Guatemala-50 Lifetimes Or More

GUATEMALA

Fifty Lifetimes or More

A Guatemalan court sentenced Santos López Alonzo, 66, to a total of 5,160 years in prison for his involvement in the massacre of 171 people during the country’s 36-year civil war.

Totaling as much as 50 lifetimes, the massive sentence is symbolic – with López sentenced to 30 years for crimes against humanity and an additional 30 years for each of the 171 victims. Under Guatemalan law, he could serve a maximum of 50 years behind bars.

López was accused of participating in the killings as the member of an elite squad known as the Kaibiles, which murdered almost the entire population of the village of Dos Erres on Dec. 7, 1982, in an effort to find members of a guerrilla group that had ambushed a military convoy, the New York Times reported.

Failing to locate the guerrillas, the soldiers raped many of the village women, according to prosecutors, and then massacred the residents to cover up the rapes.

Overall, about 200,000 people were killed and an additional 45,000 disappeared during the conflict, which lasted from 1960 to 1996.

Thanksgiving Is Not Just An American Holiday

GIVING THANKS – AROUND THE WORLD

Thanksgiving is arguably the most American of holidays.

Originating in the devout Christian culture of early 17th century New England, Thanksgiving is secular. It’s also diverse and open – following in the spirit of Pilgrims breaking bread with the Native Americans: It’s welcoming of family, friends, colleagues, neighbors and even strangers.

Still, the whole point is to pause for a moment and reflect on one’s blessings, while reveling in them.

And in that, we are not alone: Thanksgiving is only one among many days of thanks worldwide, some religious, some quirky, most delectable. We bring you a sampling of how others celebrate their bounty, as we sit down to give thanks for our own.

A girl in Hyderabad, India, is caught up in the color bombs that mark the Holi festival. Photo by Shubham Sharma

THE AMERICAS

Starting at the end of February, Argentina celebrates its grape harvest in Vendimia with the Archbishop of Mendoza blessing the grapes before everyone has a tipple (or two). In neighboring Brazil, some sit down to give thanks and eat turkey the same day Americans do – a Brazilian ambassador to the US liked the tradition so much, he imported it, albeit with a local twist: A church service in the morning and a Carnival at the end.

Then comes Brazilian Black Friday – a day many countries have gleefully adopted.

To the north, Canadians have already finished their turkey leftovers by the time Americans start thinking about stuffing. Canadian Thanksgiving, in October, dates to 1578 when explorer Martin Frobisher sailed his convoy from England looking for the Northwest Passage. Surviving harsh storms, they gave thanks for their deliverance.

The Grenadians also celebrate a US-style Thanksgiving in October – in honor of the 1983 “liberation” of the Caribbean island by the US.

And in Barbados, giving thanks for the sugar cane crop, once the economic mainstay of the island, was long a tradition in the wild party known as Crop Over. And even though sugar cane production is no longer important, the party must go on – with Calypso and crazy costumes.

AFRICA

African gratitude festivals often involve surviving famine and war. For example, the Ga people of Ghana celebrate Homowo (literally jeer at hunger) in May to honor the end of a long-ago period of drought and famine and themselves for surviving it. Meanwhile, in northwestern Nigeria, Argungu celebrates the end of hostilities between two kingdoms in 1934 and ends in thousands jumping into a river with one hour to catch the largest fish using traditional methods.

In Swaziland, locals sing and dance during the Incwala Festival: On Day 4, the king tastes the first fruits of the new harvest before throwing a sacred gourd to a lucky young man. Meanwhile,  the Ngoni people of Zambia celebrate the first harvest of the year and the entrance of their people into Zambia in 1835 in N’cwala with a warrior dance competition in February.

And in Liberia, locals have celebrated Thanksgiving with mashed cassavas, green bean casserole and roasted chicken spiced with peppers on the first Thursday in November since 1820 when freed American slaves began colonization.

EUROPE

The northern Italian city of Alba loves its white truffles and celebrates their harvest in a fall festival with truffle-studded everything, truffle hunts and donkey races, too. In Olivagando in Magione, locals mark the olive harvest in November with a feast in a medieval dinner in the town’s 12th-century castle.

In Madeira, April’s flower harvest festival sees the island’s children creating the colorful Muro da Esperança (Wall of Hope) with flowers, as flower carpets grace the streets of Funchal. And in Lithuania, locals celebrate Nubaigai, the “Festival of the Old Woman” in October with a scarecrow resembling an elderly woman and songs of a bison that tried to eat the wheat crop before ultimately being defeated by the people.

Since 1810, Bavarians have donned lederhosen and dirndls to celebrate Oktoberfest in Munich and elsewhere in southern Germany. Meanwhile, across the country, many mark Erntedankfest (harvest festival of thanks), more religious than beer-soaked. And then there are the gourds: In the Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival, locals take to the water in a regatta involving canoes made out of giant pumpkins.

Meanwhile, the industrious Dutch have two days (Dankdag voor Gewas en Arbeid) to be thankful for “crops” and “work”: The first involves prayer for the future bounty and the second, gratitude for it. Meanwhile, some in Leiden celebrate that they were involved in the first American thanksgiving: About 40 percent of the Pilgrims were here.

MIDDLE EAST/ASIA

Sukkot marks the end of the harvest in Israel. Recalling their people’s tribulations in the desert – and their escape therefrom – locals build temporary shelters and eat and sleep in them.

It’s all about the moon in China: The 400-year old Mid-Autumn Festival coincides with the first full moon of the season involves eating moon cakes and gazing at the moon. In the 14th century, Chinese rebels used mooncakes to distribute secret messages to undermine the Mongolian empire.

Indians celebrate Holi which dates back to the fourth century by singing and dancing around a bonfire and then having a fight: In the Carnival of Colors, everyone tries to paint everyone else with colors via squirt guns and water balloons. Meanwhile, the Iranian harvest festival, Mehregan, dates back to ancient Persia: Locals wear purple clothes, apply eye-liner for luck, drink special drinks from fruit and flowers, and throw handfuls of sugar plums, lotus seeds and wild marjoram over each other’s heads as they embrace.

In Japan, things become more somber in the Labor Thanksgiving Day which originates from the sixth century BCE. These days, in November, the Japanese honor labor and the fruits of it (production) and thank each other while children draw pictures and gift them to police stations.

Asia’s main staple, rice, gets its share of attention: In Bali, the rice harvest festival honors the goddess of the staple grain, Dewi Sri, while in Malaysia (and also Borneo), Kaamatan has six distinct ceremonies honoring the rice harvest. Koreans celebrate, too, in Chuseok, with much sampling of rice cakes and rice wine. And while most honor the grain, Vietnam’s Tet Trung Thu Festival(Festival of the Children) celebrates the ‘latchkey kids’ left at home while the parents work in the rice paddies.

Fruit in Asia comes in crazy shapes and colors (to the Western eye). Chanthaburi in Thailand celebrates these durians, rambutans, longans, and mangosteens in the summer with parade floats made from fruit. And not to be outdone, Turkmenistan’s ego-in-chief, President Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov, created a festival in 1994 to honor the cherished Turkmenbashi melon, his fruity namesake.

OCEANIA

In Australia, it’s all about the tipple: Dating back to 1954, the Stanthorpe festival in March celebrates wine and holds a celebrity grape crush. Meanwhile, in Tasmania, locals honor the hop harvestwith beer and hop brownies.

Thanksgiving on Norfolk Island was imported by American whaling ships: These days, the tradition is to tie corn stalks to the pews and flowers to the altar on the last Wednesday of November.

Defeating the wilderness and overcoming hardships, respecting and harnessing nature, affirming not just family but community and, of course, expressing gratitude unite all of these holidays.

The lesson is clear: There are many ways to give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

D

Brasil: Brace! Brace!

BRAZIL

Brace, Brace

Jair Bolsonaro, the populist president-elect of Brazil, has been repeatedly compared to US President Donald Trump.

The Intercept’s Glen Greenwald thought those comparisons weren’t fair – to Trump. Greenwald is no fan of Trump. But Bolsonaro, he argued, is a dangerous extremist who explicitly wants to reimpose the military dictatorship that ran the South American country from 1964 to 1985.

As the Independent explained, the president-elect began his own army career under the junta’s rule, eventually rising to the rank of captain. He supports torture and has said socialists should leave the country or face prison once he assumes office.

Brazilian military brass pushed back on that assertion.

“The military has been absent from politics since 1985, after the end of the military government, and that’s how it intends to maintain itself, independent of whether the president-elect is a retired captain from our Brazilian army,” Army Chief Eduardo Dias da Costa Villas Bôas told the Financial Times.

The world will have to wait until Bolsonaro’s inauguration on Jan. 1 to see who’s right.

In the meantime, there are plenty of other reasons to be concerned about the new far-right leader.

One of Bolsonaro’s first cabinet choices was Judge Sergio Moro, tapped to become justice minister. Moro oversaw the sweeping “Car Wash” corruption case that has rocked Latin America. His success in rooting out crooked politicians, in that case, could help the new administration in Brasilia address the country’s terrible crime problem.

But Moro also convicted and jailed ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on bribery charges that alleged Lula received an apartment as a bribe in a scandal involving Petrobras, the state oil company. Lula denied ever owning the apartment, but his conviction was upheld.

Moro denied that Lula’s case had anything to do with his appointment. But even he had to admit his new job looked like a quid pro quo for his role in making sure Lula couldn’t run against Bolsonaro in the election last month.

“I know that some interpreted my nomination as a reward,” the judge told the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s enormous and thriving film industry, a bellwether of a free society and open economy, is fearful of censorship under the new president, the Hollywood Reporter wrote.

Bolsonaro has hit bumps on foreign policy, too, wrote Bloomberg Opinion writer Mac Margolis.

He’s insulted Brazil’s neighbors, like when he questioned the credentials of Cuban doctors in the country, prompting Cuban leaders to say they’ll put their physicians out. He also proposed to relocate Brazil’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem before considering whether that move might jeopardize Brazil’s role as the world’s biggest exporter of halal meat to Muslims.

Brazilian voters clearly wanted change. They’re now going to see whether the unintended consequences of their desires will make them regret their choices.

Cuba Libre On Ice

CUBA

Cuba Libre, on Ice

Originating in Cuba in the early 20th century, the Cuba Libre (Rum and Coke) is considered a mediocre drink, almost an insult to the aged dark liquor that – if one is lucky – sometimes infuses it. Still, the sweet and bitter concoction has its fans, its new high-end reinventions and, of course, its historical legacy.

You could say that it’s an apt metaphor for its homeland these days.

In the wake of warmer relations with the US, exiles like dancer Rolando Sarabia are returning to the island. Sarabia recently took part in the 26th Havana International Ballet Festival after not appearing on a Cuban stage for 13 years.

“Happiness, happiness. I just don’t have any other words,” Sarabia’s brother told the Associated Press. ”This is something big.”

Homecomings like Sarabia’s aren’t the only signs of raised hopes since the US restored diplomatic ties with Cuba under President Barack Obama.

Republican lawmakers are calling for reforms in agricultural financing rules to allow American farmers to sell rice, soybeans and other goods to the island. “Cuba is one of only a very few foreign markets where the potential for US agricultural growth is quantifiable and achievable,” three GOP lawmakers argued in an editorial in the Hill that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

Some things have not changed, however.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel recently embarked on his first foreign tour. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, noted that he was visiting China, North Korea and Russia – the island’s historical friends, but hardly allies of the United States.

Chinese officials evoked the coded but clear anti-American language of the Cold War years during Díaz-Canel’s appearance in Beijing.

“China supports Cuba in its determination to explore a development path suited to its own national conditions,” said Wang Yang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Cuba and other nations have also kept up pressure on the US in international bodies like the United Nations, where delegates in the General Assembly still vote to condemn the American embargo of the island while rejecting US criticisms of Cuba’s human rights record, Al Jazeera reported.

American leaders like National Security Advisor John Bolton don’t hold back, either. The Los Angeles Times wrote that Bolton recently described Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua as a “troika of tyranny.” It sounds silly, but the alleged microwave attacks on American diplomats in Havana suggest Bolton might have cause to remain very suspicious of Cuban leaders. And this week, President Donald Trump added 26 new names to a list of tourist attractions that Americans are barred from visiting – though travel to Cuba remains legal, the Associated Press reported.

Such contretemps are one reason that American businesses are less enthused about opportunities in Cuba, reported the Miami Herald.

The climate has consequences. Economic growth in Cuba has stalled. Revenues from tourism and other sectors are down, Reuters said. Government austerity measures likely contributed to the downturn.

Things were so hopeful a few years ago. In Cuba, real change might take more than one generation.

Brasil's Car Industry

Brazil's domestically focused automobile trade policy could undergo significant changes under newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro.

Chocoholics Through The Ages

Chocoholics, Through the Ages

Addicted to chocolate? So was ancient man.

According to a study in Nature Ecology & Evolution, ancient South Americans consumed the cacao plant – from which chocolate originates – about 5,450 years ago, Science Alert reported.

In the highlands of Ecuador, archaeologists discovered residue of Theobroma cacao – the cacao tree – in several ceramic artifacts, suggesting that the ancient locals consumed the plant 1,500 years earlier than the Mesoamericans in Central America.

“No archaeological evidence of cacao use in South America had ever been previously reported … even though botanists had long known that Amazonia held the greatest number of Theobroma species and T. cacao varieties,” said co-author Michael Blake.

Researchers argued the local Mayo Chinchipe people used the domesticated plant as a beverage for ritual ceremonies and practices, but further evidence revealed that average citizens consumed it on a daily basis.

It’s unsure as to how the precious seed went north, but the team speculates that trade might have resulted in its proliferation.

They hope that further study might reveal an earlier origin of cacao usage, with Blake noting that the plant was irresistible to the ancient locals.

“It is such an obvious and alluring plant,” he said.

Venezuela-One In 12

VENEZUELA

One in 12

Some 3 million Venezuelans, or one in 12 citizens, have fled the country to escape skyrocketing inflation, political turmoil, shortages of food and medicine, as well as violence.

Of that number, 2.3 million have left Venezuela since 2015, according to United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesman William Spindler, and the exodus has accelerated over the past six months, Al Jazeera reported.

Most of them have headed to Colombia (1 million) and Peru (500,000). But Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and Brazil have all faced huge influxes.

Colombia currently sees around 3,000 refugees arrive daily. Bogota estimates caring for them will cost as much as $9 billion by 2021. That puts the much-talked-about migrant caravan of Hondurans making their way through Mexico toward the US border in perspective, said Father Francesco Bortignon, who has given shelter to Venezuelans in Colombia.

The entire caravan is “how many we get every four days,” he said. According to the World Bank, the crisis has already cost Colombia almost half a percent of its GDP in 2018, or $1.2 billion.