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.”

Protecting workers' rights in El Salvador

Lydia DePillis has an interesting article on Why it’s so hard to protect workers caught in global supply chains in the Washington Post that uses El Salvador as an example.

What happened at Rivera’s factory illustrates one of the biggest problems in the global supply chain: How to protect workers in a brutally competitive industry where factories constantly close and open, as brands chase new trends and lower costs, and no one is held accountable for laws broken along the way.

Like most developing countries, El Salvador has no real form of workers compensation, but it does require factory owners to pay people lump sums in the event of a closure — usually about a month of salary for every year worked. That can be the largest amount of money a worker ever sees at one time, and it’s essential to tide them over until they find a new job.

But all too often, the factory owners don’t pay up — it’s a large sum, at a time when the factory is often in financial distress. Liquidating their assets takes a painfully long time, and usually doesn’t yield enough. And left to their own devices, apparel brands have little incentive to force factories to set aside money for future severance payments, since that might increase costs.

Hanes is one of the companies that ponied up when a factory it purchased materials from closed down and the owner of that factory failed to pay the legally required severance to workers. I guess that is one of the reasons why HanesBrands was honored by the Great Place to Work Institute for its workplace practices in its Salvadoran manufacturing plants.

However, it's not all good news. A union activist alleges that the owner that closed the factory did so because its workers had attempted to unionize.

What Should Be Done to Reduce El Salvador's Homicides?

Christine Wade, Ricardo Cevallos, Adam Blackwell, and Douglas Farah contributed answers to the following questions from the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Advisor:

El Salvador suffered its highest monthly homicide rate in a decade in March, with 481 murders. And since the beginning of the year, 23 police officers and six soldiers were killed in confrontations with gang members in the Central American country. In response to the growing homicide rate in El Salvador, where a gang truce broke down last year, President Salvador Sánchez Céren created three new "rapid response" battalions for the army and one for the police. Why is El Salvador's murder rate increasing? Is Sánchez Céren taking the right steps to reverse it? What more should he be doing?

Here was Christine's answer

"What we see today in El Salvador is a result of the failure of previous administrations to address the legacy of societal violence, invest in education and social programs, and implement reforms that would strengthen the rule of law while respecting human rights and address impunity. While some minor advancements were made in these areas during the Funes administration, the reliance on militarized policing by both the Funes and Sánchez Céren administrations is disappointing but unsurprising given the past dependence of such policies. And while militarized policing may be popular, it is also ineffective and counterproductive—not to mention a violation of the peace accords.

The Sánchez Céren administration needs a comprehensive program to address societal violence, impunity and corruption. This is key because anyone who thinks that the violence in El Salvador is just about gangs is kidding themselves. But a comprehensive program in addressing these issues is the long game, and the escalating gang violence in the country demands a short game as well. Stemming the current wave of violence is not only key to saving lives and building public confidence, but is also necessary to create the political space to engage in dialogue to develop a more comprehensive plan. Last week, the administration introduced a draft gang rehabilitation law. At first glance, it appears to be the most comprehensive and promising policy we've seen on gangs to date. If the draft law becomes a reality, it will require sustained domestic and international support to succeed."

You can read the rest of the answers here.