THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF THE MADISON TIMES WEEKLY NEWSPAPER

Compiled By Heidi M. Pascual

• Mayan lawyers in Guatemala plan a war on racism

MEXICO CITY (IPS/GIN) — The newly created Guatemalan Association of Mayan Lawyers will play a role in the selection of judges and defend the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples in the Central American country, where "racism and discrimination reign," said Amílcar Pop, founder of the group.

"Now that we have an assemblage of indigenous professionals who are conscious of their ethnic reality, it is the ideal moment to create a point of convergence that makes us strong and allows us to present concrete proposals against a racist state," Pop told IPS (Inter Press Service) in a telephone interview from the Guatemalan capital.

The new association, made up of 94 indigenous lawyers and notaries, made its formal debut this week, just as a process is getting under way to renovate 72 judgeships in courts of second instance and the 13 posts in Guatemala's Supreme Court.

"It's totally unjust that there is not a single Indian magistrate in the higher courts, when more than 50 percent of the population of 11.5 million belongs to some indigenous group in this country," said Pop.

"Now is the time to come forward as Indians  to demand an end to discrimination in the justice system," said the attorney, who is also among the plaintiffs in a series of lawsuits against former Guatemalan military leaders and government leaders for mass murder and human rights violations.

The process of designating new judges in the Central American nation entails the presentation of candidates by lawyers' guilds and associations, by tribunals and by the deans of the law schools. The nominees will then go through a selection process and the Guatemalan Congress will formally elect finalists in October.

The participants in the process of nominating candidates number no more than 3,000. "We are in a circle that is too small, in which Indians do not appear because of the racist and ethnocentric attitude of the Guatemalan state," Pop said.

Guatemala is among the Latin American countries with highest proportion of indigenous population. Eighty percent of Guatemalans are poor, and 60 percent of the productive land is in the hands of just 20 percent of rural property owners.

The new Association of Mayan Lawyers also aims to defend indigenous peoples who have legal problems related to land ownership.  

— Diego Cevallos  

• New Indian leaders take on big business over affirmative action

NEW DELHI, India (IPS/GIN) — The new government is on a collision course with the powerful corporate sector and the affluent middle class because of its plans to enforce affirmative action on behalf of socially deprived groups in India's caste hierarchy.

The seriousness of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, led by the Congress Party, in making good promises to 'socially empower' an estimated 500 million people or half of India's population was first made known through the customary presidential speech at the opening of the new Parliament on Jun. 7.

"The government is sensitive to the issue of affirmative action, including reservations in the private sector and it is committed to faster socio-economic and educational development of the castes and tribes," President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam said.

Kalam's speech, drafted by the Congress party and its communist allies, drew howls of protest from “India Inc.,” as the country's powerful corporate world, largely centered in the western port city and business hub of Mumbai, is popularly referred to.

Rahul Bajaj, outspoken owner of one of the world's largest scooter and two-wheeler manufacturing facilities, said the government's plans could "hurt private sector productivity and efforts to be internationally competitive." He would have to seriously reconsider further investments, he said.

An industrialist who asked not to be named said it is the proposed penalties involved in the affirmative action plan that worry him. "What if we can't find the right people for the jobs? We could end up being penalized or have to shut down shop."

The western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is capital, is turning out to be the test case for the Congress-led government to try out its new policy of affirmative action and see whether it will help the party retain the state when it elects a new assembly around September this year.

Battle lines are already being drawn around the issue with the right-wing, pro-Hindu coalition of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena already declaring opposition to the policy of reserving jobs in the private sector for lower caste people.

But the Congress government in the state, led by Chief Minister S K Shinde, himself a dalit or member of the lowermost caste, has already begun knocking on the doors of some of the best-known corporate names in Mumbai and asking them what they are doing about complying with the new policy.

According to the officials, all private companies that seek to renew land leases in Maharashtra or seek assistance or subsidies from the state government will have to show compliance with the affirmative action policy. The same principle may gradually be extended to the rest of India.

But affirmative action is not new in India. In fact, the country's 1950 Constitution has clear provisions to reserve jobs in government controlled jobs, educational institutions, and legislatures at the state and central level.

Initially, reservations were available only for the scheduled castes — those officially recognized as being on the lowermost rung of the Hindu caste hierarchy or dalits and for scheduled tribes. But when they were extended in 1990 to other socially backward groups to cover nearly 50 percent of the population, it unleashed social and political forces that the country is still grappling with.

The rise of the right-wing BJP during the ‘90s was largely due to reactions from upper-caste Hindus, who stood to lose the domination they traditionally enjoyed in Indian society through a monopoly over influential jobs and situations in the government and educational institutions.

However, the ‘90s also saw a steady decline in the role of the government as employer because it coincided with structural changes that favored the growth of private enterprise and involved the privatization of public sector enterprises.

—Ranjit Devraj  

END OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS