From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Protests in Guatemala Close Roads, Choke Exports   
   By Juan Montes, Oct. 17, 2023, WSJ   
   Political turmoil in Guatemala, an impoverished nation of 17 million the size   
   of Virginia, threatens to fuel more U.S.-bound migration in the coming months,   
   experts say. More than 37,000 Guatemalans were apprehended at the U.S.   
   southern border in August,    
   nearly twice as many as in the previous month, according to the U.S. Border   
   Patrol. Close to two million people of Guatemalan origin live in the U.S.    
      
   Demonstrators say they will continue in the streets until Attorney General   
   Porras resigns. The Organization of American States has labeled the   
   judiciary’s efforts as an attack on democracy, and will mediate between the   
   government and protesters.   
      
   Uncertainty and anger prevail among many Guatemalans. “We don’t know what   
   will happen tomorrow, but things are turning ugly,” said Kevin Samayoa, a   
   university student who joined the protests.   
      
   Arévalo, the son of Guatemala’s first democratically elected president, has   
   said that the legal actions led by Porras and her anticorruption prosecutor   
   Rafael Curruchiche are part of an “ongoing coup d’état” aimed at   
   preventing him from taking    
   office on Jan. 14 and thwarting his promised anticorruption campaign.    
      
   A spokesman at the Attorney General’s Office for Porras and Curruchiche   
   didn’t reply to calls for comment.   
      
   Porras was appointed in 2018 shortly before former President Jimmy Morales   
   expelled a United Nations-sponsored antigraft commission that was tasked with   
   tackling Guatemalan government corruption. She and Curruchiche are included in   
   the U.S. Engel list of    
   corrupt actors on grounds they obstructed corruption cases and filed false   
   complaints against former prosecutors who worked with the U.N. agency.   
      
   Electoral court officials have said the election results can’t be modified,   
   but that could change if there is a judicial ruling ordering the suspension of   
   the outcome due to electoral fraud, a move that risks fueling legal and   
   political uncertainty,    
   said Gabriel Orellana, a constitutional law professor at the Francisco   
   Marroquín University.    
      
   “It’s a power struggle,” he said.    
      
   https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/protests-in-guatemala-close-r   
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