Human rights, development focus of College
employee’s trip south

Last August, as co-coordinator and translator for 9 B.C. university
students on a human rights fact-finding tour to Guatemala, PIO Writer
Jeff McDonald met with student activist Guillermo Fernandez.

A nation whose wealthiest two percent
controls 70 percent of the land and all of
the police and military, Guatemala has
long carried Central America’s worst
human rights record. In October,
Fernandez was confronted by two thugs
on a bus in Guatemala City. Calling him a
trouble maker, the men assaulted him.
Undaunted, Fernandez later appeared at a
rally at the University of San Carlos. This
time, he was shot and wounded.

Convinced he will soon be another of
the thousands who have died in
Guatemala’s seemingly endless political

violence, Fernandez is considering
seeking asylum in Canada as a refugee.

Spending time with people immersed
in these kind of political struggles and
others working in local development
projects, has kept McDonald involved in
Central and South America for several
years.

“Once you’ ve had personal contact
with something like this it’s easy to stay
involved. When you meet someone who
has lost most of their family because of
political activism, it puts a human face on
what we read in the newspaper and see on

 

 

 

Cruz Quixaya was
one stop for PIO
Writer Jeff
McDonald on his
August trip to
Guatemala with
nine B.C. university
students. Their
delegation met with
various human
rights groups,
women's groups
and campesino
organizations.

 

 

4

The village of Santa

TV,” said McDonald.

What makes it important despite the
overwhelming and intransigent power of
the state, adds McDonald, is that even the
smallest gains are made more possible
through the presence of the many
international agencies active in
Guatemala.

“Tt’s not our struggle, and I don’t
know if we can really appreciate or
understand what these people are going
through, but it’s important that we stay
involved. The opposition faces
unbelievable obstacles and repression but
are less likely to be targets of violence
when we are around,” says McDonald.

“When we entered Guatemala, we
brought four computers and other
equipment with us to give to various
groups, but the most important thing I
carried was my Canadian passport.”

Besides visiting Guatemala,
McDonald’s latest trip south also took
him to Bolivia where the political climate
is better but economic realities are still
harsh. McDonald had worked for a
Bolivian development group in 1992. This
time he returned with $4,000 raised
through a B.C. society he organized called
the Latin America Schools Project
Association. The money bought locally
built school furniture and a power-surge
protector for a transformer, both for a
school in the mountain town of Aymaya.

McDonald’s commitment to Latin
America started innocently enough, while
he was a University of Alberta student in
the mid-1980s. Studying Spanish and
learning about the region’s history and
politics led to several trips to Mexico and
then volunteer work with Canadian
agencies.

Not surprisingly, McDonald plans to
travel south again in the future. In the
meantime, look for him to be organizing
more fundraising events for education
projects in the mountains of Bolivia.

For more information on the region
and his visits to Guatemala and Bolivia,
McDonald will offer a session during the
next Douglas Development Forum on
February 10.