Alaíde Foppa

Fanny Rabel

Offset, 1981

Mexico City, Mexico

6778

On Saturday, October 17th, Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa (43) and Gustavo Adolfo Aguilar Gamarro (53) were fatally shot by two unidentified men in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Foppa was shot more than fifty times at Campo Marte, a sports arena, in front of his 14 year-old son.

Solórzano Foppa had spoken out against corruption in Guatemala for years, particularly against politicians, business leaders, and corporations. He served as an anti-graft lawyer and was the head of Criminal Investigations Directorate at the Public Prosecutor’s Office. In a previous role he also served as the head of Guatemala’s tax authority, working to prosecute prominent Guatemala business leaders.

Earlier this year, on social media, he publicly accused government officials of being involved with the escape of leaders from various gangs, some of which Solórzano Foppa helped put behind bars. Two days before his assassination, he posted there were “CIA mercenaries” who were involved in the murder of eight people in

Huité, Zacapa. Many of his colleagues had faced death threats, were imprisoned, or exiled for their anti-corruption work.

Guatemalan authorities arrested two men connected to the assassination, but they were released after a hearing this past weekend. Prosecutors said there was no legitimate evidence linking them to the assassination. The Public Prosecutor’s Office requested the assistance of the FBI to investigate the arrests.

Solórzano Foppa descended from pro-democracy and revolutionary activists—his grandmother was Alaide Foppa, a writer, poet, and feminist, who was disappeared by the Guatemalan military in 1980. She fled Guatemala in 1954 after the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz to protect the corporate

interests of the United Fruit Company and the Dulles brothers, high-ranking U.S.

government officials. For the next 26 years Foppa resided in Mexico, where she became an internationally recognized journalist and activist for women's rights. She had a radio program called "Foro de la Mujer" (Women's Forum) and was a founder of Fem Magazine. Thinking that her status as a journalist would protect her, she returned to Guatemala in 1980 to document the brutality of the military dictatorship for the international press. She was disappeared on her way to the airport in Guatemala City. Her husband, Alfonso Solórzano Fernández and her son, Juan Pablo Solórzano Foppa, were also killed in 1980, and another son, Mario Solórzano Foppa, in 1983–presumably by state forces. Her only surviving children are Julio Solórzano and Silvia Solórzano Foppa, the mother of Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa.

The assassination of Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa and Gustavo Adolfo Aguilar

Gamarro continues Guatemala's long history of political assassinations since the 1954 CIA-backed coup. The overthrow of the democratically elected government led to the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), during which at least 200,000 people were killed and 50,000 more were disappeared...meaning their bodies were never found. Called the Guatemalan genocide, the vast majority of those killed were indigenous Maya, more than 600 Mayan villages were destroyed and 1,500,000 Mayan were displaced.

CSPG's poster of the week honors Alaíde Foppa, the poster was made by Fanny Rabel, just one month after her assassination. Rabel is considered the first modern female muralist and a friend of Frida Kahlo's. She donated the poster to CSPG six months after Foppa's assassination. We must never forget Foppa and the price she paid for her political commitment.

Those responsible for the murder of Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa and Gustavo Adolfo Aguilar Gamarro have yet to face justice. Guatemala must protect its citizens rather than persecute them for exposing corruption. Speaking the truth should not be a death sentence!

Justice for Foppa! Justice for Gamarro!

Alaide Foppa

¡Presente!

Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa

¡Presente!

Gustavo Adolfo Aguilar

¡Presente!