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Guatemala

2012: Does the Mayan Calendar Predict the End of the World?

Date: 01/30/2012

 In Momostenango, a small town in the highland region of Guatemala, the Quiche Mayan community did not enter the 2012 year dreading doomsday predictions. Instead, they’re gearing up for their biggest party yet. 

Guatemala Radio Project Volunteer: Noe Navarro

Date: 01/10/2012

Noe Navarro is from an Indigenous Maya Mam community in the north-western part of Guatemala, called San Miguel Ixtahuacan, San Marcos. He has been involved in social activism over the past ten years, helping to organize the community's struggle against the infamous Marlin gold mine, which has been operating in San Miguel since 2005, and has been environmentally as well as socially damaging for his community. Noe got involved with community radio movement after his organization, ADISMI, decided to launch their own radio station, ‘Voz del Pueblo.' After receiving training from Cultural Survival staff, Noe became co-director of the station, along with two other volunteers.

Congress Ends Term with Promises Broken

Date: 01/10/2012

With the 2011 elections over, Guatemala's new President and Congress will take office this weekend on January 14th. The term in office ends after four years of promises that never amounted to the passage of the community radio bill 4087. An editorial published in Guatemala's most respected newspaper, El Periodico, highlights Congress' failure to pass the bill as well as the general disregard for the needs and concerns of Indigenous Peoples, due to what he calls a lack of political will.  The bill 4087, to legalize community radio, will remain active in the next term of congress, awaiting debate in plenary session.

See a full translation of the Periodico artice, below. 

 

Community Radio Gains Time in Fight against Further Monopolization in Guatemala

Date: 12/10/2011

Last week the community radio movement won a partial victory in the fight for democratic access to radio frequencies in Guatemala, with the congress's failure to vote approval on the bill 4404, which would have extended the current radio frequencies allocated to the mass media for another 25 years.  

By rejecting the bill in it's first round of debate, the bill will be delayed until it can be re-entered in the next calendar year when the newly-elected Congress takes office.  

The community radio movement publicly denounced bill 4404, as it disregards Indigenous Peoples' right to access media and is celebrating this measured victory.  "The news comes as such a relief," explained movement leader Alberto Recinos. "We feel that the actions we have taken to prevent bill 4404 from passing at this stage have really had an impact.  The decision to delay further debate gives us time to strategize our next steps."

In a recent editorial in Guatemala's major newspaper La Prensa Libre, UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and ally of the community radio movement, Dr. Frank La Rue, also expressed his disapproval of the legislation.  His opinion piece, entitled "Behind the People's Backs" is summarized in English below. Read his full article in Spanish, here.

 

A Day In the Life of Radio Doble Via

Radio Doble Vía (Two Way Street) in the town of San Mateo, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala is one of the 85 locally owned and community-run radio stations which partners with Cultural Survival’s Community Radio Program. The work of this alternative form of communication is based on the promotion of values pertaining to the various Indigenous cultures that exist in Guatemala, as well as exercising one’s right to freedom of expression.

Throughout the course of eight years, Doble Vía has come to serve the communication needs of the whole San Mateo community from youth to adults, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. The station has no ties to partisan or sectarian politics; according to their mission statement, everyone has the same rights to express their ideas, dreams, and hopes.

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