Weight Watcher: Chavez takes on obesity

A sizable man himself, some might argue that Hugo Chavez is an unlikely ambassador for lean living. However, few topics escape the president's attention, and his own considerable girth has not prevented him from commenting on Venezuela's expanding waistbands.  

The average Venezuelan has risen from to . And obesity is a growing trend across Latin America in general. Unlike Asian countries, where the indigenous diet of fresh vegetables and little meat is threatened by American imports of fizzy drinks, processed meat and fast food chains, the Latin American problem is ostensibly a double-edged sword. 

Favourite snacks across the continent include deep-fried delicacies such as chinceron (pork fat), double fried enchilladas, empenandas and other carb-heavy creations. Add to this the increasing Americanisation of national pallettes -

Mexican Human Rights Worker in London

Last weekend I went to see Mexican human rights defender, Tita Radilla, speak at the Frontline Club in London. Her father, a popular mayor and folk singer, was disappeared during the Guerra Sucia (Dirty War) of the 1960s and 70s.  

Her struggle centres around La Cuidad de Servicios (The City of Services), a compound used for detaining and torturing left-wing opponents of the Government. Tita is certain that the body of her father and many others are buried in the vicinity of La Cuidad, and she is nearing the end of a lengthly battle to bring the Mexican Government to justice. Despite constant death threats she has succeeded in bringing the case to the Inter-American Court - hopefully they will not ignore the overwhelming evidence on their side.

Tita and her comrades have been supported by Peace Brigades International, an organisation that sends impartial observers from the international community to help keep human rights defenders from being harmed.

New documentary on bus driver extortions and murders in Guatemala City

Guatemala: Riding with the Devil is part of Channel4's Unreported World series. Reporter Seyi Rhodes lifts the lid on a large-scale problem that the national and international media rarely cover. 

Nearly 200 bus drivers have been killed in Guatemala City so far this year - and the money left in the bodies' pockets rules out robbery. The film focuses on the theory that the drivers are extorted for protection money by the city's two rival gangs. But the relatives of the murdered drivers say that the victims were up-to-date with their payments. Guate is run by a culture of fear; it could be that the murders take place to maintain fear and respect for the gangs, and keep people paying money to them. Another popular opinion is that hit men are being paid by anti-Government forces to destabilise the country and stoke dissatisfaction for Colom's government. 

Reading Between the Lines

The struggle of the Sandanistas against the US has become a story of left-wing legend. The news that the US was trying to crush a genuinely socialist government attempting to haul the Central American country out of poverty struck a chord around the world as crowds of 'internationalistas' came to join the revolutionary effort.

Far less is known about similar situations in the rest of the region.

International Pen Appeal: Guatemalan Publisher Imprisoned

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN (WiPC) protests the one-year prison sentence and fine handed down to publisher Raúl Figueroa-Sarti on 6 August 2009 for alleged copyright infringement. Figueroa is currently under house arrest and there are concerns for his safety. There are significant concerns that the case against Figueroa has been brought in retaliation for his publication of books on human rights abuses in Guatemala. The WiPC is therefore calling for the case against the publisher to be dropped and for him to be allowed to return to the USA, where he is resident.

On 6 August 2009, a court in Guatemala City sentenced the publisher Raúl Figueroa-Sarti (F&G Editores) to one year in prison and a 50,000 quetzales (approx. US$6,080) fine for allegedly publishing a photograph on a cover of a novel without the permission of the photographer, Mardo Arturo Escobar. Figueroa denies the charges and the prosecution appears groundless given that, since filing the case, Escobar has reportedly twice admitted that he did in fact give permission for the photo in question to be used. The prison sentence is commutable to a daily fine plus litigation costs, but Figueroa is currently under house arrest and unable to return to the USA, where he and his family live.

Established by Figueroa in 2003, F &G Editores is an internationally acclaimed independent publisher based in Guatemala. It publishes fiction, poetry, social science and legal textbooks and is known for its titles on the human rights and socio-political situation in Guatemala, including the final report of the United Nations-backed Guatemalan Truth Commission (Comisión para el Esclarcimiento Histórico, CEH) and publications for the Myrna Mack Foundation.

According to Figueroa, Escobar - who works for a court of law - approached him in 2006 with some of his photographs and asked F&G Editores to publish them. Figueroa explained that he did not publish photos but agreed to use one of Escobar's images on the front cover of a forthcoming title (Rafael Menjívar Ochoa's novel Cualquier forma de morir), and in return to provide Escobar with a credit on the back cover and some copies of the book. This arrangement reportedly went ahead as planned.

In August 2007, nine months after the novel was published, Escobar filed a complaint against Figueroa for copyright infringement with the Public Prosecutor's office, claiming that he had only found out about the use of the photo when he saw the book in a shop window. At an initial hearing in early 2008, Escobar reportedly acknowledged that he had given verbal permission for the photo to be used but as there was no written contract, he was asking for "compensation" of 72,000 quetzales (approx. US$8,752) in lieu of unpaid copyright fees. Despite this, in November 2008 the court ruled that Figueroa could be criminally prosecuted and banned him from leaving the country without the court's permission. At another hearing in July 2009, Escobar again admitted that he had authorised the use of a photo but said he had not specified which one. The case went ahead regardless.

Figueroa, who is resident in the USA, remains under house arrest in Guatemala City. Under Guatemalan law, he should reportedly be permitted to return to leave the country while awaiting the outcome of his appeal. However, given the nature of the case, there are fears that he may be prevented from returning to the USA and therefore from seeing his family. His wife and four-year-old daughter live in New York and are unable to travel to Guatemala due to threats issued against his wife there in 2007.

Two Qeqchi Leaders Killed Over Nickel Mine Dispute

Sunday, September 27 on land claimed by the community of Las Nubes, which Compañia Guatemalteca de Niquel (CGN), a subsidiary of Manitoba's HudBay Minerals, also claims to own. 

The Happiness Index: Costa Rica Number One

Out of all the countries in the world, it is perhaps surprising that Costa Rica is the 'happiest'. But according to the Happy Planet Index, Central America's most stable country takes the number one spot.

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is designed to monitor quality of life in a more holistic and phycological terms than Gross National Product (GNP). While traditional scales focus on economic progress to measure development, HPI is founded on the idea that a society is only truly advancing when material and spiritual development take place concurrently.  The four pillars of GNH are the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance.

Costa Rica comes in first place, despite the GNP being only, whereas the United States and the UK come in at - and --, although their GNP are much higher at ___ and ___ respectively. Both the HPI and the Gross National Happiness index indicate that although money is indisputably important to a happy life, after a certain point the GNP appears to make little difference.

So why is Costa Rica so happy? The country's 1.9 million visitors a year will undoubtedly list beautiful beaches, wildlife and cloud forests among the reasons to be cheerful. Indeed, Costa Rica's successful ecotourism market brings in close to $1.92 billion a year. It is a model that sees tourists helping on conservation projects across the country, not only bringing cash to the economy but also ticking both the sustainable development and conservation of natural environment boxes on the HPI index. 

In terms of democracy, Costa Rica is also the most stable country in Central America, having enjoyed democratic governments since 1953: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama have all suffered civil wars, military coups or US invasions from the 1970s right up until the recent Honduran constitutional crisis. 

Severe malnutrition in Guatemala

Through poverty, illness or lack of education, Guatemala is suffering a crisis of malnutrition. According to Government figures, some 54,000 families suffer from hunger, and a further 400,000 could see themselves affected before the end of the year.  President Alvaro Colom has declared a state of national emergency, a move that will allow the country to access international aid. 

The two most common types of malnutrition in Guatemala are Kwashiorkor, a swelling caused by fluid retention due to protein deficiencies, and Marasmo, a deficiency of calories and proteins, seen in children with their skin stretched taut across their bones. 

The worst affected areas of the country are the seven provinces that make up El Corredor Seco ('the dry passage') region of Guatemala. A recent drought and the economic crisis are thought to be the key factors behind the widespread food shortages.

However, Lida Escobar, field monitor for the Global Nutrition Programme in Guatemala (PNG), argues that the causes of the problem are more complex. While some children are victims of a simple lack of food, others are trapped in a vicious cycle where pre-exisiting diseases cause lack of appetite and a weakened immune system, leading to weight loss. 

In some cases the help exists but a lack of education prevents Guatemalans from using it. According to Escobar, rural areas such as the indigenous Chortí are actually well provided for by NGO and government funded health centres or mobile medical aid. The problem is that locals are reluctant to take their children to these facilities, preferring instead to visit the 'bujo' - witch doctor - first. Medical teams are often viewed as a last resort, and therefore have to admit and treat children already in the advanced stages of starvation and malnutrition.

EU to provide isolated communities with solar energy

In Brussels, ambassadors for seven of the most economically marginalised countries in Latin America met to launch a new sustainable energy programme in conjunction with the EU. Guatemala, Perú, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua y Paraguay signed up to Euro-Solar, a pioneering initiative to bring electricity to isolated rural communities. Honduras was left out of the deal, illustrating how the currently military coup is isolating the country from international help. With poor infrastructure, limited funds and lack of political will, sustainable energy sources appear be the most viable solution for remote communities. 

The EU will pick up the tab for most of the estimated $49.9 million cost of the scheme. Euro-Solar proposes to bring electricity to 300 thousand people in 600 poor rural communities without access to the national grid. The uses for these renewable energy sources range from lighting to keeping vaccines refrigerated. A regular power supply is of course essential to successful business and economic growth. 

Since the state coup at the end of June the EU has suspended all bilateral aid to Tegucigalpa, keeping all contact with the de facto head of government, Roberto Micheletti, to an absolute minimum. Honduras is rated as the third poorest country in the Western hemisphere after Haiti and Nicaragua; it is estimated that only 37% of the rural population has access to electricity.  

Argentina has decriminalised possession of small quantities of cannabis, cocaine and other recreational drugs. Mexico is following suit.

Latin America has been suffering under the USA's war on drugs as gangs and violent crime have only escalated in response to tightened controls. By ignoring the basic rules of supply and demand, it was clear that destroying coca plantations in Ecuador was never going to rectify the problem.

Neighbouring the Mexican border, Guatemala is increasingly becoming an inland route for trafficking drugs. 

Government opens 5th public canteen in Escuintla

It's not every day that the ambassadors for Russia, Taiwan, Cuba and Nicaragua eat a local lunch with Alvaro Colom and his wife in one of Guatemala's poorest towns. But yesterday saw the diplomatic train descend on Escuintla for the inauguration of Guatemala's fifth 'comedor solidario', a subsidised canteen funded under the Government's Social Cohesion programme. 

Colom's dining partners were carefully chosen to demonstrate Guatemala's unity with the represented countries and their socialist agendas. 

The comedor has the capacity to serve between five hundred and a thousand people a day. Prices will range from 1 Quetzal for a breakfast (10 pence) and 3 Quetzales for lunch (30 pence) - the average price for a midday meal in a similar comedor is 10 Quetzales (one pound).  This social initiative will be welcome news for residents of the department, which suffers among the highest rates of malnutrition in the country.  

Read the original source: Prensalibre.com 

Medecins San Frontieres at work in Guatemala City (

An MSF team raises awareness of the MSF sexual violence program in Guatemala City. Guatemala 2008 © Frederic Baldini/MSF

Sexual violence affects thousands of people every year in Guatemala. But, there has been little assistance provided to survivors of sexual violence by the national health care system, so MSF operates a clinic in Guatemala City specifically to treat these patients.

“The biggest change is that I am scared all the time. I was scared before but now I cannot even walk alone. I am scared of people I don’t know, I am scared of men I don’t know.” 

—Maria, 17 years old

Maria will never forget this day in November for the rest of her life. She was sitting in a bus, five blocks away from her home, when a black car blocked the road. Two masked men entered the bus and put a gun at Maria’s head. “They forced me to go with them, they blindfolded me,” she later told the MSF psychologist. “They took me to a place I didn’t know. There were seven of them. They beat me up. Then they started to rape me.”

Maria is a survivor of sexual violence, one of the approximately 10,000 people raped in Guatemala every year. MSF set up the program in Guatemala City in 2007, after finding that the national authorities lacked the resources and the will to provide survivors of sexual violence with access to treatment. MSF now treats 100 new patients every month, both medically and psychologically. In addition, through education and communications, the team in Guatemala City is showing the authorities, the medical community and the Guatemalan public that sexual violence is a medical emergency and that treatment is possible and available.

In Guatemala, a history of violence

A patient at the MSF clinic for survivors of sexual violence reads about MSF's treatment services. Guatemala 2008 © Marcell Nimfuehr/MSF

In the last years, violence has increased significantly in Guatemala. In the beginning of 2009, there were about 20 killings every day; most of them appeared to be gang-related. About 40 bus drivers alone had been killed within three months because their companies hadn’t paid bribes. The majority of those killings happen in the capital.

“We have a history of 30 years of civil war which has not been solved,” says Mayra Rodas, psychological coordinator of MSF in Guatemala. The ones who suffer most from this violence are women: “We live in a machismo and patriarchal society. Women are treated as objects which can be taken. To be a woman here is like being garbage. This is what our patients tell us.”

That was how Maria was treated. After a day of unbelievable cruelty, one of the men helped her escape. “I was told that if I pressed charges they would kill my family” she says quietly. “So I didn’t.”

The doctor in a local clinic referred Maria to the MSF clinic for victims of sexual violence. “Right away, they gave me about 15 pills,” she said. “I didn’t like the pills and even less the injections. I was really nervous about whether I was pregnant or HIV-positive. But thanks to god and the medication they gave me, the results were all negative.”

Treating sexual violence medically and psychologically

Sexual violence is a medical emergency. “It is not widely known that we can actually prevent HIV even if the patient has been infected,” says Dr. Silvia Dubòn, a physician working for MSF. “It’s important to come within 72 hours after the attack. If we start giving anti-retroviral medication within this timeframe, we can prevent the spreading of the virus in the body.” Unwanted pregnancy can also be prevented within five days after the attack, and Hepatitis B within three months. Other sexual transmitted diseases, including syphilis, Chlamydia and gonorrhoea can be treated at any time.

Treating Maria against infections was not the difficult part of her recovery. The emotional trauma goes much deeper and takes more time to heal. “It just kept coming back, everything they did to me. I was thinking of it while I was eating. So I stopped eating. I was dreaming and it all came back to me, then I woke up and I couldn’t fall asleep anymore. That’s when I met with the MSF psychologist and then it got better. She helped me a lot,” Maria says.

“Often I have to say that I don’t have a pill or a vaccination to make you feel better,” explains Wendy Mérida, a psychologist with MSF in Guatemala. “It is a process of getting to know your feelings so that you can talk about it. Every person has a totally different story. We try to enable the patient to express herself.”

Learning to talk about rape is an important first step to recovery for the patient, as well as for the society. “In Guatemala nobody speaks about sexual violence,” says MSF head of mission in Guatemala, Fabio Forgione. “Survivors are stigmatized and they cannot easily find treatment in Guatemala yet. There are no resources and too little comprehension of patients’ needs by the doctors.”

Why Guatemala?

Central America is definitely not on the UK's domestic news radar. Regrettably this is not because the region is stable, peaceful and prosperous, but rather because its particular problems - human trafficking, drug cartels, poverty and inequality to name but a few - have little economic or political implications for Britain.  After spending some time translating and reporting for Guatemalan news agency, Inforpress, I was inspired and compelled to bring the issues that Guatemala faces to a audience here at home.