Indigenous communities also demanded actions by the government of Alejandro Giammattei.
Guatemala City, October 13 (RHC)-- Hundreds of representatives of indigenous peoples, social activists, peasants and members of Guatemalan civil society, led by the Social and Popular Assembly (ASP), marched on Tuesday through the main streets of the capital against discrimination and in favor of indigenous, Black and popular dignity.
The protest in Guatemala joins those of other Latin American countries on a date renamed "Day of Indigenous, Black and Popular Resistance", and in which in addition to opposing the European colonization suffered more than 500 years ago, they denounce the false independence of the Spanish crown 200 years ago, as the protesters still claim to be victims of a kind of State colonialism.
In this sense, humanitarian institutions such as Festivales Solidarios pointed out that "529 years after the European invasion in Abya Yala, the plundering and colonialism continues", as part of a tour that culminated demanding rights in front of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
"In this new anniversary of struggle and resistance, developed in the midst of a global pandemic in which the native peoples are the most affected due to the dismal and catastrophic management of the Government of Alejandro Giammattei, has been added the worsening of hunger, poverty, abandonment, exclusion and structural racism of the Guatemalan State," said the National Maya Waqiob'Kej Convergence.
The Maya K'iche leader, Andrea Ixchíu, said that the mere existence of indigenous peoples is an expression of resistance, in a centuries-long struggle against colonial, genocidal and ecocidal violence. "Our dreams have not been able to colonize them, our action is our speech," she said.
As part of the march, the multicolored flag of the four native Guatemalan peoples (Mayan, Xinka, Garifuna and Ladino) was raised on Reforma Avenue and identified the marchers throughout the route; at the same time, several women present wore it as a cape on their shoulders.
According to data provided by international human rights institutions, 59 percent of Guatemalans, with an estimated population of 16.3 million inhabitants, live on the poverty line, and almost 50 percent of children suffer from malnutrition, in the face of which the Executive has not taken significant actions to reduce such indicators.
With nearly half of its inhabitants belonging to Mayan, Garifuna, Xinka and Afro-descendant peoples, these communities are the hardest hit by these phenomena associated with poverty.
