Unofficial translation by the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA). You can find the original statement in Spanish further below.
PRESS RELEASE
Before national and international public opinion, we make known:
This 12th and 20th of October, the DEPARTMENTAL ASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE OF HUEHUETENANGO IN DEFENSE OF TERRITORY AND FOR THE AUTONOMY AND FREE DETERMINATION OF THE PEOPLE (ADH) and the Maya Mam Council Saqtx’otx’ express their political position in response to the national and international context:
The act of commemorating and claiming this 12th of October is possible thanks to the diverse struggles of our people to put as their first priority the defense of our mother earth, our mother water, and the life of all living beings on the face of the territory we inhabit. These struggles are not easy, but neither are they impossible; the struggles for defense of our original peoples in the four corners of our territory have been unwavering, growing ever closer to a logic of complete rejection of the imposed political system. Our social convictions are increasingly strengthening through the development of strategies to defend life against the persistent situations imposed by the corrupt systems.
Due to the neoliberal and corrupt capitalist system throughout the whole world, we have been suffering disastrous impacts; ever sharpening are the ills of racism, discrimination, criminalization, displacement, exclusion, and genocide that exterminates original peoples. Because of this we sincerely recognize that we have work left to do on our own challenges, like sectarianism, fracturing, personal interests and organizations with undefined positions — a task which we must combatively carry out in the current moment.
On this 20th of October, we are celebrating yet another anniversary of the Day of the Revolution; this time, all of the peoples in our department and in the country must meditate and reflect seriously to organize actions that will stop the neoliberal corrupt capitalist system. They will never skimp on their forces to exterminate us; it is in their plans to dispossess us of all of our natural resources, our identity, and our age-old culture. The path of the people has always been complex and difficult in opposition to the corrupt system, which lives at the cost of our sweat, sacrifice, and bloodshed, and which imposes on us all types of tortures, criminalizing defenders of territory through oppressive, racist, neoliberal, and patriarchal policies, and coopting leadership to divide our struggles.
The original peoples in general should make a sound decision in the partisan political campaign that approaches; it is one of the strategies that the capitalist system uses to cause us to submit, but it is also an opportunity to reclaim the free determination of the people.
The hope of the people lies in their decisive strength.
Long live the resistance of the people this 12th of October!
Long live the day of the revolution this 20th of October!
All our solidarity to the Palestinian people in Gaza.
ADH and the Maya Mam Council Saqtx’otx’
HUEHUETENANGO, GUATEMALA
Issued in Huehuetenango, territory of K’aib’il B’alam, on October 12, 2025.
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