#Guatemalan politics

[aerial-jace]

Guatpol Update

I've been scrolling the news these past few hours or so unable to sleep and since I said I'd post more about my own country's politics I thought to share what I have gleaned about the current top stories.

OLYMPICS!

You may not know but Guatemala actually had its first ever Olympic gold medallist (Adriana Ruano, women's trap shooting) and its first ever Olympic bronze medallist (Jean Pierre Brol, men's trap shooting). Alongside Erick Barrondo's Olympic silver medal in men's 20km racewalk from London 2012, this makes a complete set.

This is a big political story for a couple reasons, first off Ruano and Brol are getting a cash payout from the Guatemalan Olympic Committee, 3 million quetzales for the former and 1 million 250 thousand quetzales for the latter. (One Guatemalan quetzal is worth about 1/8 of a US dollar, for reference.) Second off, our recently elected president Bernardo Arevalo used last Saturday's celebration of the athletes to announce plans to spend more on sporting facilities. Very much an easy to sell proposition given the results on display.

But perhaps most importantly this is very much a political win for Arevalo personally. Due to the events surrounding our last election his government has been fighting an uphill battle to do much of anything. But something Arevalo has been able to do very effectively on his own is diplomacy and it is his diplomacy that averted Guatemala being excluded from the Olympics due to conflicts with the International Olympics Committee.

This crowd-pleaser victory may just be what he needs to keep support for his party, Movimiento Semilla, strong in spite of attacks from all other established parties. Speaking of...

LEGAL FOUL PLAY!

The current director of FECI, the legal prosecution office against corruption established after the independent UN observer body CICIG was dismantled, recently brought charges against and tried to remove legal immunity from Arevalo for allegedly wrongly dismissing a cabinet member. The cabinet member in question ignored orders to go through with a telecommunications contract that was allegedly corrupt. However, pretty much everyone agrees this is a politically motivated move, in line with a pattern of legal challenges brought since last year's elections whose actual purpose is to prevent Arevalo from governing. We will see where this goes but so far this move is being widely condemned.

COURT APPOINTMENT DELAYS!

In other legal news, the Guatemalan Supreme Court of Justice (whose members serve for 5 year terms) is yet to be appointed! We have been at this since 2019. Hurry the fuck up, goddammit. This is what a highly corrupt state and partisan fractioning gets us. At least if no more delays pop up we will maybe get this over with by September. Maybe.

BUDGET EXPANSION!

Credit where credit's due, even with a minority in congress and having to work with their direct political enemies Arevalo was able to finally approve the 14 thousand 451 million GTQ budget expansion he has been trying to get for most of the year. However, like Arevalo and Semilla's every other move, this isn't without legal challenges. At least the US ambassador seems to have expressed approval so maybe he can twist the opposition's arm into letting this one go.

TAX EVASION!

IMO the biggest story of right now is the discovery and investigation into a tax fraud and money laundering scheme to the tune of 300 million GTQ related to contracts awarded by the government of our last president, Alejandro Giammattei. This is perhaps a golden opportunity that just fell in Arevalo's lap as pursuing this scandal, a tax scandal 10 times the size of the famous 2015 La Linea scandal which gave birth to Moviniento Semilla, is perfect for the party to show its commitment to its founding principles. Here's hoping success prosecuting it strikes fear in the Guatemalan establishment and can serve as a stepping stone to reform.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

US and Brazil warn of attempt to stop Guatemala president-elect taking power

Fears Guatemalan democracy is in peril amid warning of potential coup to block inauguration of anti-corruption crusader

International concern over the future of Guatemala’s democracy is growing, as Brazil’s president warned of a possible coup to stop the president-elect taking power and the US denounced unprecedented attempts to undermine the Central American country’s election result.

The centre-left anti-corruption crusader Bernardo Arévalo was elected Guatemala’s new president last month. This week thousands of supporters took to the streets to protest against alleged attempts to block his inauguration in January.

Last week, Arévalo – the son of Guatemala’s first democratically elected president, Juan José Arévalo – temporarily pulled out of the transition process after government officials raided electoral facilities where ballot boxes were being stored. Arévalo has accused corrupt officials and politicians of launching “a plan to break the constitutional order and subvert democracy”. “A coup d’état [is] under way,” he claimed earlier this month after attempts to suspend his party, the Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement).

Addressing the UN general assembly on Tuesday, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, echoed Arévalo’s warning, citing the crisis in Guatemala after recent “institutional ruptures” in the African nations of Burkina Faso, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Sudan. “In Guatemala, there’s the risk of a coup, which would prevent the winner of democratic elections taking office,” Lula said.

Continue reading.

[dialmforolrik]

[16/08/2023, Plaza de la Constitución, Guatemala] A woman holding the portrait of Juan José Arévalo – the first democratically elected president of Guatemala, after a popular revolution in 1944 overthrew the dictatorship – notices beside her Bernardo Arévalo, Juan José Arévalo's son and the unlikely leading candidate for president of this Central American country.

After decades of corrupt politicians pocketing up to 40% of the State's budget, Bernardo Arévalo has gather enormous popular support with his low-cost, power-to-the-people, anti-corruption campaign. This Sunday (Aug. 20th) the Guatemalan people will choose between him and her unscrupulous, foul-mouthed, anti-lgbtq, formerly imprisoned for illegal campaign financing opponent, Sandra Torres.

[pirateofprose]

these next elections are plagued by the worst kind of corrupt, opportunist parasites posing as hot candidates that will finally help people i hope you all get into a building at the same time and it fucking explodes

[encyclop3dia]

if i had a nickel for every time the CIA has helped boot a well-loved and supported politician out of office in another country (where said politician was either democratically elected or fairly appointed to their position) because some company didn't like that the politician was looking out for human rights, i would have AT LEAST two nickels. there may be more.

[albedobeheading]

I wish I could be the smaller person!!! when they go low I go lower type shit!!! embarrass a mfer!!!!

[usnewsper-business]

Jimmy Morales' party can stay despite court ruling #election #guatemala #guatemalan #jimmymorales #presidential

[usnewsper-politics]

Jimmy Morales' party can stay despite court ruling #election #guatemala #guatemalan #jimmymorales #presidential

[radiofreederry]

Happy birthday, Jacobo Arbenz! (September 14, 1913)

President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was only the second democratically-elected leader in Guatemala's history. A lifelong progressive who was friendly with socialists and communists, Arbenz played a prominent role in the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944 which toppled the country's repressive right-wing government. as Minister of Defense under President Juan José Arévalo, Arbenz was crucial in quashing a military coup which sought to end the revolution, a portent of things to come. Arbenz was then elected President in his own right and sought to extend the revolution, including through land reform and redistribution of uncultivated land. Much of this land was owned by the United Fruit Company, which lobbied the US government for Arbenz's removal. The CIA acquiesced, launching Operation PBSuccess, a military coup that removed Arbenz from power and unleashed decades of genocidal violence on the people of Guatemala, with the backing of the United States. Arbenz, for his part, fled into exile, where he would die in 1971.

"Our crime is wanting to have our own route to the Atlantic, our own electric power and our own docks and ports. Our crime is our patriotic wish to advance, to progress, to win economic independence to match our political independence. We are condemned because we have given our peasant population land and rights."

[zvaigzdelasas]

Probably a pretty good sign about Arévalo that heritage foundation doesn't like him lmao

The results also do not bode well for America, as the current government has been pro-U.S. and a staunch American foreign policy ally, and the election of a leftist government could dramatically change all that.[...]

Arévalo hails from a new political party, Semilla. Local conservatives fear “he will make common cause with global progressives on abortion, gender identity, and a pro-LGBTQ+ platform.” Last year, Semilla unsuccessfully introduced a bill in parliament “for persons who menstruate,” a reference to “transgender” men’s rights [...]

The impact of Guatemala’s election on American national security could be severe. The current conservative government has been a staunch U.S. foreign policy ally, recognizing Taiwan over Communist China, openly backing Ukraine over Russia, and being solidly pro-Israel and pro-U.S. Other Latin American states have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative of receiving massive loans and infrastructure investments in return for loyalty to Beijing. Recently, current Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei pledged “absolute support” for Taiwan after neighboring Honduras switched sides and recognized Beijing over Taipei.[...]

[Arévalo] has made it clear that he wants to establish closer relations with China since he believes that it is essential for Guatemala’s economic growth. Palmieri said that Guatemala’s conservative values are aligned with conservative American principles: “Guatemala is one of the U.S.’s last partners in the region that still holds conservative values such as support for a free-market economy, recognizing the hemispheric threat Communist China represents, and fidelity to the idea that the family structure is central to our lives.”

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

The New Apostolic Reformation Is Expanding Its Seven Mountain Mandate Crusade into Latin America

NAR leaders, including Che Ahn of Harvest Rock Church, Cindy Jacobs, and Charles Stock from the Harrisburg-based Life Center Church have traveled across the hemisphere meeting with Church leaders in Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, and elsewhere.

The leaders of the U.S.-based charismatic New Apostlic Reformation movement are spreading their influence into Latin America. NAR leaders, including Che Ahn of Harvest Rock Church, Cindy Jacobs, and Charles Stock from the Harrisburg-based Life Center Church, among many others, have traveled across the hemisphere meeting with Church leaders in Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, and elsewhere strengthening their networks and spreading their message.

Stock has traveled to Peru on a number of occasions, including in November 2023 where he met with Peruvian congresswoman Milagros Aguayo, who was a key activist in the far-right anti-LGBTQ+ Don’t Mess With My Kids movement before she was elected to congress. 

The regressive theocratic ideas they present build off the far-right positions that already exist in Latin America, but also filtrate through the churches in the region.

“They are direct influences,” Paulo Gracino de Souza Jr, a Brazilian professor of political sociology at the University of Brasilia, says. “They bring these pastors from the United States for conferences and such and these ideas circulate not only in large churches here in Brazil, but also in small churches because many of the pastors of smaller churches attend seminars in the large churches.”

Continue reading.

[packerfansam-blog]

https://us.blastingnews.com/world/2023/01/guatemala-ex-president-alvaro-colom-dies-from-esophageal-cancer-003632595.html

[mariacallous]

In mid-January, Phil Gordon visited Guatemala to hand deliver a letter from Kamala Harris to a man who very likely owed his presidency to U.S. diplomatic intervention.

Bernardo Arévalo de León had just been inaugurated as Guatemala’s new leader, despite efforts by the country’s outgoing government over months to derail a democratic transition of power. Gordon, the U.S. vice president’s national security advisor, was in Guatemala to attend Arévalo’s inauguration with a delegation of other high-level Biden administration officials.

The letter congratulated him on his victory and invited him to Washington for a meeting with Harris, according to a copy reviewed by Foreign Policy. But its real significance was spelled out between the lines. A senior administration official involved in the discussions said the letter was a “signal that the U.S. gives full-throated support to Arévalo and Guatemala’s democratic transition of power.”

The inauguration itself took place after midnight on Jan. 15, following a dramatic final effort by members of Guatemala’s outgoing government to halt the proceedings. Gordon and other members of the U.S. delegation were instrumental in ensuring the transition of power took place, having imposed sanctions and visa restrictions, and back channeled with other embassies to pressure Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei to accept the election results and step aside.

The democratic transition in Guatemala represents one of the clearest victories of U.S. President Joe Biden’s agenda to promote democracy worldwide, as well as a rare example of Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security team playing a distinct and direct role in shepherding it through, according to interviews with multiple administration insiders and Central America experts. The episode provides possible insights into how Harris’s foreign-policy team would work should she win the presidential election in November.

While it went relatively unnoticed in Washington, where people are largely focused on wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the U.S. maneuver to bolster democracy in Guatemala was a policy win—in stark contrast to some of the administration’s endeavors in other parts of the world. The Biden administration has faced criticism for embracing autocrats in ways that undermined his stated goals of promoting global democracy. Across West Africa, the United States has failed to stem an “epidemic” of coups that dealt a heavy blow to U.S. interests. In Afghanistan, which the United States withdrew from chaotically three years ago, democracy is more distant than ever.

“Probably the most key player for securing this transition for Arévalo was the international community and specifically the United States,” said Marielos Chang, a Guatemalan political consultant and professor at the Universidad del Valle in Guatemala.

When Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race last month and endorsed Harris, one of the many questions posed about the vice president was: What role had she played on foreign-policy issues? Many current and former U.S. national security officials say it is hard to discern where Harris and her small national security team have made a mark—but Guatemala stands as an exception.

Harris became the administration’s point person on Central America’s Northern Triangle region to tackle the root causes of migration, an assignment that later became a point of controversy on the campaign trail—and a source of criticism from Republicans. Migration encounters at the U.S. southern border hit a record high at the end of 2023, and border security and migration remains a major issue for both parties on the campaign trail, particularly for Republicans.

“President Biden gave Vice President Harris one job—‘border czar’—and she failed miserably,” Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said last month, echoing similar charges across the board from Republicans that the Harris campaign has sought to push back on.

Throughout her time as vice president, Harris and her national security team worked closely with Giammattei’s government to try to tackle the root causes of migration from the source, even before Guatemala’s transition crisis.

Guatemala is Central America’s most populous country and a key hub for the flow of migrants north toward the U.S. southern border.

One key initiative Harris’s team and other National Security Council (NSC) officials worked on with Giammattei was the “safe mobility office” initiative, to try to establish offices in the region where people could apply for asylum in the United States from afar or learn about the convoluted U.S. migration system before ever reaching the U.S. border.

Gordon met with Giammattei for over nine hours in one of his numerous trips to Guatemala as they hashed out these proposals, according to a senior administration official familiar with the matter. This official and others spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on the record about internal government deliberations.

The National Immigration Forum, a nonprofit organization that tracks migration issues, has said that “much remains unclear about the offices’ operational realities” but that it is aimed at lessening the burden on immigration systems at the border and deterring people from trying to venture there in the first place.

Arévalo won Guatemala’s presidential election in August 2023 by a comfortable margin on a campaign of anti-corruption reforms. In the wake of the election, “we were starting to see signs that Giammattei’s administration was seeking to block the outcome of the free and fair elections and prevent a peaceful transfer of power,” said Katie Tobin, the former top Biden migration advisor at the NSC.

From there, Harris’s team was well placed to launch the pressure campaign on the outgoing government to accept the election results. It was also coordinated by the top U.S. diplomat at the time in Guatemala, Patrick Ventrell, and other State Department and Treasury Department officials, according to the officials familiar with the matter.

In October, the administration announced sanctions on Guatemalan officials linked to corruption. In November, Gordon traveled again to Guatemala to meet with both Giammattei and Arévalo separately to “reinforc[e] the importance of the peaceful democratic transfer of power,” according to a White House readout of the meetings at the time. Days after his visit, the Biden administration sanctioned another former top Guatemalan official for his role in “ongoing efforts to undermine the democratic transfer of power.”

Then, on Dec. 11, the State Department announced visa restrictions on nearly 300 Guatemalans, including over 100 Guatemalan members of Congress and other business elites, for “ongoing anti-democratic actions” that sought to interrupt the transition of power.

“That sent a really strong message to all politicians, that the United States was not going to be just waiting to see what happens,” Chang said. Chang said that Guatemalans paid close attention to the diplomatic campaign by the United States, and in particular the top U.S. diplomat there, Ventrell. Harris’s personal role, Chang said, wasn’t visible in Guatemala in the same way it was back in Washington in internal government deliberations.

The pressure appeared to be working, and Giammattei and his proxies began backing down. But there would be one last dramatic political battle, and members of Harris’s national security team would find themselves at the center of it.

Biden in January announced he was sending a delegation of eight senior U.S. officials to Guatemala for Arévalo’s inauguration, led by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power. The delegation also included Gordon and Tobin, as well as Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Lawmakers who opposed Arévalo threw up more roadblocks, delaying the special session of Congress to finish the inauguration and sparking fears of a last-minute coup. Arévalo’s supporters rallying to celebrate his inauguration grew increasingly restive and impatient as the hours dragged on, eventually clashing with riot police and gathering outside the congressional building.

The showdown also intersected with the U.S. election campaign, as one of former President Donald Trump’s top confidants, Ric Grenell, traveled to Guatemala in the days leading up to the inauguration and threw his support behind the efforts to derail Arévalo’s ascent to the presidency, as the Washington Post reported. Grenell reportedly backed hard-line conservatives who sought to block the transition and alleged that the U.S. foreign-policy establishment was trying to “intimidate conservatives” in the country. Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany, has emerged as one of the most influential voices in the MAGA movement advising Trump on his 2024 run.

On the day of the planned inauguration, Biden’s delegation went into crisis mode. “We were at the [U.S.] ambassador’s residence during this, for nine hours,” Tobin recalled. “The [USAID] administrator, Phil [Gordon], our charges d’affaires [Ventrell] were all making tons of calls to the outgoing government and incoming administration” and “coordinating with foreign delegations” in response to the eleventh-hour crisis, she said.

“We worked out a unified message as the international community there that we were expecting the Guatemalan government to do the right thing and uphold democratic values,” she added. They weren’t alone. Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s president, who was also in Guatemala for the inauguration and has outsized political influence in the region, vowed not to leave until Arévalo was inaugurated.

In the end, the pressure from Guatemalan protesters and the international community worked. Arévalo was sworn in shortly after midnight on Jan. 15. “That transition almost didn’t happen, until it finally did,” Tobin said.

Shortly after the inauguration, Harris issued a statement “commend[ing] the people of Guatemala for making their voices heard and this important transition.” Her team has maintained close contact with Arévalo in the months since; Gordon met him along the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany in February and Arévalo took Harris up on her offer for a White House meeting, visiting Washington in March. Giammattei, meanwhile, has been barred from entering the United States over U.S. allegations of “his involvement in significant corruption,” according to the State Department.

“A lot of people have critical views of the United States as not always a good player regarding their actions in Latin America,” Chang said, citing Guatemala among other cases. “With this specific example, however, you can see how the United States can actually help in countries that are struggling with democratic transitions.”

[bighermie]

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New Mexico Prosecutors: Migrants Gang Raped Deaf Woman in ‘Multi-Hour Nightmare’ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/05/14/guatemalan-migrant-20-years-gang-rape-deaf-woman/

Open borders

[leftistfeminista]

The Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (in Spanish: Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez, FPMR) was a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organisation officially founded on 14 December 1983 as the military wing of the Communist Party of Chile in the context of this party policy denominated as the "Política de Rebelión Popular de Masas", created with the goal of a violent overthrow of the civic-military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Sandra Trafilaf, popular communicator, Mapuche poet, popular educator in organizations of peasant women and indigenous peoples, member of the Network of Free and Popular Media, when speaking, stated:

"The publication of this book is very necessary, a debt to our sisters, especially to our fallen sisters, those who have offered their lives, who offered their dreams and their unfinished projects to a libertarian cause.

(...) Before commenting on the book, I would like to share with you some words from another combatant, one of our combatants whom we greatly admire, who is Fabiola, the only woman who participated in one of the most important actions of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, the tyrannicide, and she also wanted to be present on this occasion with some words, through the following audio that I am letting you listen to: "June 16, 1987, Cecilia Magni, Camila and I shared an apartment in the center of Buenos Aires. That morning, through the press, we learned of some confrontations in Santiago de Chile. Everything was confusing, there was no certainty of what had happened, the numbers disturbed us, like 12, that was too much, there must be some mistake. Those three women, each with their peculiarities, different missions, different origins, and so were our destinies, but all three united by the same dream.

Each one of us in our world broke the rules established by the patriarchal and mediocre society of the time, we were not what was expected of a "young lady." I don't think any of us cared much about that detail. 24 years later our dreams are still alive. Every time I see a Primera Línea, I am overcome with emotion and I know that nothing was in vain."

After listening to the audio sent by fellow combatant Fabiola, Sandra Trafilaf continues with her story: "For this book I also took on the task of talking with some of my surviving sisters, some of my combatant sisters, because I believe it is a great responsibility, and this book, "Revolucionarias," is a great debt to the role of women in these liberation struggles.

It is an honor to be able to speak for my surviving sisters who today preferred to remain anonymous, leaving behind a testimony of their time in the FPMR, but we must also assume the tremendous responsibility of speaking for those sisters who today we carry in our memories, as Fabiola said, who are part of the collective and popular history, whose lives were cut short when they led the fight against the dictatorship.

This book is appreciated as it gives an account of the participation of women in the battles fought by the FPMR. We always speak, commonly, of the heroic combatants, masculinizing the struggles in a cultural imprint that is certainly part of the dominant patriarchal ideology.

The colonization of the peoples in these territories called Latin America also brought this practice of making invisible the role of women in the community, their political, strategic and economic role.

Of course, the FPMR was not exempt from this colonization of thought and supremacy of the patriarchy, however we are grateful that there was a Latin American context that preceded the creation of the Front, and we can count on the feats of Cuban, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Guatemalan, Mexican, Uruguayan, Brazilian, Colombian women, who paved the way to avoid this destiny that necessarily led us to become "good ladies." Instead, we were able to join the armed struggle without being burdened with pejorative stigmas.

Today, three or four decades later, it is natural that women serve a purpose other than just distributing bread and tea in the party structure. Gender inclusion is debated and rights are fought side by side, but three or four decades ago, it was not so easy to assume roles historically reserved for men in politics.

If we look at the revolutions and liberation processes in different territories, there will always be women taking up arms. However, for some reason we end up relegated, made invisible or subsumed when it comes to making the epic account.

How and why did we take up arms and join the armed struggle during the dictatorship? Discussing this issue with some of my sisters from the FPMR, we have concluded, in these formal, informal and telephone conversations, that class consciousness is fundamental, because it reaffirms the conviction of liberation. However, early childhood education, experiences of the environment, the transmission of information and our place in our respective homes are also an important part of the basis of this determination. We grew up and reached adolescence in the midst of the most brutal dictatorships in recent history in the territories of the continent. We left childhood with horror stuck in our eyes. Murders, disappearances, torture, concentration camps, prisons, poverty and the precariousness of the populations made the rebellion grow. We said enough!, as recently happened on October 18, 2019.

At some point, you reach a point where there is no turning back. Injustices were overwhelming the enslaved people and we moved forward to end the barbarity. We could no longer continue turning the other cheek and we saw that there was no possible future if the dictatorship continued. Dreams, the certainty that there is the possibility of changing reality and realizing projects to be happy, was undoubtedly the driving force. We did it scared shitless, because it is not possible not to be afraid, especially those who had already been mothers and had the courage to expose their whole world to think of another future.

As combatants, in my case fulfilling the role of integrating the Operative Groups, militancy in the Front was a step that also shaped our character. Obviously, we always had to prove that we could accomplish the task and that is why we had the respect and recognition of our comrades, who became brothers in the heat of the struggle. In some cases, our youth was vital, the courage of youth, at 17, 18, 19 years old, we fulfilled missions that always meant risking our lives.

Women were in all the structures of the FPMR, in health, exploration, intelligence, logistics. Without that work and without assistants, who were mostly women, the heroic feat of the FPMR would undoubtedly not have been possible. That great infrastructure was moved by women and men who, in every task, however simple it may have seemed, meant risking their own lives and those of their families.

As women, it is also necessary to pause to emphasize that repression brutally punishes the decision to be part of armed groups, and at the time of being captured by the enemy, we were mostly subjected to political sexual violence, under the logic of patriarchal domination, of taking our bodies to humiliate us and leaving a psychological scar that will forever remind us of the audacity of invading that world, from this perspective of repression, of this military, of this macho. However, we never pigeonhole ourselves into the category of victims, we will never pigeonhole ourselves into that category either; we do not put our fallen sisters in that place either, they are and will be protagonists of a history that was sealed with blood, as people who rebel and rise up always do.

In fairness we can say that although we saw sexist behavior within the Front, we always had the respect and recognition of our brothers and sisters and for that reason, in particular, we send a special greeting to all those who trained us on that path, transmitting their knowledge and experience, so that we could become what we are, a Rodriguista combatant.

In this idea of ​​reconstructing this collective historical memory, crossed by the colonization of thought, but also by the ups and downs of traditional politics, the FPMR, although it was born as another disposable structure that the PC, the Communist Party, put on the scene to bang the table, became an autonomous entity that was recreating its own existence. It was an unprecedented project in our territories, it was a national project. Apart from the Mapuche resistance, no other structure with similar characteristics had been maintained in the dictatorial context, and over time. The MIR was quickly dismantled, Lautaro was born with a rebellious and libertarian proposal, and the Front maintained its pace in the armed struggle, building a new path, installing new capacities, which moved away from traditional militancy, in a party whose elite always denied its paternity; it was a landowner denying its offspring. Leaving it adrift in moments of having to endure the repressive attacks.

And today we can see it again in an arrogant and overbearing attitude of its main presidential figure, who shamelessly denies the status of political prisoner of our brother, Commander Ramiro, Mauricio Hernández Norambuena, leaving him helpless before the thirst for revenge of the right, who would only like to be able to feast watching our brother dry up in a jail, like a hostage of his captors, subjected to permanent torture.

To finish, I would just like to make it clear that we are not and will not be beings endowed with a special or supernatural gift. We were young women of different ages, women from poor, precarious families, with few resources or with resources, who came from homes where the fundamental thing was to transmit values ​​and principles with a sense of class, and with the conviction that we had to end barbarism, but also with the conviction that we deserved a future full of rights, that we deserved to be happy, to live in a better world, and that we undoubtedly had the right to have it all.

The anti-dictatorial struggle has not ceased, because injustices, the model, the Constitution, the laws and businessmen thirsty to fill their pockets at the expense of the lives and energies of the working class are still present. The pandemic today is a clear example, they have imposed restrictions, curfews, safe-conduct passes, health passes, only after the objective of social control, without caring about our lives, our recovery, our health. They open quarantines if they want to sell, they close the communes if they want to control. Without going any further, June 30 is the deadline to end the State of Exception and Congress must make a decision whether to continue with the repressive path or finally respect and honor the lives of the inhabitants.

Life is meaningless for those who govern us today and offer us candy to sweeten slavery; they make us consume morning shows, trash programs, they mutilate us, they murder us, they imprison us and they continue with their jingles and rainbows to make you think that something is changing, to change nothing. Winning elections is one thing and governing is quite another. It seems to me that more dialogue is needed, more reflection with Salvador Allende, to learn from his experience and how we came to the coup d'état. Short-term memory cuts off our analysis, the ruling class will never give something in exchange for nothing. The people must learn this lesson to avoid being blinded by social Peace Pacts that only seek to crush rebellions.

The political situation has been focused on different changes and today women are once again raising their flags, once again making themselves present in the streets of dignity, in the squares of dignity. Today women, in the last three decades, have made progress in different struggles and today talking about the role of women in politics evidently has another perspective and another connotation. Our daughters, our granddaughters, have undoubtedly arrived in a different world, with more progress and with more conquests and rights in their bodies, in their minds and that lets us know that we have made progress and have traveled the right path, which is the liberation of the peoples.