With a peaceful demonstration at the headquarters of the Guatemalan consulate in Riverhead, the Guatemalan community of Long Island wants to demonstrate, remotely, its support for the Protestants of their country, who have already completed 14 days in the streets demanding, among other things, the resignation of the nation's attorney general Consuelo Porras.
The Guatemalan residents of the East End, concentrated mostly in Westhampton and Riverhead, will gather carrying flags and t-shirts of their country, shout slogans and in some way recreate on American soil what their countrymen have done during the last two weeks.
“It's our turn, we can't leave our countrymen there alone,” said Byron Ispec, a local Guatemalan leader. "If we stop to think, we are migrants for the same reason, because of the corruption in our countries. We emigrate because in our countries there is no security, there are no opportunities and there is poverty and all the politicians are harming our country."
After Saturday's rally in Riverhead, the Guatemalans have also made an appointment for Sunday at the consulate headquarters in New York City, located at 276 Park Avenue South, New York.
“Migrants are a people, and we are with 48 cantons, the USAC, private universities, religious leaders, leaders of organizations. We are not a few, we are thousands,” said the invitation to the Long Island and New York demonstrations.
The Central American country completed 14 days of going on strike, protests and blockades on its main roads as pressure to demand the resignation of the prosecutor. He is accused by the citizens and the elected President Bernardo Arévalo de León, of wanting to carry out legal maneuvers that would prevent the arrival to the power of the presidential duo elected in the last elections and who must take office in January 2024.
The civil society protest began on Monday, Oct. 2, with sit-ins by indigenous peoples in their own territories, but as the days passed, it received support from university students, professionals, social organizations and various associations in the country.
The climate has become tense in Guatemalan territory as the protest movement grows. The outgoing president, Alejandro Giammattei, has threatened to use public force to break up the demonstrations, which has heated the spirits of the protesters who have said that they will continue tirelessly “in defense of democracy.”
“Today we have to do that protest from 2 to 7 at night because it cannot be done indefinitely but we want to do it so that they feel our support since we are millions of Guatemalans who are outside our countries,” Ispec said.
