Nuestro Compromiso son Nuestras Comunidades
Our commitment reflects the Most Basic Necessities
in Our Community:
For us, the immediate problem affecting our
community is that we are people, in general, living far from
our homeland, our traditions and our families. This situation
is further aggravated by the fact that many of us, as with political
and economic refugees the world over, did not choose but were
forced under circumstances to leave. In the case of Guatemala,
the root of this problem may be traced back over 500 years ago,
when our Mayan ancestors were colonized and enslaved in the
name of European exploration.
These events set in motion a practice that continued into the
present century, the problematic of "desplazamiento.."
"Desplazar, " to displace, literally to remove from
one's space or home, continued and increased during the years
of Guatemala's armed conflict. As other areas of the world,
at different points in history demonstrate, a people who are
displaced will struggle to regain their homeland; the more they
struggle, the more they are repressed. When war began in 1954,
with popular rebel groups on one side, and a U.S. backed and
financed Guatemalan military on the other, many people were
uprooted from their homes. Institutionalized repression, such
as torture and the destruction of over 450 villages contributed
to estimates of over one million Guatemalan refugees outside
of the country (In addition to over 200,000 killed and 50,000
"disappeared").
Although knowing this history is essential,
knowledge alone cannot remedy the problem. Our organization
is dedicated to organizing our community so that it may, for
itself, secure inherent, basic human rights, which include the
right to live any where one chooses, free from fear, ignorance,
poverty or repression in a society which turns away and does
nothing.
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