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GUATEMALA'S CATHOLIC CHURCH ELECTS AN INDEFATIGABLE LEADER; RESUMES SOCIAL-ACTIVIST ROLE.

Article Excerpt
The left side of Guatemala's bifurcated Catholic Church got a boost in January with the election of Alvaro Ramazzini, bishop of San Marcos, as new president of the Conferencia Episcopal de Guatemala (CEG). Ramazzini will serve in the position for two years. He was elected by a majority of the country's 20 bishops. He succeeds Cardinal Rodolfo Quezada Toruno, who headed the CEG for four years. Ramazzini thus becomes the church's link with the Vatican and its point man with the government. Like his predecessor, and like Bishop Victor Hugo Martinez before him, Ramazzini has the possibility to be re-elected to hold the presidency for four years.

The election portends a contentious relationship with the government. Ramazzini has been an outspoken advocate for human rights and an effective leader of dissidents fighting for the rights of campesinos, migrants, and the landless poor. He is a vocal and energetic opponent of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) because of its potential to "impoverish the poorest." His opposition has taken him to the US, where he has lobbied the Congress on this issue.

Internationally respected, Ramazzini received the 2005 Austrian Konrad Lorenz Award. This award is presented by the Austrian Ministry of Life after selection by an independent jury on the criteria "protection of life, generational responsibility, and environmental ethics." The award usually goes to an environmentalist or someone whose advocacy work originates with the environmental movement. The choice of Ramazzini was a departure from this custom that could prove problematic for the Guatemalan government. He was chosen specifically for this international recognition because of his fight against multinationals razing the San Marcos countryside in pursuit of mineral wealth (see NotiCen, 2005-10-27).

The Austrian ministry cited, in its publicity for the prize, "the case of a gold-mine construction project that is not only devastating the landscape on account of its extremely environmentally damaging surface-mining activities, but also because cyanide and...