And now Oscar, after Nahaman, Toby, ®El Lobito® and Hundreds
more Children
For those of us who form the
Casa Alianza family, the murder of eleven year old Oscar on Wednesday wasn't
just sad news of a cadaver found on the side of the road in Zone 9 of
Guatemala City. Oscar was like our own son, on whom the Guatemalan
society and government had turned their backs.
And today, when we had a wake
for the indigenous child in the Casa Alianza program in Mixco and buried him
with the other young victims of indifference ñ Nahaman, Toby, El Lobito, and
many others ñ in the Casa Alianza cemetery in Cuidad Vieja, absent were the
elected officials who kissed children just like him in their election
campaigns. Neither the President nor the Ministers of State came either.
No one else came to the funeral except the children who before lived in the
streets but now live, study and grow in Casa Alianza. They knew too
well that it could have been any one of them in that coffin, dressed in
white, instead of Oscar.
We cried for Oscar; we cried
for the children living in the streets today; and we cried for Guatemala.
In Oscar's mass a friend of his, Marcela, wrote these words to him, which
are worth much more than the empty rhetoric that we hear from our ‘leaders’:
All because we are street
children...
It’s sad to find out that a
child dies of hunger, but it’s really repulsive to find out that a child has
been murdered at the cowardly hands of a criminal.
Who decides who lives and who
dies?
They say that we street
children are the scum of society, but society doesn’t want to recognize that
we are victims of indifference of our governments and society.
It’s sad that our
representatives don’t do anything to fulfill their responsibility to
guarantee our rights.
What’s missing in our lives is
a social conscience, understanding, and love for humanity, as well as the
recognition that we have to demand them.
We won’t let these things pass
& we’ll make them respect us.®
*Bruce Harris is the Regional
Director for Casa Alianza in Latin America.
For more information, please contact Casa Alianza Guatemala at +506-433-9600 or <bruce@casa-alianza.org>
By Bruce Harris
