Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates

We wrote once again to officials in Guatemala about the unjust criminalization of environmental defenders who are part of the local resistance to the El Fénix nickel mine in El Estor (Izabal Department), run by the Guatemala Nickel Company (CGN) and owned by Switzerland-based Solway Investments. Residents of El Estor have been victims of land grabbing, arson, and repression. The contamination of Lake Izabal has had severe consequences on the local fishing community. María Magdalena Cuc Choc was first detained and unjustly criminalized in 2018 for the alleged crimes of threats, illegal detention and aggravated usurpation during the eviction of the community of Chab’il Ch’och’ in 2017. On June 27, the judge acquitted her of two crimes but sentenced her to two years for the charge of aggravated usurpation. She was given the option to pay 7,500 quetzales—about US $920—to commute her sentence.

We condemn acts of state violence and criminalization of Indigenous environmental rights defenders in El Estor

National and regional forest management plans are threatening the ancestral forests of the Indigenous Tolupán people of Yoro Department. Because deforestation has caused some water sources to go dry, the Tolupán Tribe of San Francisco de Locomapa tribe has asked the National Institute for Conservation and Forest Development (ICF) to take action to protect their forest rights. Police and courts routinely side with the interests of private companies instead of protecting the tribe. Police have attacked some community members. Nine Tolupán defenders are facing criminalization instigated by the INMARE logging company. The tribe has recorded at least ten murders of Tolupán land rights leaders, even some who had precautionary measures.

Despite a court order to stop expansion of its open-pit gold mining operations in La Unión, Miami-based Aura Minerals continues the destruction of an Indigenous Maya Chortí community in Copán Department in western Honduras. At the heart of the matter for local residents is the contamination of vital water sources and the destruction of their 200-year-old Azacualpa community cemetery As we described in previous letters (cf December 2, 2021; January 25, 2022, April 11, 2022) army and police were deployed to ensure the exhumations of graves, to facilitate expansion of the San Andrés gold mine, which is owned by US- and Canada-based Aura Minerals and operated by its Honduran subsidiary MINOSA (Minerales de Occidente SA). On March 30, 2022, the government of Honduras ordered MINOSA to stop its operations, but the destruction has continued.

Those who try to protect their water sources and cemetery are regularly threatened.   Fredy García, a resident of Azacualpa, filed a complaint with the Public Ministry against Jacobo Paz, a manager of the San Andrés gold mining project, and Dimar Miranda Pérez, a contractor for the mining company, because of the contamination of a vital water source. In retaliation, people have been coming to the home of Fredy García and threatening him.

The judicial system in Chiapas fabricates crimes as a method of repression. Authorities are currently fabricating charges against Tzeltal human rights and environment defenders because of their opposition to the militarization of their territory and construction of infrastructure for mega-tourism projects.

Manuel Santiz Cruz, president of the Human Rights Committee of San Juan Evangelista Catholic parish in San Juan Cancuc, was falsely arrested on May 29 for drug possession. He was released and re-arrested a day later for aggravated homicide. By June 4, a total of eight Tzeltal defenders had been arrested:  Manuel Santiz Cruz, Agustín Pérez Velasco, Martin Pérez Domínguez, Juan Velasco Aguilar, Agustín Pérez Domínguez, and three more persons (names withheld for their personal security).

These arbitrary detentions take place in a context in which inhabitants of San Juan Cancuc have opposed the military presence in their territory and the construction of a highway project that would connect San Cristóbal de las Casas with the region of Palenque. The highway is part of the development of mega-tourism projects in the region that have been promoted by the government without free, prior informed and culturally appropriate consultation with impacted Indigenous communities.

We are deeply concerned about the ability of Indigenous communities and leaders to carry out their legitimate activities in defense of their peoples’ territories and waterways. Last year we wrote to authorities about the about the assassination of Tzeltal human rights defender Simón Pedro Pérez López, age 35, in the Los Bosques de Chiapas region of Chiapas State (cf our letter July 6, 2021).

We wrote once again to officials in Guatemala about the criminalization of environmental defenders in El Estor, Izabal Department, who have been resisting the El Fénix nickel mine, which has been operating illegally since 2005. Although the Constitutional Court of Guatemala ruled in 2019 that the Guatemalan Nickel Company had to suspend its mining activities, the government re-issued an operations permit in January 2022. 

Cristóbal Pop and Roque Sub Cucul were captured by police today in Guatemala City after a press conference in which they announced that they would sue the State of Guatemala before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the illegal installation of the El Fénix nickel mine and the criminalization of environmental defenders. Cristóbal Pop is president of the Fishermen’s Guild of El Estor, which has been denouncing the contamination of Lake Izabal resulting from the nickel mine. Roque Sub Cucul is an Indigenous leader of the Mayan Q'eqchi' ancestral council in Alta Verapaz Department.

We condemn acts of state violence and criminalization of Indigenous environmental rights defenders in El Estor and urge the government of Guatemala to release from detention and drop the criminal charges against Cristóbal Pop and Roque Sub Cucul.