Guatemalan newspaper La Hora affirms that, for the first time, the government will hand to the ministerio público (attorney general) the military archives regarding cases of genocide occurred during the civil war (1960-1996). The decision was taken after the constitutional court notification to president Álvaro Colom. In particular, the military files concern the campaign plans named “Victoria 82”, “Firmeza 83” and the operational plans named “Ixil” (1982) and “Sofía” (July 15, 1982).
So far, it is not known when this will happen. But the Secretary of peace, Orlando Blanco, confirmed that this will happened.
The archives will effect the trial for violation of human rights and genocide, began in 2000, against the former presidents of Guatemala Lucas García and Ríos Montt.
According to the Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, during the Guatemala civil war (conflicto armado interno) 200,000 people had been killed . Most of them (93%) were victims of state security forces and most of them (83%) were Maya. Between 500,000 and 1.5 million people were displaced.
Friday, 20 February 2009
According to Banco de Guatemala, for the first time since 1999, in January 2009 remittances from abroad decreased by 7.75% compared to the same month in 2008. In Guatemala remittance flows represent 11.89% of GDP. According to the World Bank remittances can represent more than 50% of rurally-based family income and for the International Organization for Migration 30.4% of the population receives money from abroad.
Causes? Probably economic crisis and deportation of illegal immigrants from the US.
Something is certain: remittances are a strong factor in reducing poverty in Guatemala. If flows continue to decrease is more than probable that poverty will rise in a country where, according to the government, 45,6% of children are already underweight.
Monday, 16 February 2009
r-bloggers.com Simply Statistics Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Email: Francesco.Bailo@uts.edu.au
Twitter: @FrBailo
GitHub: fraba
Dataverse: fbailo
Linkedin: FrBailo
Orcid: 0000-0001-5971-1921
