KGET 17 News (KGET) — A year into the COVID-19 pandemic Kern has lost more than a thousand residents to the deadly virus 17 News is providing this space for the community to honor their loved ones by uploading their photos and sharing their names and memories Thanks to a vibrant community and dedicated fans the Star Wars films constantly smash box office records and the TV shows pull in millions of viewers If you need some help brainstorming ways to celebrate Star Wars Day A necklace that honors the bond between mother and child is a personal Neymar made a memorable return to the pitch of his beloved Santos on the day he turned 33 But it wasn’t as spectacular as anticipated by a packed Urbano Caldeira as Santos settled for a 1-1 draw with Botafogo in the Brazilian Paulista Championship it was a difficult return to action after a long injury layoff during his time in the Saudi Pro League Neymar did not start the match and came on as a substitute after the break But Neymar was weighed down by the pressure of the world watching and the physical struggle of playing competitive football after 16 months Por mais que o resultado tenha sido ruim, hoje foi um dia muito especial.Obrigado a todos pelo carinho e por ter nos incentivado até o fim. Agora mais do que nunca precisamos de todo apoio dos nossos torcedores… porque com vocês somos mais fortes! Muito feliz e emocionado em… pic.twitter.com/lUEHmvljr6 but perhaps the occasion got the better of him Santos had taken the lead in the first half through a Tiquinho Soares penalty but Alexandre de Jesus equalised in the 67th minute Botafogo were reduced to 10 men after Wallison received a red card for a foul on Neymar But Santos could not deliver a win on the homecoming of their most famous player since Pele I had even commented that my father was there on the side I think it's time for me to be patient and get some practice,,” Neymar said post-match Neymar was overwhelmed by the affection shown by Santos faithful “I can't find the words to express the feeling when you love something I love Santos very much and I can't find the words to describe the feeling I felt when I stepped out onto the pitch today.” where he had a storied career alongside fellow South American stars Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez Neymar then joined French side Paris St Germain before trying his luck with Al Hilal in Saudi It wasn’t a good outing for Neymar in Saudi as a series of injuries sustained during a World Cup qualifier reduced game time at Al Hilal to just seven matches in more than 18 months This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page There is a bitter joke circulating among many Guatemalans ever since the nation’s 36-year civil war ended in 1996: Beware the peace because now the government is fighting everyone Guatemalahalf the size of Idahohas endured some of the most unimaginable human abuses in modern history Thousands of Guatemalans have continued to flee despite U.N.-brokered peace accords presidential promises of reform and millions of dollars in international aid I never wanted to come to the United States a ceramic-tile mason who fled from his homeland and now resides in Washington State Experts blame the war on persistent government corruption widespread poverty and discrimination toward people of Mayan Indian ancestry who make up 65 percent of the nation’s 12 million inhabitants During the protracted conflict between Guatemala National Revolutionary Unity rebels and the government’s troops and death squads thousands were tortured and 50,000 were left missing Recently declassified Guatemalan army files revealed that 650,428 citizensmore than 10 percent of the populationwere marked for death over the course of the war Most of those who died were Indian villagers long distrusted by government officials for their independent beliefs and resistance to domination Search teams have found mass graves filled with the bodies of babies One such discovery unearthed 2,000 corpsesvirtually the entire population of several neighboring communities I saw many times how the army killed the village people whose work took him to construction sites around the country One time they attacked a village and burned the houses with the people inside They thought the people supported the guerillas But ask Guatemalans what has changed since the peace accords were signed and many will reply that too much has remained the same Postwar violence made world headlines in 1998 when a Roman Catholic bishop was bludgeoned to death after he reported military abuses to a commission investigating wartime atrocities The judge who later convicted three army officers and a priest in the killing was forced to flee after receiving death threats But after blaming the government and army for 90 percent of the wartime killings a truth commission recommended amnesty and anonymity for all those who committed abuses violent crime and mob incidents have surged since the end of the war observers attribute this both to lack of social cohesion and distrust toward civil procedures that fail to protect citizens’ rights people have taken things into their own hands Mobs and gangs have killed hundreds of people since the war ended observers documented 123 murders through March aloneincluding an incident in which villagers hacked a judge to death with machetes after he freed two rape suspects an angry crowd tortured and fatally burned eight villagers accused of robbery In October about 1,000 peasants attacked a police station when authorities refused to arrest a suspect in a fatal shooting Witnesses who found some of the bullets said they matched those used by police consulate statement warned: Guatemalan citizen frustration with crime and a lack of appropriate judicial remedies has led to violent incidents of vigilantism in more isolated Attempting to intervene puts one at risk of attack from others Other killings around the country have been linked to former army personnel intent on war-related revenge Many officers now work within police ranks toting machine guns as they ride in groups of up to 10 in the back of pickup trucks According to a World Policy Report on ex-army staff Still others have hired themselves out as private guards to combat labor unions and land invasions and are now using firearms to defend the land and homes they seized from neighbors who fled into the mountains or abroad during the civil war One of his brothers was shot dead by unknown assailants on an election day after he voted for the opposition His second brother was seriously wounded by gunfire after he resigned from the army out of frustration over military abuses Santos himself was tortured simply because he was a trade-union leader There is no source where we could go for justice Amnesty International has denounced the postwar violence as well as the rise in burglaries at nongovernmental organization officesapparently an effort to destroy records the N.G.O.’s use to document abuses In October 2001 a Human Rights Procurator’s office administrator was threatened with death; his office was ransacked Human Rights Committee similarly criticized the government’s systematic violations of the right to life Human Rights Watch expressed grave concern over the absence of effective law and the continued use of lynching as a form of vigilante justice among peasants disillusioned by the lack of civil order The peace that was signed in 1996 is not peace in reality executive director of Witness for Peace in Washington The suspension of human rights is just one more step toward reintroducing the military into civilian lifewhich is specifically prohibited in the peace accords People are continually living in an atmosphere of fear Social upheaval also has slowed the pace of reform Guatemalans have continued to flee out of political some of those who returned home under a postwar amnesty plan have left again after being sent to resettlement camps and left to work for inadequate wages while being scorned for having fled We still have quite a lot of Guatemalan and other Central American trafficabout 15 percent of apprehensions a city with many Latin American residents and a common destination for those who cross Mexico’s northeastern border Those I’ve come across usually break down and cry and say that they fear they’ll be killed or their family will be killed We try to help them if they ask for asylum The Border Patrol arrested more than 22,000 illegal entrants from Guatemala Honduras and El Salvador in 2001turning some back across the border imprisoning suspected criminals and detaining those seeking political asylum until their case is heard at an Immigration and Naturalization Service hearing approved 1,570 Guatemalan requests for political asylum and denied 18,579 1,289 were denied and 1,823 remained pending Santos fled to ward off harassment of his wife he was a visible target of government suspicion so he made his way north through Mexico by bus His final hurdlecrossing the Rio Grande into the United Statescost him $100 He was guided through a remote area by one of many so-called coyotes who earn handsome profits through the human-trafficking trade asked the Bush administration to back legislation allowing more Guatemalan refugees to become permanent residents in the United States in accordance with earlier legislation on Nicaraguans and Cubans Some analysts say Portillo would rather keep potential troublemakers away The president won election in 1999 despite his admission that he had killed two menand notwithstanding his close association with party leader Efrain Rios Montt a former right-wing dictator whose U.S.-supported regime oversaw some of the worst atrocities of the war Montt now serves as president of the National Congress Some people think we have no right to come to the United States They ignore what the United States did in Guatemala The truth is that we aren’t here because we want to be here The government of the United States supported the war and provided weapons Many of Guatemala’s young also are leaving for other lands through placement for international adoptions more than 2,200 of the nation’s children were adopted abroad including 1,532 who came to the United States stipulation that home-country placement should be a priority According to a report by the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office some of the adoptions have been fraught with irregularities While adoptions have given many young war orphans a legitimate chance at a better life others reportedly have been kidnapped from villages or procured through bribery and other manipulation Holland temporarily suspended its authorization of adoptions from Guatemala An official cited evidence that some women had been forced to give up their children after being pressured by criminal gangs Spain suspended its authorization of Guatemalan adoptions pending a review of selection procedures International groups also have urged a halt to Guatemala’s persistent use of child labor which may represent as much as 60 percent of the nation’s workforce More than 300,000 children perform agricultural labor and 50,000 work in the manufacturing sectorincluding 5,000 who work in fireworks factories and 3,000 who work at gunpowder plants About 20 percent of children aged 10 to 14 work throughout the country Almost 40 percent of working children are Indians Statistics are sketchy on the number of children who work as beggars the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) and several individual nations have provided millions of dollars in assistance to accelerate Guatemala’s reconstruction Yet some analysts fear that a predominantly economic emphasis will bolster the wealth and power of a corrupt elite widen the gap between the middle class and the poor and destroy what remains of indigenous cultureall in the name of globalization some sectors of Guatemala’s capital city rival many international destinations The city’s national convention center draws historic global negotiations Its more fashionable streets boast Western fast-food restaurants huge department stores and the finest Parisian perfumes But such wealth remains a distant dream among those who live in the city’s slums where more than 50 percent of residents share rooms with three to five people and more than one-fifth share rooms with six to nine others city life is beyond the wildest imagination of the rural poor more than 20,000 rural workers held nationwide demonstrations to demand hastened land distribution better housing and rural development as promised during the peace negotiations The protests followed the fatal shooting of an activist who challenged the land claims of a wealthy plantation owner Plantation guards were implicated in the killing Many such incidents have been documented across the country Guatemala continues to face serious problems of poverty and income distribution Nearly 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line the income received by the richest quintile is 30 times the income of the poorest quintile and 2.5 percent of farms take up 65 percent of agricultural land has reported progress in working with the government on its stringent reconstruction loan requirements and the World Bank has reported success with several projects a $31 million World Bank loan is financing a program in the northern highlands that involves mapping adjudication of farmers’ land claims and title registration Another loan of $62 million is supporting basic education programs throughout a nation in which 40 percent of the workforce lacks even a single year of formal education But most of the nation’s poor farmers still struggle to cultivate meager harvests on thin increasingly are owned by Asian firms that face burgeoning labor costs back home the average wage among the working poor is less than $1 a day Fewer than 8 percent of workers belong to unions Those kinds of policies increase growthbut at the expense of exacerbating poverty I don’t think social justice is high on their list Privatization will reduce poor Guatemalans’ access to subsidized health care public transportation and other human needs She added that such reforms also will minimize attention toward addressing citizens’ civil rights Poverty and social justice are being shamefully undervalued Economic growth does not necessarily guarantee Guatemalan equality The real solution has to be international in scopeto address inequalities and social justice in developing countries Other analysts say economic privatization is the only realistic way to battle Guatemala’s elitism corruption and discrimination toward the indigenous poor to move beyond the romantic novels about how Mayan life used to be and recognize that it is unjust to deny citizens the right to nourishing food decent housing and the economic means to better their future in concrete ways the cultural framework is going to be imprisoned by old patterns from the pastexploitation and racism Globalization has comeand I’m not applauding it But there are certain aspects that can benefit the poor villager who might be better off not working as a rural laborer whose kids would be better off attending secondary school No one expects the transformation to come soon perhaps it is that Guatemala’s history remains as much a formidable obstacle to the nation’s future as it is a blueprint for what tragic mistakes to avoid if the land of Mayan Indians ever is to find its civil but I don’t know how many years my country will suffer I believe in Godand God didn’t create hatred and war and racism Barbara had served the poor of Guatemala for almost 20 years as a nurse and trained counselor when she was fatally shot by someone determined to steal her vehicle Your graphic piece leaves one appalled at the level of cruelty people are capable of when they inflict such horror on others for an economic The situation in Guatemala described in the article ranks right up there with the malice of the terrorism we experienced here on Sept it has not deterred the five remaining Sisters of Charity who continue working among the Guatemalan people Password reset instructions will be sent to your registered email address As a frequent reader of our website, you know how important America’s voice is in the conversation about the church and the world. 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