Guatemalan spring? Youth-driven protests demand resignation of leaders.

News that a massive government corruption scheme involving more than a dozen high-ranking officials had been uncovered in Guatemala last month seemed at the time like just another piece of bad news in a country that has seen more than its fair share of political dysfunction and crisis.

But this case has proved different — the scandal sparked a movement. Last Saturday, a social media-savvy cohort of young Guatemalans was the driving force behind a protest that was larger than any the country had seen in recent memory. Thousands of people, not just students, poured into into the streets of the capital, Guatemala City. Today, crowds are once again expected to march to demand an end to corruption and the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti. The protests have largely been organized on Facebook and on Twitter, where a hashtag for the movement has developed: #RenunciaYaFase2, or “Resign already, phase 2.”