Guatemalan expatriates mistrustful.

Security and personal safety are nearly overwhelming challenges for the Guatemalan government. Since the end of the 36 year long guerrilla war in 1996 little progress has been made to assure the personal safety of the average citizen. Unquestionably, the security situation prevents meaningful economic progress and advances in the standard of living, though some observers report improvement in macroeconomic stability.

But only once since the signing of the 1996 peace accords has GDP grown at least 5.0 percent (1998). And never since 1996 has per capita income grown more than 4.4 percent. That was in 2006. The CIA's World Factbook, in a 2007 update, says, "Remittances from a large expatriate community that moved to the United States during the war have become the primary source of foreign income, exceeding the total value of exports and tourism combined."

It is, therefore, of note that part of this expatriate community residing in South Florida with the active participation of local activists and community groups has begun to explore ways to match remittances with projects in Guatemala aimed at improving the standard of living. The source for this information is a July 27, 2007 story in the South Florida Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL USA).

At a late July 2007 conference at Florida Atlantic University one activist quoted in the Sun Sentinel story told Guatemalans who had fled the civil war and were now living in South Florida, "You're in a position of power. You can start making changes so in the future people won't have to leave their homeland."

The Sun Sentinel observed, though, that the mistrust of the Guatemalan government felt by the expatriates makes progress to this end difficult.