In an interview with Real World Radio, Mauro Vay, founder and General Coordinator of the Peasant Development Committee (CODECA) said that the kidnapping, torture and murder of Juana Raymundo “is a sign of what we´ve been denouncing for quite some time: we are under a criminal government”.

“The Ministry of Government plans extrajudicial killings against all human rights defenders, because we are the ones confronting corruption in Guatemala”, said Vay, who also exposed how the government is imprisoning opponents.

Juana Raymundo Rivera was an Ixil Mayan woman, human rights defender and nurse, member of CODECA and the Executive Secretariat of the People Liberation Movement (MLP) of Guatemala. She was kidnapped on July 27 and a day later her body was found with signs of having been tortured in a Nebaj road. Her funeral took place in Nebaj Quiché municipality, with the presence of colleagues of the Health Department and the family of the young woman who worked in the Vicampana Vitz area of said municipality.

Hours later, on July 30th, Guatemalan president Morales addressed the public in military clothing: “They know that they can frighten the Guatemalan people this way… Jimmy put on a military uniform because he was involved in the genocide and wants to remind the people the terror of their actions during the war, and their actions now”, said Vay. “But the people will stand firm and won´t be intimidated”, he added.

CODECA denounced that they are being “selectively persecuted” by Jimmy Morales´ administration and that six members of the organization have been killed in 2018. In addition, in a press release issued on July 28, they demanded the “CICIG to investigate the cases because the Public Prosecution Office is not doing its work as it should be”.

They receive constant “threats via social media and telephone”, added the coordinator of CODECA: “We know that the authorities are behind these threats”.

CODECA is proposing a Constituent Assembly and to form a Plurinational State in Guatemala: “We seek changes through political participation”, to address the “agrarian, health, education, security problems, mining and hydroelectric projects” to face the looting of the Nation´s resources carried out by “the corrupt authorities together with business sectors”.