“Whoever wins, we’re fucked”: On the Punk Rock Frontline of Anti-Government Protests in Guatemala

Something huge is happening where I am in Guatemala right now, and it’s good news if you’re in the vuvuzela business. Before the weekend some 70,000 protestors were making an earth-shaking racket in Constitution Square in the capital of Guatemala City, calling on their President, Otto Pérez Molina, to resign so that he can be arrested on corruption charges. It was just the latest in a series of demonstrations that have been going on every Saturday since April.

The president will be gone by the end of the year anyway, as there are elections planned for September 6 and Molina can’t run again. But that’s not enough for the protesters, who call themselves, simply, ‘The Movement’. They want him arrested to prove that the country can take corruption seriously. The problem is that Guatemala’s political class are so crooked they need servants to help them screw their clothes on every morning. The demonstrators are calling for a total overhaul of the system. One of their chants is: "En estas condiciones no queremos elecciones" – "In these conditions, we don’t want elections."

When I was in the square last Saturday I bore witness to quite a surreal scene, as a band turned up to play an impromptu guerrilla gig right at the centre of the protests, dragging their kit into the midst of the demonstration on a wooden donkey cart. They were handing out hymn sheets as they set up, which named them as El Suchi. The protests have drawn a broad cross-section of Guatemalan society, but everyone from businessmen to elderly street-traders seemed to be united by the anger and frustration that was channelled in this band’s performance – which, as contemporary protest music bylaws decree, sounds a bit like Rage Against The Machine.

When they finished their set, I grabbed frontman Daniel Garcia to thank him for drowning out the vuvuzela and to ask him how he and his band came to contribute the righteous soundtrack to Guatemala’s uprising:

Noisey: So, have you been playing shows here at the protests every week?
Daniel Garcia: This is the second Saturday that we’ve come with a sound system. We’ve been writing songs for The Movement for the last month. Last Saturday was the first Saturday that we were ready.

The protests over the last few days have felt more like celebrations than a protest, is that how it feels to you?
Yeah, it is a celebration! The vice president has been arrested already, and today’s protest is an ongoing celebration of that. We’re sending a message to the world that peaceful protest and art can really raise awareness, global awareness, and that they can force the people who are in power to change so that they actually take action. We want to see legal action. Real action.

It that what motivates you to drag your own kit all the way here yourselves on a wooden cart? It seems like a bit of a mission.
But it’s a fun mission, you know? We believe in doing it yourself. We pieced our sound system together. It’s my friend’s speakers and borrowed amps.

Did you form the band specifically because of the protests?
We’ve been playing together for years, but this specific sound and these songs came about because of The Movement.

Your song "Renuncia Ya!" is named after one of the slogans of the protest, isn’t it?
Yeah, that’s right. It’s asking for the President to quit and get out of power so that he can actually go to trial and we can put him in jail. Recently it was proven that he was one of the heads of this group [known as La Linea] that were making money corruptly by making secret deals on imports and exports.

Did your band always sound like this, or have you changed the style to fit the protests?
No, we usually do more experimental indie rock but now it’s become more like a Rage Against The Machine or Molotov type band. It just fits the vibe.

Because of the systematic corruption that’s been uncovered, a lot of people don’t want the presidential elections to go ahead on September 6. What do you think, is there anyone worth voting for?
We wrote a song about that. It’s called "Ahora Nos Toca", which means something like "It’s Our Turn Now". It’s the people’s turn now. None of the people who are running for president at this election are legit candidates. They’re all being sponsored by the same people. All of them. There’s not one that isn’t. They’re all friends with each other, so they’re just concerned with the business of staying in power. Our song talks shit about each of them. It says that we want electoral reform. We want to have a legit election, with real candidates. If we have the elections with the candidates we have now then we have nothing. We’re fucked. Whoever wins, we’re fucked.

Can these protests actually change things for Guatemala?
We’re definitely hopeful. This is a historic moment. Since the 1930s, since the first real revolution, nothing like this has happened in Guatemala until today. This is unreal. The energy is just so intense here at the moment, so I knew that we needed to be part of it. If the elections happen as planned, I think the protests will just keep going.

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