CAMINOS Update - May 2006

Nearly ten years old, CAMINOS continues to sponsor human rights accompaniers who “walk with” witnesses of genocide, murder, and other atrocities so that their perpetrators might be brought to justice. Specifically, CAMINOS supports Ixil and K'iche Mayan populations who survived the brutal “scorched earth” policies and atrocities through our sponsorship of trained observers such as our next accompanier, Jordan Buckley. Through the efforts of observers like Jordan, CAMINOS contributes to ending government and military impunity.

Jordan will be going to the Guatemalan Highlands in July to live with a Mayan community for six months. Jordan, a recent graduate of University of Texas, has an impressive resume of activist work: he helped organize a student alliance with migrant farm workers in Florida; worked to protect endangered species in the Blue Mountains; collected and distributed books for Texas prisoners; drew political cartoons and wrote a weekly column for The Daily Texan ; organized successful boycotts of Austin Taco Bell and Sodexho-Marriott; and has mounted successful recycling campaigns just about everywhere he has lived. We will support Jordan throughout his experience and have every confidence that he will make a wonderful contribution.

CAMINOS also supports PROMESA, a partnership among CAMINOS, the St. Michael's Guatemala Project in Tucson, and the CPR (Communities of Populations in Resistance) in Guatemala. PROMESA's primary objective is to improve health care in the community of Tesorito, Suchitepequez, a community of 136 indigenous Mayan families resettled in 1998. Their health needs range from anemia to AIDS, with the majority of cases related to childbirth emergencies, diarrhea, skin infections and abscesses, parasites, and malaria. (Three new cases of malaria are diagnosed every month.) Malnutrition is also a serious concern. We help with transportation for sick people who cannot be treated locally; for health workers' training; and for medicine and low-tech medical supplies. We have raised an additional $600 this year to help counter the effects of Hurricane Stan on local crops, livestock, and people. St. Michael's Guatemala Project in Tucson is planning a series of summer delegation visits to rural Mayan communities.

For more information, or to join one of these delegations, contact Project Coordinator Ila Abernathy, ilaa@mindspring.com.

Finally, we are in the first stages of planning a DJPC winter delegation to Tesorito in January/February of 2007 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Peace Accords, as well as the tenth anniversary of the founding of CAMINOS. Interested parties should contact Jane Covode or Kathryn Rodriguez, Trip Coordinators, jcovode@ecentral.com or klrodriguez@comcast.net . We look forward to renewing our connections with Tesorito as well as renewing our commitment to “walk with” the people of these small Mayan communities in rural Guatemala.

For a more detailed account of CAMINOS' work and the current situation in Guatemala, please visit www.denjustpeace.org/publications .