Extractive projects are once again threatening the ancestral lands of Indigenous communities in Guatemala. The land conflicts we see today are rooted in the colonization of the 1500s, the civil war of the 1980’s and globalization of the 2000s that brought the full force of transnational exploitation. The cycle of inequality, discrimination, and displacement continues to be repeated. Although there are laws that uphold the right of Indigneous communities to be consulted about projects that will impact their lives, communities, lands, and futures, in practice the laws are almost always ignored. Some community leaders are calling the current destruction as “economic genocide.”
Armando Vásquez Pascual, along with other community authorities in Chinautla, Guatemala Department, has been actively protesting against sand and clay extraction companies operating without valid licenses for over two years on ancestral Indigenous Paqumam lands. The damage to the environment, homes, and human health is significant. In a community that was once home to more than 150 families, today only 20 families remain.
The community’s years of peaceful resistance has received significant backlash, including criminalization, defamation, and death threats. On April 18, Denilson Alberto Vázquez Chacón, the sixteen-year-old son of Armando Vásquez Pascual, was fatally shot by assassins on a motorcycle. His brother, Lester Moisés Armando Vázquez Chacón, who was with him, was also seriously injured in the attack.
