Dr. Ramiro Alejandro Contreras Escobar, Executive Director
Comision Presidencial por la Paz y los Derechos Humanos (COPADEH)
Presidential Commission for Peace and Human Rights
13 calle 15-38, zona 13
Ciudad de Guatemala, GUATEMALA
June 24, 2023
Dear Dr. Contreras:
We are extremely concerned about the ongoing violence against Indigenous people trying to reclaim their ancestral
lands. In April 2022, more than 130 Q’anjob’al Mayan families arrived in the community of Kumatz (municipality of
Barillas, Huehuetenango Department) to recover the lands they abandoned due to forced displacement during the
civil war. Since their return, they have faced surveillance, threats of eviction, and death threats by occupying families
in Barillas.
In the early morning hours of June 13, a several Indigenous campesinos from Kumatz were on their way to tend to
their crops when they were ambushed by private security forces (reportedly from Rancho Emilia) who arrived in
multiple pick-up trucks, armed with various caliber rifles and guns. Residents of Kumatz reported that the attackers
fired guns into the community, and they heard shots being fired from a nearby security station. A farmer managed to
disarm one of the attackers but was shot in the back. The shooting lasted for a few hours, killing community
members Carlos Fernando Calderón Herrera and Juan Francisco Artola Chub. Others were injured and taken
to a hospital in Ixcán, Quiché Department. Hours later the National Civil Police (PNC) mobilized to regain control
over the territory, with additional backup from army helicopters.
This shooting is only one spike in the ongoing conflict taking place in Barillas between land occupiers and the
Q’anjob’al Mayan families trying to reclaim their ancestral lands. More than 130 of the families who had been
displaced to Mexico during the armed conflict returned last year to two small communities in Barillas (Kumatz and
Sargentos) to reclaim their lands. They have since been met with violence and harassment by private landowners,
one of them the Reyes Herrera family, who now claim the lands as their own. A legal dispute is pending.
We strongly urge the Guatemalan government to take decisive measures to end the violence against the Q’anjob’al
Mayan families in Barillas by:
- investigating the shooting and killing on June 13, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice
- disarming the private security forces who are inflicting violence on the families of Kumatz
- settling the land disputes between the occupying families and the Q’anjob’al Mayan families who claim these as their ancestral lands
Sincerely,
Brian J. Stefan Szittai, Christine Stonebraker Martínez
Co-coordinators
copies:
Licda. María Consuelo Porras Argueta, Attorney General / Fiscal General de la República ~ via email
Lic. José Alejandro Córdoba, Procurador de Derechos Humanos/Human Rights Ombudsman ~ via email
Alfonso José Quiñónez Lemus, Ambassador of Guatemala to the US ~ email, US mail
IACHR: Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño, Rapporteur for Guatemala, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ~ via email and US mail
OACNUDH: Mika Kanervavuori, Oficina del Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos en Guatemala (OACNUDH) ~ via email
US State Department: William Popp, US Ambassador to Guatemala ~ via email
US State Department: Guatemala Desk Officers in Washington, DC: Doug Choi, Moises Mendoza ~ via email
US Senators Brown & Vance ~ via email
US Representatives Beatty, Brown, Johnson, Jordan, Joyce, Kaptur, Latta, Miller, Sykes ~ via email
14 JUN 2023_ResumenLatinoamericano_Guatemala
