A comparison of freedoms for Veterans Day

By JOHN McCALLUM

Editor

Those of you who know me or read my past columns know that I spend time in Guatemala periodically on mission work. My first trip was in 2008, and I have been down to that Central American country in four of the last five summers.

I have made good friends in that country among the native Maya that we visit, and I follow what happens there. At times, I have even thought about what it might be like to live in Guatemala, to stay and not return home. Frankly, I feel the people we visit, the Q’eqchi Maya, treat each other far better than we here in the U.S. treat ourselves.

But there are no illusions. Life in Guatemala, like many Third or Developing World countries, is hard and dangerous.

For someone in my profession, that hit home on Monday when I received an email update from an organization called “Monitoring Guatemala.” The headline was enough: “Another journalist assassinated.” Throw in the headline deck “Journalist and his wife shot to death in Coatepeque” and you get the idea.

Saturday, Nov. 5, local radio station broadcaster Hamilton Roeli Hernandez Vasquez, 28, and his wife Ermelinda Gonzalez Lucas, 35, were shot to death — three times in the back of the head for Vasquez and twice in the same spot for Lucas — with their bodies dumped alongside a dirt road between Coatepeque and Flores Costa Cuca in the province of Quetzaltenango.

Quetzaltenango is west, southwest of where we visit in the Central Highlands, closer to the Pacific Ocean. Still, I know people in mission who frequent that region, and similar violence has occurred around where we go to the city of Coban and the Baja Vera Paz and Alta Vera Paz mountains.

Guatemala is a place where people do actually die for freedoms we take for granted every day. And it’s not just freedom of the press, which is unfortunately coming more and more under fire in our own country.

We have the freedom of much cleaner air and water, along with efficient sanitation, thanks in part — and some people aren’t going to like this — to our government, local, state and federal. Pretty liberal statement, I know, because after all, government can’t do anything right.

We have the freedom of a far better education system, one that is as equitable as possible to everyone regardless of race, sex or other considerations. In Guatemala, men are mostly assured of the equivalent of a sixth-grade education, women third-grade.

We have the freedom of good transportation systems, for the most part, which is again, a benefit from our government. In Guatemala, there are only a handful of paved highways, and when roads do get improved, it’s likely the money came from some other country or a private party.

For example, regarding the former, construction work widening a portion of the highway going north out of Guatemala City has been paid for by millions of dollars from Taiwan, given in appreciation of Guatemala being one of the first countries to recognize the breakaway Chinese province as a sovereign nation.

Locally among the Q’eqchi, paving the road north to Senahu, a beautiful, small city nestled in a valley in the Alta Vera Paz, from Highway 7E on the Polochic River valley floor was paid for in 2010 by local sugar growers in order to make it easier for their employees to get to work.

There are more freedoms that we take for granted. And there are many other freedoms that are being eroded, pushing more and more towards being like our Central American brothers and sisters.

It’s something to think about this Friday as we praise and thank members of our military — past and present — for their service protecting those freedoms. At the same time, we might want to ask ourselves if we are doing our part to not only ensure those freedoms for us, but also for others.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].