Guatemala: 'Our lives are cut short at a stroke'

"This is a time of great tension because we know that at any moment, when we least expect it, our lives can be cut short at a stroke," Tito Gálvez, a leader in the Resistance Front for the Defense of Natural Resources and Rights of the Guatemalan Peoples (FRENA), told IPS. Two of Gálvez's fellow activists, Evelinda Ramírez and Octavio Roblero, were among four human rights workers murdered so far this year in this country, where even today, defending civil liberties is a life-and-death matter. Besides Ramírez and Roblero, Germán Curup and Juan Antonio Chea were also killed between Jan. 1 and Feb. 17, and the perpetrators have still not been identified. In 2009 there were 353 attacks on activists, according to human rights organisations. The non-governmental FRENA, based in the western department (province) of San Marcos on the border with Mexico, is engaged in an ongoing dispute over local electricity distribution with the Gas Natural-Unión Fenosa, a Spanish corporation. The conflict escalated to such a level that the government decreed an emergency order called a "state of prevention" from December 2009 to February 2010, suspending several constitutional rights such as freedom of movement, speech and assembly and enhancing the powers of security forces to conduct searches.