Guatemala Archives - Page 5 of 5

Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny: A Photographic Essay

“En 1800, un visitante europeo llamó a Guatemala Tierra de la Eterna Primavera. Un siglo después, el político y ensayista guatemalteco Manuel Galich llamó a su país Tierra de la Eterna Tiranía. Para pocos, Guatemala es un paraíso. Para muchos, es todo lo contrario.” For the few, Guatemala is a paradise. For the many, it … Read more

Danger in Guatemala

The battle to regain control of Guatemala’s institutions from deeply entrenched criminal interests has reached an alarming new juncture. Two weeks ago, the head of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a UN-led commission to investigate and prosecute high-profile organized crime and corruption, resigned in frustration. Since January 2008, the CICIG has made … Read more

CAFTA-DR Pact:Opening up new frontiers

As President George W. Bush pressures Congress to ratify the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, it is worth examining the results to date of the Dominican Republic-Central America-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). That agreement, involving the United States, five Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) and the Dominican Republic has taken … Read more

Central America’s Youth Leaders

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Central America has come a long way since the civil wars of the 1980s. A new generation has come of age, growing up in a region that is at peace but confronting new challenges of crime, security, poverty, and inequality.

Dispatches: Tracking Cancer in the Guatemalan Highlands

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A dusty, pocked ribbon of road winds up and down through the rugged mountains of Alta Verapaz, an extremely remote, mostly indigenous area of Guatemala. Temperatures rise and fall according to elevation, and the air is thick with smoke from the traditional burning of cornfields and from deforestation by fire. This land provides subsistence for an estimated 1.2 million Q’eqchi’ Mayans, who have clung tenaciously to it through colonization and the ravages of civil war.

Growing Public Insecurity in Central America

Crime has replaced soccer as the hot conversation topic among business leaders, journalists, construction workers, and secretaries in Central America’s Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Although the problems of delinquency, particularly maras (youth gangs) and organized criminal networks, are not new to the region, public skepticism—bordering on contempt—for all three governments’ inability to deal … Read more