UA lecture cancelled after visas denied (University of Arizona)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Arizona Daily Wildcat

UA lecture cancelled after visas denied
By: Claire Conrad
Issue date: 4/26/07 Section: News

Two Guatemalan leaders who were scheduled for a three-week visit to the U.S., which included a lecture at the UA April 19, were denied multiple-entry visas - part of an increasing trend that has some UA departments worried.

One of those invited, Pedro Bernal Raymundo, is a health promoter for a Guatemalan group called Comunidades de Poblacion en Resistencia, or Peoples' Communities in Resistance. The other, Baltazar Solano Canay, is another elected leader of the group. Nazaria Tum Sanic, also of the resistance group, already had a visa to enter the U.S. but will not be coming now that Bernal and Solano were denied entry.

The resistance group is comprised mainly of indigenous Ixil and K'iche' speaking Maya in the Guatemalan highlands, many of who were targeted by the military during the Guatemalan civil war, which ended in the 1980s. The group works in 18 highland Guatemalan communities and has functioned as an alternative type of government organization since the war.
(snip)

"The larger effect that people in the United States ...; and people outside the United States have less and less desire to work on cultural exchange, development, and collaborative projects because it's just hard," Briggs said.




Read more: http://media.wildcat.arizona.edu/media/storage/paper997/news/2007/04/26/News/Ua.Lecture.Cancelled.After.Visas.Denied-2882718.shtml

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Labor Rights in Guatemala Aided Little by Trade Deal

By Peter S. Goodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 16, 2007; Page A01

GUATEMALA CITY -- Day and night, workers at the port of Quetzal on Guatemala's Pacific coast load fruit from surrounding plantations and clothing stitched in local factories onto freighters bound for Long Beach, Calif., a flow of goods that has swelled since a Central American trade agreement with the United States took force last year.

Under a provision that was crucial to getting the deal through Congress, working conditions for the longshoremen, along with laborers throughout Central America, were supposed to improve. Governments promised to strengthen labor laws, and the Bush administration pledged money to help.

But on the evening of Jan. 15, the head of the port workers union became a symbol of the risks that still confront workers who press their rights in Guatemala.

Pedro Zamora, then in the midst of contentious negotiations with management, was driving on the dusty road through his village, his two sons at his side, when gunmen shot him at least 20 times, killing him, said prosecutors in Guatemala City. One boy was grazed in the knee by a bullet; the other was unharmed.

Nearly two years have passed since the countries of Central America vowed to strengthen worker rights as they sought votes in Congress for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. Yet there has been little if any progress, according to diplomats, labor inspectors, workers and managers.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/15/AR2007031502452.html

[k8conant]

1. I'm guessing UA is "University of Arizona" ??? n/t

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thanks for the point, I'll alter the heading. n/t