Wine and Cheese for Change

 Amanda Martin, Executive Director of GHRC at Radio Juventud Community Radio Station in Solola.

Actions Needed: (1) Urge the President of Guatemala to support a bill to legalize indigenous community radio stations

Around the world, the press has become increasingly commercialized and consolidated. If we’re lucky, we have access to independent community radio stations where we can hear news from alternative sources and contribute our own views. For many of us, community radio is a great democratizing movement. For indigenous peoples, community radio may be a matter of life or death.

Although Guatemala has a majority indigenous population, native peoples have historically been persecuted, stripped of their human rights, and massacred. Now, after a 36-year civil war, democracy is emerging in Guatemala, but indigenous people remain excluded from political representation and lack access to crucial information about healthcare and education. Community radio stations help fill this need, broadcasting in 15 indigenous languages and providing an alternative to commercial media.

For indigenous peoples, community radio may be the only source of information available in their language.  It’s how they learn from external sources about civic elections, AIDS prevention, flood warnings and daily news. It’s how they share local information among themselves, celebrate their unique cultures, and organize community action.

Despite many promises, the legal use of radio frequencies remains inaccessible indigenous communities in Guatemala – unless they can come up with as much as $125,000 to bid for a license.  Some 600 stations operate without licenses, many of them working out of one-room offices with donated equipment. They are subject to police raids, fines, and closure, especially in regions where indigenous people are resisting mining and other assaults on their lands and their rights.

The stations and their communities are determined to win the right to operating licenses, a right that was promised in Guatemalan Peace Accords, Article 35 of the Guatemalan constitution, Article 16 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the International Labor Organization Convention 169.

On August 3, over a thousand rural people made the long trip to the capital to rally in support of a bill that was introduced to the Guatemalan Congress.  The Community Media Act, or “Antiproyecto de Ley de Medios de Comunicacion Comunitaria,” would create a National Council of Community Media that would award licenses to community radio stations, with the participation of the local communities.

Indigenous organizations, community radio stations and NGOs that work for public health, the environment and human rights are calling on international citizens to support this bill by writing to the President of Guatemala. Please refer to the included sample letter and add your own personal reasons for supporting the bill if you wish. Letters may be sent to the following address:

Constitutional President of the Republic of Guatemala
Ingeniero Álvaro Colom Caballeros
Casa Presidencial
6 a. Avenida, 4-18 Zona 1
Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala

information provided by: Cultural Survival

Current actions:

I have been in contact with Richmond's Community Radio Station WRIR 97.3 and am setting up a time for them to discuss this free speech issue on air. Once this is confirmed I will post the air date and time here.

There will also be smaller info sharing sessions that will include letter writing campaigns.

The legislation is currently in Guatemalan Congress and there needs to be action taken in the next month and a half to make sure that the Guatemalan Administration is aware that we are aware of this bill and are supportive of the Community Radio Stations.

What you can do:

Host a letter writing party! Get your friends together for a letter writing party, discuss the free speech community radio station issue and send letters to:

Constitutional President of the Republic of Guatemala
Ingeniero Álvaro Colom Caballeros
Casa Presidencial
6 a. Avenida, 4-18 Zona 1
Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala
 

If you would like a sample letter please email me at:

abby.dini@gmail.com

Subject Line: Radio Project