Guatemalan President Calls Meeting with Cultural Survival

Today, representatives of Cultural Survival, the Guatemalan Community Radio Movement, and several national Indigenous organizations are scheduled to meet with Alvaro Colom (president of Guatemala), Roberto Alejos (president of the Congress), and members of the Supreme Court to discuss how to grant long-promised broadcast licenses to community radio stations. The meeting is the strongest opportunity yet for government support of community radio and is the result of months of intense lobbying by Cultural Survival and our community radio partners.

The meeting follows one on Friday, August 20, 2010, when the president of the Guatemalan Congress, Roberto Alejos (in photo), met with representatives of Cultural Survival, Community Radio Movement, and several national Indigenous organizations to discuss the concrete steps that must be taken to move forward on the pending Community Radio Bill and several other pieces of legislation important to Indigenous People in Guatemala.

Both meetings resulted in part from protests last Tuesday, when tens of thousands of Indigenous People from around to Guatemala gathered in Guatemala City to voice their frustration with Congress’ failure to place the Community Radio Bill on the agenda for floor debate and vote.

Despite guarantees made in the Guatemalan Constitution and the Peace Accords, the Guatemalan telecommunications law does not allow for nonprofit community radio (only commercial radio and government-run radio are licensed). Community members know that they have a right to community radio, and they know that their communities need the radio stations. They are determined to continue to exercise their right and remain on the air even though they face the constant threat of being closed down by the government.

At the end of 2008, Cultural Survival got the government to restart stalled national roundtable discussions. The roundtable resulted in a bill was that was introduced into the Guatemalan Congress in August 2009. This bill, which would grant FM frequencies to nonprofit community radio stations, received a positive recommendation from a Congressional Committee on January 14, 2010. The next step is for the bill to be debated by the full Congress, and that is what the meeting with the president is intended to facilitate.