Democracy has never existed for the peoples of Guatemala

2023-07-18 01:37:05

Interview with Ollantay Itzamná from CODECA-MLP GUATEMALA

On July 13, in the midst of the political crisis that Guatemala is experiencing from the Working Class Platform, Salvadoran section of the International League of Workers Fourth International (PCT-LITCI), we communicated with comrade Ollantay Itzamná (OI) of the Community Peasant Development Committee-CODECA and the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples – MLP to learn their impressions in the framework of the institutional coup attempt after the recent elections in the Central American country.

PCT-LITCI: What is CODECA?

HEY: CODECA, initially in the 1990s, was born as the Committee for Peasant Community Development on the South Coast. With the passing of time, this Committee, now after 31 years, has become a socio-political movement that no longer seeks only peasant community development. , but its horizon is the good life, surpassing the development model, and it is no longer only peasant, but integral, including urban sectors of the country. Sociopolitical movement that has as axes of struggle: organization, mobilization, training, communication, articulation and the construction of its own political power or political instrument.

PCT-LITCI: Why did they distance themselves from the traditional left of the URNG?

HEY: CODECA was in its beginnings the electoral nucleus or the hard vote of the URNG, the URNG was asked at the time to accept the demands of the CODECA communities, such as: the revision of the privatization contracts or renationalization of assets privatized, the issue of the constituent assembly and to create new institutions in the country, new legal rules and also the issue of the creation of the Plurinational State, the URNG never wanted to incorporate these issues into its political proposal, that is why the movement CODECA decides to create its own political tool to advance towards the Constituent Assembly process, and this is how the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples – MLP emerged, precisely for this reason, the issue of the recovery and revision of privatization contracts, the theme of the Constituent Assembly, the need to create a Plurinational State and the horizon of good living.

PCT-LITCI: How did the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples arise and why was it outlawed in the recent elections?

The Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples emerged in 2016, in the last national assembly of the CODECA movement, in which it resolved 5 points and one of these was the need to create a political organization, or its own political instrument, because at that moment; there was no political organization of the progressive left that assumed, incorporated into its narrative or government program proposals such as the nationalization of privatized assets or the constituent assembly and in this sense the communities decided to create their own political organization to advance with these two objectives .

What happened and why are they making it illegal now, according to the law on political parties, a party legally ceases to exist when it does not obtain 5% of the electoral roll or does not obtain any deputation, and the MLP did not obtain that percentage or any deputation, The MLP achieved 76,000 votes, below 5%, so it legally disappears, the latter has not yet been notified, although this will be known in August, because that is where the electoral process is defined and then they will give the notifications, although now for On July 22, a national assembly of CODECA is already scheduled and the creation of another political organization will surely be approved.

PCT-LITCI: What was the Movement for the Liberation of the MLP Peoples pursuing and what are its main proposals for Guatemala?

To a large extent, the MLP was created to promote the Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution, new institutions and new life projects, but also to review privatization contracts such as the delivery of common goods and public companies to the sector. private because it is suspected that there are many illegalities and irregularities and in this sense, reviewing many of these contracts would declare them null and then proceed to recovery.

PCT-LITCI: From your point of view, what is happening in Guatemala?

OI: What exists is a kind of destructive internal contradiction of the institutions, including the electoral system, which tried to respond to the interests of the country’s power groups, but now, it doesn’t even work for them because now they are in a sort of intra-oligarchic confrontation and one of the actors in this case in quotes “progressive” within the oligarchy promoted and supported by the US embassy. That is what is happening in the country.

PCT-LITCI: In your most recent communiqué you maintain that there is no longer a State in Guatemala to which you refer with this approach?

HEY: We understand the State not only as obligations, but also as rights, as satisfaction of goods and opportunities, and this is what has not existed for the majorities. One cannot speak of the State when in Guatemala in such a small territory, with such a gigantic Gross Domestic Product of 85 billion, the tenth largest economy in the region, but 6 out of 10 people are in poverty, 8 out of 10 minor children 5 years old are malnourished, people to be recognized as Guatemalan have to stop speaking their language, stop culture, their cultural expressions. From there one cannot speak of the State, what there is is an internal colonialism.

PCT-LITCI : They also criticize the fact that there has been no democracy for the original peoples under capitalism. What do they mean by this?

HEY: Democracy has never existed for the peoples in Guatemala, because the peoples have never been able to be elected as rulers, now the representatives of the peoples have only served to vote and proof of this is that, if formal democracy is this, being elected and exercise the public function, these two elements of citizenship have not existed for the majority of the population, in this sense we speak of the non-existence of democracy.

PCT-LITCI : Could you explain your proposal for a Constituent Assembly?

HEY: Basically it is to write a new constitution between all and all so that new institutions can be built and a New State can be built.

PCT-LITCI: What is the way out of the institutional crisis posed in Guatemala at this time?

HEY: The way out, I believe, is greater participation from all sectors, from all peoples. But the only way out is if that participation occurs through a popular and plurinational constituent assembly process with all sectors.

PCT-LITCI : What is the call that you make to the peoples of the world at this juncture?

HEY: The call is firstly to be informed and attentive to what is happening here in Guatemala, mainly through the alternative media, secondly it is to invoke the recognition, compliance and respect of individual and collective human rights that Guatemala as a State has signed to level of international agreements, thirdly, to invite them to be present as far as possible with delegations with an international presence here in the territory, with physical accompaniment, to the processes of struggle for the defense of rights.