Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates

The government of Guatemala is using the National Police (PNC) to intimidate the local Mayan Q’eqchi’ community in El Estor, Izabal Department, which has been organizing opposition to the El Fénix nickel mine for several years. Mining operations are causing contamination of local waterways, namely Lake Izabal. In 2019, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala ruled that the Guatemalan Nickel Company should suspend mining operations until a process of consultation with the local indigenous community is conducted (as required by national and international law). On September 27, 2021 the Ancestral Council of Maya Q’eqchi’ Authorities filed an appeal against Alberto Pimentel Mata, the Minister of Energy and Mines, for his management and bad faith in the pre-consultation process. On October 4, the community set up a road blockade to stop the passage of mining machinery. On October 6, the Guatemalan National Police threatened to evict 94 families (many of them participants of the blockade) from their homes and properties. We are urging that the government (1) issue an order to suspend mining operations, and (2) respect the right of the local Q’eqchi’ community to organize opposition to the mining operations.

Ramón López Jiménez, a 44-year-old father of three small children and rural community leader in Jalapa Department, left home to work early in the morning of September 20. When he had not returned home in the afternoon, his family went out to look for him. His dead body, showing signs of gunshots and machete wounds, was discovered in a gutter near a creek near the Volcán de Paz in the village of La Paz, Santa María Xalapán. Ramón López Jiménez served as treasurer for the Jalapa chapter of CODECA (Committee for Campesino Development) in Jalapa. His assassination on September 20 occurred just five days after CODECA chapters throughout the country held public demonstrations against the government on the occasion of the bicentennial of Central America’s independence from Spain. His is the 21st assassination of CODECA members since 2018. To date, there has been no justice in any of the cases.

IRTF members wrote to the attorney general of Guatemala regarding the assassination of Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) member Regilson Choc Cac, a Q’eqchi Mayan sixteen-year-old land rights defender. He was murdered on July 20 at 10:30pm in San Juan Tres Ríos, Cobán, Alta Verapaz. Regilson Choc Cac was a community leader who had participated in dialogues related to a land dispute that has been ongoing in his community for the past ten years. He is the third leader of CCDA in San Juan Tres Ríos murdered in recent years. We are urging that the government of Guatemala: (1) carry out an immediate, thorough and impartial investigation into the assassination of Religison Choc Cac, publish the results, capture both the material and intellectual actors, and bring them to justice, in accordance with international standards; (2) implement the necessary measures to guarantee the physical safety and psychological integrity of all the members of CCDA, in strict accordance with their wishes; and (3) guarantee that all human rights defenders, in particular Indigenous and environmental rights defenders, are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of restrictions or reprisals in Guatemala.