The Guatemalan youth movement was devastated by the murder of eight of its leaders in past months by unknown assailants, according to a press release by Centro para la Accion Legal en Derechos Humanos (CALDH), a legal advocacy group based in Guatemala.

All eight victims belonged to the youth advocacy Caja Ludica, an art collective based in Guatemala City that uses performing arts to create alternatives for young people in the barrios.

Members of Caja Ludica march in a neighborhood parade.

The impact of the deaths reached San Francisco as Caja Ludica hosted the Mission District dance group Loco Bloco on a cultural youth exchange several years ago.

This month members of youth empowerment project HOMEY will travel to Guatemala to participate in the 10th anniversary of HIJOS, a youth organization seeking justice for those who disappeared during Guatemala’s civil war.

Manuel ‘El Fu’ Orozco, a hip-hop artist known for dressing as a clown in community parades, was gunned down as he sat playing cards outside his house. He survived a previous attempt on his life that left him in a wheelchair the year prior.
Orozo had established a community youth center in the Mario Alioto, a neighborhood in the outskirt of Guatemala City, prior to the attempts on his life.

Several weeks later, youth advocate and movement participant Nexus “El Gordo” Pineda was shot in the head.
Ten days later, shortly after the youth movement participants attended a memorial for Pineda’s, six more Caja Ludica members were gunned down. Among them break dancers, actors, stilt walkers and musicians who had overcome extreme economic and social adversity to bring change to the lives of others.

Seven of the eight murdered were from Mario Alioto, a community named after a student leader and political activist in 1980s who was bludgeoned to death by police.

“They represented a threat to those who had economic interests in their neighborhoods,” said Ruben Mendoza, a human rights activist and long-time friend of Pineda. “They worked to get youth out of that life, out of gangs by offering an alternative through art.  This conflicted with the interests of those forces who want only to exploit those youth.  They had to be silenced.  Their murder was also a way to frighten others who might want to make change in these zones.”

Mendoza added,  “Nexus escaped the gang life and life of violence himself, he went through that personal and spiritual change and then decided to bring it to others.”

Infamous for the over 50,000 disappeared and 200,000 massacred during the 1980s genocidal war, according to United Nations statistics, people such as Mendoza believe that Guatemala continues to be an unsafe place for young organizers, community workers and artists who are working towards justice and social change.

Over 3,000 men and women between the ages of 14 and 29 are murdered every year in Guatemala, the majority from marginalized communities where violence runs rampant, said CALDH in a press release.

"No more military impunity" photo james Rodriguez www.mimundo.org

In addition to the murders of Cada Ludica’s youth advocates, four members of Mojomayas, a nationwide Mayan youth organization, were killed in two separate incidents this year.

Two of them were run over in the small town of Santa Avelina by a truck carrying cement owned by Palo Viejo, a hydroelectric construction company based in Guatemala. The pair was protesting the construction of a hydroelectric dam that would have flooded several communities, displacing the residents as well as causing environmental damage. 
Another two were shot and beaten to death in January. They were in the process of writing a report condemning the actions of a local mining operation.

To date, the Guatemalan authorities have not investigated any of these crimes.

“A coordination of different youth organizations have joined forces over this.  Sectors who were never able to come together before are sitting down in memory of these fallen heroes,” said Mendoza.

Even after his death, Pineda [and the others who’ve been murdered] have managed to create unity, he added.

Editor’s note: If you’d like to learn more, email Human Rights Ombudsman, Stephen Steger (StegerSF@state.gov), at US Embassy in Guatemala City and express your concern about the murders of members of Caja Ludica and Mojomaya.