Guatemala in Free Fall

Join the Esperanza Center for the conversation “Guatemala in Free Fall”, with Guatemalan human rights activist Luis Gutierrez and attorney Jennifer Harbury. Following a seminar-like discussion, Jennifer Harbury and Luis Gutierrez will share their stories, insights, and experiences of working for human rights and justice in Guatemala, as well as the impact that US policy and actions have on the lives of communities outside of this country.

A Q&A session will follow the conversation.

Doors will open at 5:30 PM.

Jennifer K. Harbury is an activist, author, and attorney who has spent much of the past twenty years working to monitor and promote human rights in Guatemala. Her husband, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, was a Mayan resistance leader who “disappeared” due to the Guatemalan military in 1992; subjected to long-term, severe torture; then extrajudicially executed. Harbury’s efforts to save his life, which included three dangerous hunger strikes, resulted in startling disclosures about the close working relationship between the CIA and the Central American death squads. Since learning of her husband’s death, she has devoted much of her time to press for human rights reforms for both the United States and Guatemalan governments.

Luis Eduardo Gutierrez Marckwordt is a life- long Guatemalan human rights activist. His parents were both very involved in the reform efforts of President Jacobo Arbenz during the “Ten Years of Spring” (1944-1954). Luis grew up in the shadow of the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup and its violent aftermath. His father was imprisoned, then assassinated; and many close family friends, including the gifted poet Otto Rene Castillo, were tortured and killed. Luis followed swiftly in their footsteps, becoming an activist at an early age. He continues to this day to struggle for fundamental human rights and an end to official impunity for war crimes.

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