7.1 (Spring 1983) Death and Disorder in Guatemala

Whereas, on December 4, 1982, the President of the United States has indicated that he will support military aid to Guatemala; and

Whereas, the military government of Guatemala is repressing the population of that country to an unprecedented degree;

Therefore, be it moved that the American Anthropological Association condemn the genocide being perpetuated by the Guatemalan Government, and that it demand that no military aid be given to the Guatemalan Government, and that the AAA make this demand of the US Government in a public forum.

Whereas Amnesty International ha

We have interrupted the schedule of the Quarterly to publish this issue on Guatemala.

As the global recession reaches the Third World, developing nations have begun to adopt "nationals first" policies.

To relieve unemployment, many governments have decided to evict foreign nationals. Nigeria, Kenya, and Switzerland have all expelled foreign workers.

We believe that the course of U.S. foreign policy in Central America should be changed. The Reagan Administration's extreme approach is fostering not peace and democracy, but increased polarization and radicalization.

The people of Iran today are reeling in shock and disbelief at the oppression, devastation, and violence the Khomeini regime has wreaked upon their land.

Hundreds of thousands of evangelicals gathered here November 28 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Protestantism in Guatemala. Only divine providence, they believe, can explain this year's remarkable turn of events.

Mario Juruna, a Shavante from Namunkurá in the state of Mato Grosso, has become the first Indian ever elected to congress in Brazil. He left his native state to run for ejection in Rio de Janeiro and was voted in as a Federal Deputy on the ticket of the PDT (Democratic Workers' Party) last November.

Section 701 of the International Financial Institutions Act requires that the U.S. Executive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) oppose any aid for a country whose government is a gross and consistent violator of internationally recognized human rights, except when such aid is designed to meet basic human needs.

The Shavante Indians used to live between the Tocantins and Araguaia rivers of central Brazil, close to the huge inland island of Bananal. They fought the gold miners who entered their territory in the eighteenth century and then moved away southwestward over a hundred years ago to their present habitat west of the Araguaia. The frontier caught up with them again in the 1930s and they quickly achieved a reputation for bellicosity in the Brazilian press, again defending themselves against the intruders.

A few years ago, before the present wave of violence in Guatemala, I lived in a Mayan Indian community in the northwestern part of the country, an area where whole populations of Indian hamlets have been massacred in recent military operations. When I was there for a year in 1972-73 and the summer of 1975 the outlines of the present conflict were already forming. I spent most of my time in the small Indian community of Aguacatan in the Department of Huehuetenango. The history of events in Aguacatan were typical for the region.