Tag Archives: guatemala

by | May 13, 2013 · 3:00 pm

Former Guatemalan dictator is guilty of genocide against Mayan group

Note: “When General Ríos Montt seized power in March 1982, President Ronald Reagan’s administration cultivated him as a reliable Central American ally in its battle against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and Salvadoran guerrillas. ”  Another US-backed dictator brought to justice.  Here’s to you, President Reagan.

-The GJEP Team

By Elisabeth Malkin, May 10, 2013. Source: NY Times

Photo: Moises Castillo/Associated Press

Photo: Moises Castillo/Associated Press

A Guatemalan court on Friday found Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, the former dictator who ruled Guatemala during one of the bloodiest periods of its long civil war, guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Judge Yasmín Barrios sentenced General Ríos Montt, 86, to 80 years in prison. His co-defendant, José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, who served as the director of intelligence under the general, was acquitted of the same two charges.

“We are completely convinced of the intent to destroy the Ixil ethnic group,” Judge Barrios said as she read the hourlong summary of the ruling by the three-judge panel. Over five weeks, the tribunal heard more than 100 witnesses, including psychologists, military experts and Maya Ixil Indian survivors who told how General Ríos Montt’s soldiers had killed their families and wiped out their villages.

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by | April 16, 2013 · 9:17 am

“Sons and daughters of the earth”: Indigenous communities and land grabs in Guatemala

By Alberto Alonso-Fradejas, April 11 2013. Source: Upside Down World

Photo: Upside Down World

Photo: Upside Down World

In the last ten years, the expansion of corporate sugarcane and oil palm plantations in northern Guatemala has encroached on the lands of Maya Q’eqchi’ indigenous people—many of whom fled to this region during the country’s 36-year genocidal war. These plantations have already displaced hundreds of families—even entire communities—leading to increased poverty, hunger, unemployment, and landlessness in the region. The companies grabbing land are controlled by European-descendent Guatemalan oligarchs who are benefitting from rising global commodity prices for food, animal feed, and fuel (biodiesel and ethanol). In the face of violent expulsion and incorporation into an exploitative system, peasant families are struggling to access land and defend their resources as the basis of their collective identity as Q’eqchi’ peoples or R’al Ch’och (“sons and daughters of the earth”). Continue reading →

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Forests, Green Economy, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial agriculture, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, Political Repression, The Greed Economy and the Future of Forests, Women, World Bank

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by | March 24, 2013 · 9:30 am

Action Alert: Indigenous Xinca leaders abducted after mining referendum

March 21, 2013. Source: Center for International Environmental Law

Photo: Mimundo.org

Photo: Mimundo.org

Urgent Action: Indigenous Xinca Leaders Abducted After Mining Referendum


For more than two years, communities in the municipalities of San Rafael Las Flores and Mataquescuintla, Guatemala have been peacefully resisting the development of Tahoe Resources’ Escobal mine. Recently, individual villages located in the municipality of San Rafael Las Flores began holding a series of 26 public referenda to determine whether community members support development of extractive industry projects.

On Sunday, the President of the Xinca Indigenous Parliament and three other Xinca leaders were abducted by a group of heavily armed masked men after attending one of these public referenda to show their solidarity. This comes only two days after the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called on the Government of Guatemala to protect human rights defenders and specifically referenced the conflict in San Rafael Las Flores, among other communities.

Two of the abducted Xinca leaders escaped. On the morning of Monday, March 18, 2013, the President of the Xinca Parliament’s vehicle was found with multiple bullet holes, and Exaltación Marcos Ucelo, one of the four who were kidnapped, was found dead. That evening, Xinca President Roberto González Ucelo was found alive.
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by | March 21, 2013 · 10:30 am

Video: Our voices, our airwaves – Support the rights of women in Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project stands in solidarity with Popular Communicators for Autonomy (COMPPA), and their efforts to amplify the voices of women in Mesoamerica.  Please consider contributing to this effort to lift up the voices of Indigenous, Garifuna and campesina women.  You can donate here: http://bit.ly/ZfdeH0

-The GJEP Team

March 21, 2013. Source: Popular Communicators for Autonomy (COMPPA)

Please consider donating to this important effort here: http://bit.ly/ZfdeH0

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by | March 14, 2013 · 4:30 pm

Indigenous leader killed in Guatemala

March 12, 2013. Source: Tico Times

Gerónimo Sol Ajcot. Photo: El Heraldo

Gerónimo Sol Ajcot. Photo: El Heraldo

GUATEMALA CITY – A member of Guatemala’s National Indigenous and Campesino Coordinating Council (CONIC) was killed by several gunshots in a small village in the western Guatemalan highlands, the organization reported on Tuesday.

Gerónimo Sol Ajcot, 68, died in an attack on Monday in the indigenous municipality of Santiago Atitlán, in the department of Sololá, located some 170 km west of the capital, a statement from CONIC said.

“Six men, heavily armed and hooded, shot [Ajcot] to death with a firearm … as he left his home,” the press release said.

Last week, Carlos Hernández, leader of the National Health Workers’ Union, was shot dead in a town near the border with Honduras. Continue reading →

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by | March 12, 2013 · 10:52 am

Profiting from genocide: The World Bank’s bloody history in Guatemala

By Cyril Mychalejko, March 8, 2013. Source: Truthout

Luis A. Moreno, President of Inter-American Development Bank. Photo: World Economic Forum / Flickr

Luis A. Moreno, President of Inter-American Development Bank. Photo: World Economic Forum / Flickr

The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) supported genocide in Guatemala and ought to pay reparations, according to a recent report by Jubilee International.

This well-documented accusation surfaces as the Central American nation becomes the first country in the Americas to try a former president for genocide and crimes against humanity in a domestic court. But the prosecution of war criminals and the accusations against International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have so fardone little to protect vulnerable communities from the ongoing expansion of mining, oil and other economic interests invading their territories and violating their human rights.

“Generating Terror,” the Jubilee Debt Campaign’s report issued in December, examines how international lending and debt by IFIs such as the World Bank and the IDB helped legitimize Guatemala’s genocidal regimes of the late 1970s and early 1980s and essentially subsidized their terror campaigns. Continue reading →

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Filed under Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, Political Repression, World Bank

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by | February 26, 2013 · 12:00 pm

Guatemala: Breakthrough regarding legal liability of Canadian HudBay Minerals for overseas abuses

By Klippensteins Barristers & Solicitors, February 25, 2013. Source: Upside Down World

Adolfo Ich Chamán- Photo: James Rodriguez

Adolfo Ich Chamán- Photo: James Rodriguez

In an important precedent-setting development for the accountability of Canadian mining companies for alleged overseas human rights abuses, victims of rape and murder at a Guatemalan mine are now able to sue a Canadian mining company in Canadian courts.

Guatemalan Mayan villagers who are suing Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals for the alleged gang-rapes of eleven women, the killing of community leader Adolfo Ich and the shooting and paralyzing of German Chub at HudBay’s former mining project in Guatemala recently learned that HudBay has abruptly abandoned its legal argument that the lawsuit should not be heard in Canada, just before an Ontario court was set to determine the issue. As a result, and for the first time, a lawsuit against a Canadian mining company over alleged human rights abuses abroad will be heard in Canadian courts.

“This is a stunning victory for human rights, and paves the way for future lawsuits against Canadian mining companies” said Murray Klippenstein, lawyer for the Mayan plaintiffs. “Corporations be warned – this case clearly shows that Canadian companies can be sued in Canadian courts for alleged human rights atrocities committed at their foreign operations.”
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by | February 21, 2013 · 9:00 am

Indigenous community under attack in Guatemala

Note: Click here for more information on the eviction of Monte Verde Sarstun.

–The GJEP Team

February 20, 2013.  Source: Guatemala Solidarity Project

The Guatemala Solidarity Project strongly condemns the Guatemalan government’s attack against the community of Monte Verde Sarstun in Livingston, Guatemala.  We condemn the United States government’s continued support of repression in Guatemala.  We call on solidarity from the international community during this time of great sadness.

At least four indigenous leaders have been “arrested” and the government has destroyed the community’s homes and subsistence crops.  We are extremely concerned for the fate of the leaders who have been arrested, as well as for the survival of the peasants whose crops were destroyed.  In some of our other partner communities we have seen starvation and severe malnutrition after such government attacks. Continue reading →

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by | February 8, 2013 · 3:00 pm

Take Action: Tell Guatemala to Halt Mining Projects

Please join the Guatemala Human Rights Commission and the Center for International Environmental Law in telling the Guatemalan authorities to halt the extraction license of Canadian company Tahoe Resources.

Local communities have expressed opposition to the project, and there are over 200 pending complaints lodged in the Ministry of Energy and Mines. Recent violence has also increased tension and fear in the area. Despite this, the company continues to push the government to grant the mining license.

You can sign the petition here.

Pro-Consulta Demonstration in San Rafael Las Flores“The mine doesn’t pass” Photo:mimundo.org

Just over a year ago CIEL asked for help to protect the wellbeing of communities in San Rafael Las Flores, Guatemala, by contacting the Guatemalan Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) to halt the licensing of a silver mining project owned by the Canadian company Tahoe Resources (40% owned by Goldcorp).

Today, we ask for your help again. Under its international human rights obligations, Guatemala must consult populations that could be affected by a mining project, and further requires the consent of affected indigenous peoples.

Not only were communities near the Tahoe project not consulted – including a community of indigenous Xinka peoples – but public referenda have shown that neighboring communities are opposed to the development of the mine. Seventeen local development councils and community mayors sent a letter to MEM last December requesting the refusal of the extraction license.

Many of those living close to the mine worry that its operations could pollute the water upon which their livelihoods depend. Currently, there are over 200 pending complaints against the project, each of which, according to Guatemalan law, must be resolved by MEM before granting a license.

IMG_5188The communities of San Rafael remain as committed as ever in their non-violent opposition to the mine, though they have become the target of increasing intimidation and criminalization.

Their organizing occurs in a context of escalating violence and insecurity. On January 11th, 2013, violence once again erupted in the area near the Tahoe mine site resulting in the death of three people, including two members of the company’s private security group. There is an ongoing investigation into these events to identify the responsible parties and motive.

As part of its response to the violence, Tahoe Resources publicly reiterated its confidence that the license will be granted, stating “[t]he Guatemalan President and the [MEM] have reassured us that the license is forthcoming.”

To show your support for the communities opposing the Tahoe mine, please sign the petition here.

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by | January 10, 2013 · 1:30 pm

As biofuel demand grows, so do Guatemala’s hunger pangs

Note: For more photos and video coverage see the original New York Times article (link below).  –The GJEP Team

By Elisabeth Rosenthal, January 5 2013. Source: The New York Times

José Antonio Alvarado and his family harvested corn in November on a highway median in Guatemala, where farmers struggle to find land. Photo: Richard Perry/The New York Times

José Antonio Alvarado and his family harvested corn in November on a highway median in Guatemala, where farmers struggle to find land. Photo: Richard Perry/The New York Times

GUATEMALA CITY — In the tiny tortillerias of this city, people complain ceaselessly about the high price of corn. Just three years ago, one quetzal — about 15 cents — bought eight tortillas; today it buys only four. And eggs have tripled in price because chickens eat corn feed.

Meanwhile, in rural areas, subsistence farmers struggle to find a place to sow their seeds. On a recent morning, José Antonio Alvarado was harvesting his corn crop on the narrow median of Highway 2 as trucks zoomed by.

“We’re farming here because there is no other land, and I have to feed my family,” said Mr. Alvarado, pointing to his sons Alejandro and José, who are 4 and 6 but appear to be much younger, a sign of chronic malnutrition.

Recent laws in the United States and Europe that mandate the increasing use of biofuel in cars have had far-flung ripple effects, economists say, as land once devoted to growing food for humans is now sometimes more profitably used for churning out vehicle fuel.

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