Concerned about our sovereignty and our future

On Wednesday, March 13 , 2019, The Embassies of Germany, Canada, Spain, the United States of America, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, the European Union Delegation, members of the Donor Group in Guatemala G13, the Netherlands and Norway published a press release on the US embassy embassy website and the US embassy Twitter account, in this press release, the G13 express their concern about two bills that are are currently being discussed at the Guatemalan congress

The N.5257 is a bill that will address the concern that the bast majority of Guatemalans have about NGO’s accountability in the meddling of our internal affairs, ranging from undermining our judicial system to meddling our elections. The N.5377 is a bill that will addresses a legal loophole that was put in place by the insurgency on the peace agreements that were signed between a Guatemalan president and the guerrilla fighters but never ratified by our congress after the bast majority of Guatemalans expressed their discontent with the agreements in a referendum.

I’m a Guatemalan, I as any other Guatemalan, want peace to thrive in our country, to recognize errors in the past and let them live where they belong, in the past. I do not intend to justify any of the war crimes committed by both sides during our internal armed conflict, but I understand what war is, what crimes against humanity are, and the price of peace, the amnesty of both sides.

The Molina Theissen Case

I’m a web developer, and because several attacks to my freedom of expression, I became a journalist, I have witnessed some of the trials against alleged war criminals, and it is stunning to see that in this trials, hard evidence and the rule of law doesn’t exist at all, the very publicized Molina Theissen case didn’t have any sort of evidence to prove beyond doubt the participation and guilt of the alleged war criminals, they were found guilty because a loophole in an agreement that states that anything that an alleged war victim said, is true, this is unacceptable in a democracy.

All powers in the G13 have a common legal ground when it comes to a jury, “A Jury of Your Peers”, Guatemala has a different system, and sadly, in the Molina Theissen case, the main judge in charge, Pablo Xitumul de Paz, was the son of a guerrilla fighter, and sadly, fallen in combat. You cannot guarantee an independent justice by judging war crime by one side of the conflict.

The alleged genocide in Guatemala

I use to believe the narrative that we had a genocide in Guatemala, until I decided to read the legal grounds of this claim. Guatemala has adopted an exact copy of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” by the United Nations on the Article 376 of our legal code, and being the same, here is how the UN define genocide:

Definition, Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

I was present in most hearing during the “genocide trial”, there is not a single pice of evidence that the Guatemalan government or the military issued an order with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, the only order that was followed by the military command was to defend the non combatant citizens.

The common Guatemalan concern

I as any other Guatemalan, feel concern about this trials, because all share multiples unusual issues:

• Lack of any evidence to prove beyond doubt any allegation.
• Biased judges that are linked one way or another to the guerrilla.
• Experts from NGOs founded by the Open Society Foundations.
• The presence of several allegedly human rights NGOs, all founded by the Open Society Foundations.
• The presence of several “independent news organizations” founded by the Open Society Foundations.
• Literature founded by the Open Society Foundations.
• A strong bias towards extreme left ideas.

At the end of 2010, the Guatemalan society was in peace, most Guatemalans had left the past in the past, but because the strong founding of this NGOs and the revival of this discussions, now our society is extremely polarized.

Most Guatemalans want their government to invest in building roads, highways, hospitals, schools, to invest in security and our development as a nation, but because this social divide and the constant expenses made not only on long trials and bureaucracy but in reparations, a poor country like Guatemala cannot stand by it self.

Most Guatemalas are concerned that we are being misrepresented by a small group of NGOs and bureaucrats into the international community, Helen Mack, Lucrecia Hernández Mack, Iduvina Estalinova Hernández Batres, Brenda Lissette Hernández Bátres, Rigoberta Menchú, Norma Torres, Luis Assardo, Abraham Samuel Pérez De León aka Samuel Pérez Attias, Laura Briseida Milián Lemus, Ronald Ochaeta, Álvaro Montenegro Muralles, Gidgett Renata Avila Pinto, Luis Ángel Sas Ordoñez, Sandino Asturias, Edgar Alfredo Ortega Franco, etc. do not represent the common Guatemalan, they represent their own interests and the interests of the organizations they belong and profit of. Most of this people have great influence in our politics, internal and international affairs, and on our media, misrepresenting the majority of Guatemalans.

We, the Guatemalan people, are concern about the influence given to George Soros Open Society Foundations in your governments, as it was denounced by Nigel Farage:

We are concerned about the influence that Soros organizations has in our country, in our democracy, and in our judicial system. So it is not surprise to anyone who is well informed that most of the countries aligned with the Soros agenda are against our congress bill proposals, it puts in jeopardy a great influence they have in our internal affairs and sovereignty.

It is also concerning that the press release published by the US Embassy doesn’t have an English copy, it is only in Spanish, but thanks to the power of the Internet, here is a translated version.

A partener, not a slave

Most of the Guatemalan people have a great respect and admiration to all G13 nations, to their people, we want to be treated as brothers, as partners, with the same respect that we have give them, with the same support we have provided in the past, with respect of our internal affairs and sovereignty, we as a country have never condemned the killing of state leaders like Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein, we have never meddled in any of the many wars in the Middle East, or any other war, we have not condemned the thousands of “civil casualties” in this wars, we have not claimed a Japanese genocide because of the unnecessary atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because we have a great respect to your decisions and internal affairs, and the only thing we ask, is to let us govern ourselves.

It is quite concerning that thirteen countries, thirteen great and powerful nations, show so much interest in two bills that the Guatemalan people have requested our congress to address issues that matter to us, while they are mostly silent when it comes to a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. This bills are made to bring peace to our country, to turn the page and finally face the present day to build a future, and even though I do not represent all the Guatemalan population, I’m quite confident that the vast majority of Guatemalans, want this bills, to have accountable NGOs and to let the past in the past, where it belongs.

We don’t want to live in the past, to have a biased judicial system dedicated almost exclusively in three decade along war just to give reparations to a industry of reparations founded by a billionaire, we want peace, and for that, we ask you kindly for your support, to be a real partner, please, support our sovereignty and our future.