Guatemalans told U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris to "go home" during her first visit last Sunday because they reject the current administration's "LGBTQ, pro-abortion ideology," reports say.
According to Central America media outfit El Faro, the protesters were not against Harris's visit but against the Biden Administration's pro-LGBT and pro-abortion agenda. El Faro said the twenty protesters who picketed in the airport belonged to "the real civil society" group Society In Action and the Veterans' Association of Guatemala.
"We're not against Kamala Harris's diplomatic visit, but rather her interference and blackmail in return for aid," said Society In Action, a group of 20 which calls itself "the real civil society," El Faro quoted the protesters in a tweet last Monday that included their photos.
The photos showed the messages "Kamala Go Home," "Kamala, TRUMP WON," "Lawfare," "Unemployment," and "Unconstitutional reforms," among others.
One of the protesters told El Faro photojournalist Victor Peña the reason why they were protesting.
"We're against their (the Biden administration's) agenda of imposing the LGBTQ, pro-abortion ideology. In Guatemala we're pro-life," the member said.
"We're against their (the Biden administration's) agenda of imposing the LGBTQ, pro-abortion ideology. In Guatemala we're pro-life," one member of the group told @_elfaro_'s photojournalist @victorpena84. pic.twitter.com/3UzF2s60En
"” El Faro English (@ElFaroEnglish) June 6, 2021
The Western Jounal reported that Guatemala is mostly a Christian country based on a 2016 poll of the United States Department, making up 87% of the population. The Journal explained that Guatemalans, as Christians, value human life with the right to life and liberty, as well as, the pursuit of happiness that is contrary to Biden's policies shown by his "anti-freedom" and "anti-scientific" LGBTQ+ agenda.
The protestors find that the humanitarian aid provided by the Biden Administration is but "bribery" to insist their "ideological leftism" along with their poor solutions to the crisis in illegal immigration, which involves rejecting Trump's previous undertakings, the Journal noted.
A commentary by University Of New York Anthropology Professor Dr. Victoria Sanford published in El Faro on May 26 sheds light to the protesters against Harris. Sanford said Harris announced last April that the United States will release a $310 million humanitarian aid package for Central America that was followed by a joint border protection task force agreement of the United States with Guatemala. The Biden Administration was said to "militarize Mexico and Central America with proxy forces for their shared borders" with a deployment of almost 20,000 troops from Mexico and Guatamela at the Honduran border and within it.
"While humanitarian aid is desperately needed, beefing up security forces in Central America while cozying up to authoritarian leaders will only exacerbate the criminality and corruption pushing so many families and youth to seek haven in the United States," Sanford said.
"Shadowy relations between police, the judiciary, cartels, organized crime, and gangs fuse daily life with fear while also facilitating undocumented migration through trafficking networks," she added. "To stem migration from Central America, we need an internationally supported commission to investigate and prosecute corruption throughout the region--not the U.S.-led working group on corruption that is currently under consideration. The United States must carefully choose its institutional partners."
The commission Sanford referred to is the UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG.
Sanford elaborated that the aid is only adding on to the struggle of corruption in Guatemala, and what is needed is not Harris's visit to the country, but to work with the United Nations to prosecute corruption and criminality, and to establish human rights.
"Support for access to education, economic growth, expanding labor opportunities and enhancing democracy are benchmarks for U.S. international aid programs, but they cannot flourish in corrupt Central American states," Sanford pointed out.
"Vice President Harris can address the root causes of migration and re-establish U.S. priorities of strengthening human rights, rule of law, and democracy by working with the United Nations and the Organization of American States to reboot the CICIG as an independent regional commission against impunity that is empowered to investigate and prosecute corruption and criminality in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras," she stressed.
