AP: Guatemalan Leader Refuses to Read Speech (state-of-nation)

[Eugene]

Guatemalan Leader Refuses to Read Speech

The Associated Press
Monday, January 15, 2007; 1:58 AM

GUATEMALA CITY -- Guatemala's president declined to read his state-of-the nation
speech to Congress, instead sending a written version to lawmakers after violent
clashes erupted between protesting teachers and police outside the legislative
building.

President Oscar Berger's action on Sunday drew criticism from opposition politicians
including Guatemalan Republican Front Rep. Aristides Crespo, who called it "a lack
of respect."

"To say that he was not coming for safety reasons only demonstrates that they
haven't been able to make the country a secure place," Crespo said.

Hundreds of members of the nation's teachers union and other labor groups that
oppose Berger's administration came to blows with police outside the Congress
after the protesters tried to break through a police cordon.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011500036.html

[aquart]

1. Do the Guatamalans have their own George?

[Judi Lynn]

2. Guatemalan president promises constitutional reforms on 10th anniversary of peace accords

Guatemalan president promises constitutional reforms on 10th anniversary of peace accords

The Associated Press
Friday, December 29, 2006
GUATEMALA CITY

President Oscar Berger promised to revive constitutional reforms to help Guatemala's poor heavily Indian population as the nation marked the 10th anniversary of peace accords that ended a 36-year civil war.

Berger said Friday that he will send Congress a bill on Jan. 13 with measures that include granting official recognition to Mayan languages, strengthening the justice system, allowing a civilian defense minister and ending the army's role in policing.

"We need to construct a more just, united and tolerant society," Berger said. "A society as unequal as ours demands it."

The measures had originally been promised in a United Nations-brokered peace accord signed on Dec. 29, 1996.

The accord ended Latin America's bloodiest conflict of the 20th century in which U.S.-backed military and civilian governments destroyed entire villages as they stamped out leftist guerrillas. About 200,000 people died or vanished.

The constitutional reforms were designed to end the inequality and racism that were the root causes of the conflict.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/30/america/LA_GEN_Guatemala_Peace_Accords.php



_Bush meets Berger at the Summit of the Americas in Argentina, 2005




Diego Maradona, Argentina's famous soccer player
also in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the Summit