From a very good editorial in the Washington Post, by Michael R. Strain, titled The problem isn’t Central America’s child refugees. It’s the countries they come from: “Congress, the president and opinion leaders are haggling over how to deal with the immediate crisis of the children coming to and crossing our border, but are not discussing what we can do to improve the situation in those countries to make them places in which parents want to raise their children, not send them away.”

ShareThis

We’re weeping for Brazil here. Olivia now is a fan after watching the World Cup in Guatemala, where in the most remote hamlet, tienda, restaurant, or cafe, Guatemalans cheered: “Brasil! Brasil!” Every transistor radio, every TV set, tuned, round the clock, three games a day. FIFA! Futbol! Absolute soccer madness, contagious.

In the photo above, taken during our most recent trip to Guatemala, crowds cluster outside a coffee house in Antigua with a large-screen TV: they’re non-paying customers content to watch the contest from afar.

Can somebody say “Gooooooaaaalllllll!”? We’re converted.

ShareThis

I’m probably not the only person who watched and was very affected by Pamela Yates’ 1983 documentary, “When the Mountains Tremble.” Narrated by Rigoberta Menchu, the film contains graphic scenes of violence and terror as it was inflicted by the Guatemalan military on the people of Guatemala.

This article in the Washington Post describes how filmmaker Yates plans to amend the film to show that a scene showing survivors of a massacre in the town of Batzul, which the film attributes to the military, was actually committed by guerrillas disguised as soldiers.

From the article: “Long viewed as one-sided repression by the brutal governments of the time, the 1960-96 civil war that claimed about 200,000 lives now is being recognized as more complex….

David Stoll, an anthropology professor at Middlebury College who has worked extensively in Guatemala, said that Yates’ original depiction of the Batzul massacre could be attributed to the ‘fog of war.'”

ShareThis