Download or read book Security and Development Conditions in the Guatemalan Highlands written by Chris Krueger and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Guatemalan Military Project written by Jennifer Schirmer and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1999, the Guatemala truth commission issued its report on human rights violations during Guatemala's thirty-six-year civil war that ended in 1996. The commission, sponsored by the UN, estimates the conflict resulted in 200,000 deaths and disappearances. The commission holds the Guatemalan military responsible for 93 percent of the deaths. In The Guatemalan Military Project, Jennifer Schirmer documents the military's role in human rights violations through a series of extensive interviews striking in their brutal frankness and unique in their first-hand descriptions of the campaign against Guatemala's citizens. High-ranking officers explain in their own words their thoughts and feelings regarding violence, political opposition, national security doctrine, democracy, human rights, and law. Additional interviews with congressional deputies, Guatemalan lawyers, journalists, social scientists, and a former president give a full and balanced account of the Guatemalan power structure and ruling system. With expert analysis of these interviews in the context of cultural, legal, and human rights considerations, The Guatemalan Military Project provides a successful evaluation of the possibilities and processes of conversion from war to peace in Latin America and around the world.
Download or read book The Maya of Guatemala written by Phillip Wearne and published by Minority Rights Group. This book was released on 1994-09-01 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MAYA: A PEOPLE IN RESISTANCE ‘As I go around the world, people seem surprised that we indigenous people of Central America still exist’, noted the Maya Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchú in 1992. More than 500 years after the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, the Maya, descendants of one of the greatest pre-Columbian civilizations, not only exist but are thriving. The survival of 21 different Maya speaking peoples in Guatemala is a living testimony to their powers of resistance. In recent years, the brutal conquest of their cities and mountain lands by Spanish conquistadores in the early sixteenth century, has been replayed in all its horrors. In the 1980s alone, the Guatemalan army is conservatively estimated to have murdered 20,000 Maya. Whole villages were wiped out, as at least 120,000 fled into Mexico and 500,000 became internal refugees. The MAYA OF GUATEMALA studies the Maya world in depth: the history, culture, beliefs and responses to the nonindigenous world. The author, Phillip Wearne, a journalist with long experience in Central America, looks at the Maya cultural resurgence of recent years – the product of both fearsome oppression and international geo-political changes of the 1980s. This is a story of indomitable will, a plea for solidarity and international support for a people who want to reclaim their identity as one of the ‘first peoples’ of the world. It is also a story of resistance and resurgence on behalf of the Maya who in the words of one internal refugee ‘want to come out of the mud, the cold, the shadows and into the sunshine’. Please note that the terminology in the fields of minority rights and indigenous peoples’ rights has changed over time. MRG strives to reflect these changes as well as respect the right to self-identification on the part of minorities and indigenous peoples. At the same time, after over 50 years’ work, we know that our archive is of considerable interest to activists and researchers. Therefore, we make available as much of our back catalogue as possible, while being aware that the language used may not reflect current thinking on these issues.
Download or read book Civil Patrols in Guatemala written by and published by Human Rights Watch. This book was released on 1986 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala written by Edward F. Fischer and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 1996-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An important collection of essays on Mayan activism. Included are pieces by native and non-native scholars reviewing Guatemalan history, ethnic violence, peasant and indigenous cultural resistance to the State, material culture, development, and literacy
Download or read book God and Production in a Guatemalan Town written by Sheldon Annis and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 1987-12 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the late 1970s, Protestantism has emerged as a major force in the political and economic life of rural Guatemala. Indeed, as Sheldon Annis argues in this book, Protestantism may have helped tip Guatemala's guerrilla war in behalf of the army during the early 1980s. But what is it about Protestantism—and about Indians— that has led to massive religious conversion throughout the highlands? And in villages today, what are the dynamics that underlie the competition between Protestants and Catholics? Sheldon Annis addresses these questions from the perspective of San Antonio Aguas Calieutes, an Indian village in the highlands of midwestern Guatemala. Annis skillfully blends economic and cultural analysis to show why Protestantism has taken root. The key "character" in his drama is the village Indian's tiny plot of corn and beans, the milpa, which Annis analyzes as an "idea" as well as an agronomic productive system. By exploring "milpa logic," Annis shows how the economic, environmental, and social shifts of the twentieth century have acted to undercut "the colonial creation of Indianness" and, in doing so, have laid the basis for new cultural identities.
Download or read book Fear as a Way of Life written by Linda Green and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text traces the links between the political violence and repression in the late-20th century and long-term systemic violence connected with class inequalities and gender and ethnic oppression. It addresses the social responsibilities inherent in thepractice of anthropology.
Download or read book Dirty Hands and Vicious Deeds written by Samuel Totten and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2018-01-10 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government officials were reasonable or unreasonable; moral, amoral or immoral; right or wrong; and/or legal or criminal. In his Introduction, Totten offers a critical assessment of the US Foreign Policy as it pertains to genocide and crimes against humanity, and discusses the differences between those two terms--a subject that generates great debate among scholars. In the following chapters, each author presents a detailed analysis of a particular case of crimes against humanity or genocide by a foreign government against its own citizens, and discusses why and how United States Government was complicit by aiding and/or remaining silent. What makes the collection unique--and chilling--is the inclusion of actual declassified documents generated by the U.S. Government at the time. Such documents include memoranda, telegrams, letters, talking points, cables, reports, discussion papers, and situation reports. .
Download or read book Guatemalan Indians and the State written by Carol A. Smith and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violence in Central America, especially when directed against Indian populations, is not a new phenomenon. Yet few studies of the region have focused specifi cally on the relationship between Indians and the state, a relationship that may hold the key to understanding these conflicts. In this volume, noted historians and anthropologists pool their considerable expertise to analyze the situation in Guatemala, working from the premise that the Indian/state relationship is the single most important determinant of Guatemala’s distinctive history and social order. In chapters by such respected scholars as Robert Cormack, Ralph Lee Woodward, Christopher Lutz, Richard Adams, and Arturo Arias, the history of Indian activism in Guatemala unfolds. The authors reveal that the insistence of Guatemalan Indians on maintaining their distinctive cultural practices and traditions in the face of state attempts to eradicate them appears to have fostered the development of an increasingly oppressive state. This historical insight into the forces that shaped modern Guatemala provides a context for understanding the extraordinary level of violence that enveloped the Indians of the western highlands in the 1980s, the continued massive assault on traditional religious and secular culture, the movement from a militarized state to a militarized civil society, and the major transformations taking place in Guatemala’s traditional export-oriented economy. In this sense, Guatemalan Indians and the State, 1540 to 1988 provides a revisionist social history of Guatemala.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Guatemala written by Michael F. Fry and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guatemala holds a dual image. For more than a century, travel writers, explorers, and movie producers have painted the country as an exotic place, a land of tropical forests and the home of the ancient and living Maya. Archaeological ruins, abandoned a millennium ago, have enhanced their depictions with a wistful, dreamy aura of bygone days of pagan splendor, and the unique colorful textiles of rural Maya today connect nostalgically with that distant past. Inspired by that vision, fascinated tourists have flocked there for the past six decades. Most have not been disappointed; it is a genuine facet of a complex land. Guatemala is also portrayed as a poor, violent, repressive country ruled by greedy tyrants with the support of an entrenched elite—the archetypal banana republic. The media and scholarly studies consistently confirm that fair assessment of the social, political, and economic reality. The Historical Dictionary of Guatemala contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Guatemala.
Download or read book The Democracy Development Machine written by Nicholas Copeland and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nicholas Copeland sheds new light on rural politics in Guatemala and across neoliberal and post-conflict settings in The Democracy Development Machine. This historical ethnography examines how governmentalized spaces of democracy and development fell short, enabling and disfiguring an ethnic Mayan resurgence. In a passionate and politically engaged book, Copeland argues that the transition to democracy in Guatemalan Mayan communities has led to a troubling paradox. He finds that while liberal democracy is celebrated in most of the world as the ideal, it can subvert political desires and channel them into illiberal spaces. As a result, Copeland explores alternative ways of imagining liberal democracy and economic and social amelioration in a traumatized and highly unequal society as it strives to transition from war and authoritarian rule to open elections and free-market democracy.The Democracy Development Machine follows Guatemala's transition, reflects on Mayan involvement in politics during and after the conflict, and provides novel ways to link democratic development with economic and political development. Thanks to generous funding from Virginia Tech and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access (OA) volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other Open Access repositories.
Download or read book Buried Secrets written by Victoria Sanford and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-04-19 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the late 1970s and the late-1980s, Guatemala was torn by mass terror and extreme violence in a genocidal campaign against the Maya, which becameknown as "La Violencia." More than 600 massacres occurred, one and a half million people were displaced, and more than 200,000 civilians were murdered, most of them Maya. Buried Secrets brings these chilling statistics to life as it chronicles the journey of Maya survivors seeking truth, justice, and community healing, and demonstrates that the Guatemalan army carried out a systematic and intentional genocide against the Maya. The book is based on exhaustive research, including more than 400 testimonies from massacre survivors, interviews with members of the forensic team, human rights leaders, high-ranking military officers, guerrilla combatants, and government officials. Buried Secrets traces truth-telling and political change from isolated Maya villages to national political events, and provides a unique look into the experiences of Maya survivors as they struggle to rebuild their communities and lives.
Download or read book Feeding the Crisis written by Rachel Garst and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines United States food aid to Central America, and makes detailed recommendations for changes in its administration
Download or read book Relentless Persistence written by Philip McManus and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2004-12-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the face of enormous disparities of wealth and despite brutal repression, Latin America is alive with movements for change. Struggles for human rights, community organization and political participation have enabled Latin Americans to assume their role as authors of their own history. 'Relentless Persistence' illustrates in human terms the vitality and diversity of these movements - and their often astonishing results. How did popular pressure in Uruguay drive the military dictatorship into retreat? How are the indigenous people of Peru continuing their 450-year-old tradition of resistance to subjugation and acculturation? What are base community organizers doing to create real democracy in Chile? In answering these questions, 'Relentless Persistence' gives us inspiring examples of human creativity and commitment, explores the rich relationship between faith and politics, and demonstrates the dynamic integration of reflection, strategy and action that can lead to liberation. Here are the stories of cement workers in Brazil who maintained militant nonviolence throughout a successful twelve-year strike; of four women whose hunger strike brought Bolivia to a standstill until tin miners' rights were restored; of Honduran peasants whose land occupations enable them to feed their families; of the Argentinean 'Madres de Plaza de Mayo', whose bold actions awakened the conscience of their nation. Through case studies and personal testimonies, Relentless Persistence offers both the fascination of remarkable success stories and a deeper understanding of how ordinary people can create dramatic change. For North Americans, conditioned to expect quick results, Relentless Persistence provides perspective for the long haul - a healthy antidote to easy discouragement. It is above all a strength-giving book, full of moving examples of people acting with great determination and a profound joy of life.
Download or read book Harvest Of Want written by Scott Whiteford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-04 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harvest of Want demonstrates how hunger and malnutrition can exist simultaneously with growth in agricultural production. It points out a series of factors that have generated food insecurity throughout much of Central America and Mexico. .
Download or read book The Battle For Guatemala written by Susanne Jonas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a contemporary history of Guatemala's thirty-year civil war, evaluating the central protagonists in the turbulent battle for Guatemala—rebels, death squads, and the United States power.
Download or read book Protestantism in Guatemala written by Virginia Garrard-Burnett and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-07-22 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guatemala has undergone an unprecedented conversion to Protestantism since the 1970s, so that thirty percent of its people now belong to Protestant churches, more than in any other Latin American nation. To illuminate some of the causes of this phenomenon, Virginia Garrard-Burnett here offers the first history of Protestantism in a Latin American country, focusing specifically on the rise of Protestantism within the ethnic and political history of Guatemala. Garrard-Burnett finds that while Protestant missionaries were early valued for their medical clinics, schools, translation projects, and especially for the counterbalance they provided against Roman Catholicism, Protestantism itself attracted few converts in Guatemala until the 1960s. Since then, however, the militarization of the state, increasing public violence, and the "globalization" of Guatemalan national politics have undermined the traditional ties of kinship, custom, and belief that gave Guatemalans a sense of identity, and many are turning to Protestantism to recreate a sense of order, identity, and belonging.
