Guatemala Outside In

Guatemalan Congresswoman, Nineth Montenegro in her recent visit to the UK has strengthened the recent campaign to publicise the increasing impunity in Guatemala, especially the violence against women. In a recent interview with BBC Mundo, Nineth Montenegro underlined the seriousness of the current situation and lack of political will on the side of the Guatemalan Government to tackle the problem.

Montenegro's visit follows that of Guatemalan journalist, Marielos Monzon to the UK when Amnesty International gave her the 2005 Human Rights Journalism under Threat Award. Her interview with the BBC is here.

This is a really interesting 12-part documentary starting with the experiences of the community of Santa Maria Tzeja, Guatemala. The first few segments of the documentary can be heard online. It is well worth a listen.

GraciasVida Productions, in partnership with Texas Public radio, NPR's Latino USA, Radio Bilingue, Latinos in Public Radio, and Youth Radio's International Desk, has assembled some of public radio's most talented reporters and their Central American colleagues to produce the most comprehensive coverage of Central America in years.

Which UK organisations are doing what: where you can donate to in the UK

ActionAid - UK website does not mention at all, but Action Aid Guatemala has an email you can contact
Save the Children - relief effort is being coordinated in the US
Christian Aid - UK website encourages support for its emergency crisis fund
CAFOD - has a notice and a form to donate to this relief effort
SCIAF- Encouraging donations
Red Cross - relief effort is being coordinated in US, though it says the UK has donated £100,000
Oxfam - has news and a form to donate to this relief effort. Oxfam is warning of a potential food crisis in Guatemala in 2006
War on Want - does not mention Stan yet
World Emergency Relief - Calling for donations

You can also support Rights Action that works in Guatemala in their Emergency Relief Fund for Guatemala.

There is a moving video appeal online.

DFID - Does not have a single word on Hurricane Stan in its website
DEC- Disaster Emergency Committee does not mention Stan either

For a round up of NGO response to Hurricane Stan see AlertNet's summary
One World.Net also pulls together news on the response to Stan from across the UK NGOs.

Never before has such an enormous emergency become unnewsworthy so quickly. It wasn't just the mudslides and flooding in Guatemala that became a victim of our collective amnesia, so did the food crisis in Malawi. The fact that this happened quite so fast, has something to do with the massive earthquake in Pakistan. But one week on, Pakistan too is slipping down the news agenda. With this unsustainable publicity, questions are being asked about how we organise emergency relief. Toby Porter, Emergency Director of Save of Children writes an interesting article on this in today's Observer.

This sentiment is echoed in much of the US where the coverage has been relatively poor in the wake of Katrina and Rita. "Hurricane Stan and Guatemala, We Hardly Heard About Ya". It is certainly echoed in many many other blogs, e.g. Norajean, Sunny, etc.

In fact, one of the most recent references to Guatemala in the UK (The Guardian) was as a possible venue for the 400,000 packaged meals that the US authorities have quarantined due to "mad cow" import regulations.

State department officials have considered sending the meals to Guatemala, devastated by mudslides, but the country does not have the vehicles to transport the pallets.

AlertNet is doing a great job to counter this with its regular reports. For a feature article on the effects of STAN in the latest edition Informe Guatemala from Fundadesc.

I've seen various articles begin to put the death toll as much higher than the 654 that Conred in Guatemala is officially saying. Caritas in Spain is putting the figure at 2,052, the BBC was putting the figure as over a 1,000, while Cananda's CBC put the figure at 1,400 since 8th October.

The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has put together an interesting article on journalism's role in the emergency.

Congratulations are due to El Canche for getting CBS (makers of the great US reality show- Survivor Guatemala- sadly you can watch it online) to change its really supportive page linking to organisations, none of whom were involved in the relief operations in Guatemala. Good on ya Canche.

There will be a conference on of the Latin American Network Against Dams, and for Rivers, Communities and Water held in Cubulco, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala 17-21 October 2005.

The passage of Hurricane Stan across Central America has left Guatemala the worse affected.

Initially, CONRED, Guatemala’s official disaster reduction network called red alerts for communties along the pacific coast, but this was later extended across Guatemala as the extent of flooding and mudslide damage became apparent.

In the worst cases, whole communities have been completely wiped out by the flooding and roads have disappeared. Many ordinary Guatemalans have volunteered to help in the numerous rescue operations.

The scale of the disaster appears to be a lot greater than Hurricane Mitch in 1998 where 268 people were killed in Guatemala. Rights Action have established an emergency relief fund.

Blog de mi Guatemala has pulled together a collection of sites with the latest images of the effects of Stan across Guatemala. More images are on the ACJ (YMCA) in Guatemala.

The latest estimates put the total of people killed in Guatemala as high as (1,400 Source: Reuters). These figures have been changing as the full impact of level 1 hurricane Stan is becoming clear. For photos of the recent flooding in Guatemala (Source: Incidencia Democracia pulled together here). Other photos from Atitlan- one of the worst affected areas.

You can get more information on how Stan has effected many, many different regions across Guatemala from CONRED. You can find more information in Google Earth here.