[Aztlan] Letters Needed: Crisis on the Usumacinta

[David Hixson]

Estimados Listeros,

[I write this as a list member, not in my role as a
moderator]

This borderland between Guatemala and Mexico has been
a hot bed for crime and controversy for decades.  For
those who wish to delve into the Aztlan archives, we
had a similar discussion (I believe in 1994) when
indigenous Maya took over Piedras Negras and began to
build a camp there.

At that time, like David Becraft's message from
yesterday, I was vocal in stating that the last thing
anyone should do would be to send in the military. 
These were Kekchi Maya, who had been forced from their
homes, family members murdered, raped and tortured at
the hands of a military government that the U.S.
helped create.  My eyes were opened to this
perspective while working in United Nations Guatemalan
refugee camps in the early 1990's.

However, Charles Golden, a man I respect and trust,
knows the details of this new incursion first-hand. 
He has surveyed Piedras Negras, had to pull his
students from areas due to land mines, and generally
put his life at risk for the goal of documenting and
protecting the cultural heritage of the Maya.  And he
assures us that this particular crisis is not a Maya
land-rights issue (although those still abound in this
region).

We cannot equate the goals of looters and drug dealers
with indigenous rights.  In 1994, the Kekchi openly
stated that they were taking back their ancestral
homeland.  Today, I have heard no such claim for this
latest battle, but instead claims from people I trust
that highly organized and heavily armed criminals are
simply staking out the territory for illicit gains.

I would like you all to take another look at Charles'
post (copied again below) and consider his plea
seriously.

-Dave
________________________
David R. Hixson
Doctoral Candidate
Tulane University
aztlandave at yahoo.com

--- charles golden <cgolden at brandeis.edu> wrote:

> Dear Listeros,
> 
> Many thanks to Dave Pentecost for posting the links
> to news reports on 
> the Sierra del Lacandon and Piedras Negras. 
> 
> I wanted to write to emphasize the situation is
> dire. 
> 
> This could be the moment in which Piedras Negras is
> lost to the looters 
> for good, and the remaining portions of the park are
> burned or logged 
> out.  I have worked in the area since 1997, and I
> have experienced all 
> the many, many problems that plague the Usumacinta. 
> I have never seen 
> such a crisis.  
> Previous attacks on Piedras Negras or on the park
> authorities were 
> sporadic and limited to one location.  The current
> situation represents 
> a concerted, multi-pronged attack designed to cause
> the Guatemalan 
> authorities to abandon the park - a plan that has,
> for now, succeeded.  
> The Usumacinta is now a free trade zone for looters,
> loggers, and narcos.
> 
> I want to ask, on behalf of my friends in the
> Defensores de la 
> Naturaleza, administrators of the park, who are
> valiantly trying to get 
> the Guatemalan government to respond to this crisis,
> and on behalf of 
> the Instituto de Antropologia e Historia in
> Guatemala which is similarly 
> trying to protect Piedras Negras that  you write to
> your representatives 
> in congress and to the US ambassador in Guatemala
> City encouraging them 
> to take action.  In the past, political and economic
> support from the 
> United States through the Embassy has been
> successful in getting action 
> from the Guatemalan government.
> 
> You can e-mail Ambassador James M. Derham at
> AmCitsGuatemala at state.gov
> 
> If you have any questions please don't hesitate to
> contact me.
> 
> Thank you,
> Charles Golden
> cgolden at brandeis.edu
> _______________________________________________
> Aztlan mailing list
> Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/aztlan
> 



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