"The Council of Ancestral Authorities of the 31 communities of Momostenango welcomes you to the good faith community consultation" (All Photos: NISGUA) On Sunday September 1, the municipality of Momostenango held the third community consultation in the department of Totonicapán. In all three referenda in Totonicapán, as well as [...]
Sources: Western Peoples' Council (CPO) - Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) - MiningWatch Canada – Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) (Guatemala City/Ottawa/Washington) Tuesday, Guatemala's Western Peoples' Council of Mayan organizations (CPO) filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) alleging that the [...]
The Council presents their demand on September 3, 2013. Photo: CPO THE COUNCIL OF MAYA AND XINCA PEOPLES DENOUNCES THE GUATEMALAN STATE IN THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS On February 28, 2013, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court dismissed the Council’s challenge of unconstitutionality filed against the mining law on [...]
On Tuesday, August 27, Saúl Aurelio Méndez Muñoz and Antonio Rogelio Velásquez López, community leaders opposed to the imposition of the Cambalam hydroelectric project, operated by Hidro Santa Cruz, property of Spanish company Hidralia S.A., were arrested outside of a Guatemala City courthouse. Saúl and Antonio had traveled to [...]
On August 21 – 23, leaders and representatives of twenty Maya Q'anjob'al communities in northern Huehuetenango and Chiapas, Mexico, gathered in San Juan Ixcoy, Huehuetenango to discuss the ongoing imposition of large-scale development projects on their territory and to continue generating strategies for unified resistance moving forward. The three [...]
On July 22, a Canadian court ruled that Hudbay Minerals will stand trial in Canada for violence, including murder and rape, carried out by employees of its former Guatemalan subsidiary, Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel S.A. (CGN). The struggle to hold this Canadian mining company responsible for human rights abuses [...]
CALAS and the Xinca Parliament announce the suspension of Tahoe Resources' mining license on Wednesday morning. Photo: Prensa Libre (Ottawa/Guatemala City) On Tuesday, the Civil and Mercantile Division of Guatemala’s First Court of Appeals notified the Centre for Environmental and Social Legal Action (CALAS) that it is upholding an [...]
On Monday July 8, Guatemala's Public Prosecutor, on behalf of the six victims and co-plaintiffs in the case, filed a formal accusation against Alberto Rotondo, former security manager for Minera San Rafael, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian mining company Tahoe Resources. Rotondo was employed by the company when he [...]
On Tuesday, July 9, Santos Fidel Ajau Suret, a member of the ongoing peaceful resistance at La Puya, was assassinated. The MadreSelva Collective released the following communique denouncing his assassination. Translation by NISGUA, in Spanish here. Urgent Communique We denounce the cowardly assassination of Santos Fidel Ajau Suret, activist [...]
In a televised program broadcast from outside Tahoe Resources’ conflictive Escobal mine project, President Otto Pérez Molina announced a proposed two-year moratorium on the granting of new mineral mining licenses. A similar moratorium put in place under the Colom presidency was lifted under the Molina administration, allowing for the [...]
Since the May 2 declaration of a state of siege in four municipalities surrounding Tahoe Resources' mine, 12 members of the Committee in Defense of Life and Peace of San Rafael had their homes raided by police and military forces, five community members have been arrested and charged, and [...]
On June 18, the communities of Sipakapa, a municipality affected by GoldCorp's Marlin Mine in Western Guatemala, celebrated the eighth anniversary of one of the first community consultations in the country. Today, more than 70 community consultations on natural resource exploration and exploitation have been carried out throughout Guatemala. [...]
Yolanda Oquelí (foreground) meets with Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina and Minister of The Interior Mauricio Lopez Bonilla. Photo: Giles Clarke In an uncharacteristic move, President Otto Pérez Molina and the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) invited members of the peaceful resistance of La Puya to a high [...]
On Friday June 7, Alberto Rotondo, former security manager for Tahoe Resources, was summoned to appear for the second time in a Guatemalan court. During the first hearing on May 7, Rotondo was charged with assault and obstruction of justice in connection to the April 27 attack outside Tahoe's [...]
On Saturday April 27, mine security at Tahoe Resources' Escobal project opened fire on community members peacefully gathered outside the mine site. Six men were shot and seriously injured. This incident set of a chain of events, eventually resulting in the declaration of a state of siege in four [...]
Rubén Herrera and Cecilia Mérida moments after Rubén was liberated. Yesterday, Rubén Herrera, unjustly imprisoned since March 15 for his resistance to the Cambalam hydro-electric project, was released from custody and cleared of all charges in one of two legal processes against him. The second process (176-2011) dating back [...]
More than one year after President Molina declared a state of siege in Santa Cruz de Barillas, repression continues against community leaders resisting the Cambalam hydroelectric project, operated by Spanish owned Hidro Santa Cruz. Violence and criminalization against leaders defending territory and the right to self determination has been [...]
(Ottawa/Guatemala City) – Yesterday, the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) and MiningWatch Canada warned Tahoe Resources investors against further investment in the Escobal silver project, given lack of community support and increasing violence and repression in the area. Risks identified include: Tahoe Resources does not have the social license to [...]
During the early hours of Thursday, May 2, one day after the first anniversary of the state of siege in Santa Cruz de Barillas, Huehuetenango, the Guatemalan government declared another state of siege in four municipalities surrounding Tahoe Resources’ Escobal mine. The imposition of martial law comes less than one [...]
Rubén Herrera of the ADH Photo: James Rodríguez, mimundo.orgSign the petition condemning the capture of Rubén Herrera and calling for his immediate release. Since Friday, March 15, human rights defender and member of the Departmental Assembly of Huehuetenango for the Defense of Natural Resources (ADH), Rubén Herrera, has been unjustly [...]
Police in San Rafael las Flores, April 11 Source: resistencapacificaelescobal.blogspot.com While representatives from mining affected communities from throughout Mesoamerica gathered in Huehuetenango to discuss strategies to confront the expansion of mining in their territories, the peaceful encampment in San Rafael Las Flores was violently evicted by members of the [...]
Today, NISGUA and the International Coalition against Unjust Mining in Guatemala (CAMIGUA), presented a petition with over 4,000 signatures to Guatemalan Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz asking her to launch an investigation into the murder of Xinca leader Exaltación Marcos Ucelo. Ucelo was abducted, together with three other [...]
Communities in the departments of Santa Rosa and Jalapa have been peacefully resisting the proposed Escobal silver mine, operated by Minera San Rafael, Guatemalan Subsidiary of Canada's Tahoe Resources for more than three years. Since 2011, residents have carried out eight community consultations in which more than 35,000 people [...]
URGENT COMMUNIQUE from the Departmental Assembly of Huehuetenango in Defense of Territory (ADH) *Official Translation by NISGUA Spanish below It is with great concern that we share the unfortunate news that today, March 15, at 7:30 in the morning, Rubén Herrera, a member of the coordination of the ADH, [...]
Last weekend, 93% of the population of Los Planes rejected Tahoe Resources' proposed Escobal project, voting NO to chemical mineral mining on their territory. This good-faith referendum, organized by local authorities, is the second of 26 community referenda plannedin the municipality of San Rafael Las Flores. The first referendum, [...]
On Sunday, March 3, 2013 the communities of La Puya celebrated the one-year anniversary of non-violent resistance to the Tambor (Progreso VII) mining project, owned by US company Kappes, Cassiday & Associates (KCA). During this year of struggle and resistance hundreds of citizens from the municipalities of San José [...]
In July 2012 Guatemala’s Constitutional Court heard a landmark case challenging the constitutionality of the 1997 Mining Law. The legal action, presented by the Western Peoples’ Council (CPO), contends that the current law is unconstitutional because it fails to fulfill national and international mandates that require the State to [...]
In response to the government’s announcement that it will restart the bidding process for the construction of the Xalalá hydroelectric dam in 2013, a delegation from the affected region traveled to the capital to present their concerns and speak out against the negative impacts that communities are already suffering [...]
2012 was marked by a high level of conflict in Guatemala, especially related to the exploitation of natural resources. Here we summarize some of the cases in which ACOGUATE accompanies human rights organizations in defense of their territory. NISGUA is one of the eleven international organizations that form ACOGUATE's [...]
2012 was a very active year for ACOGUATE and the cases in which we accompany witnesses and plaintiffs in search for justice. Human rights defenders working for truth are amongst the most threatened groups, according to the Human Rights Defenders' Protection Unit of Guatemala (UDEFEGUA)[i]. Here are some of [...]
THE WESTERN PEOPLE'S COUNCIL "In defense of LIFE and territory" POLITICAL STATEMENT IN MARK OF OXLAJUJ B'AK'TUN (Original in Spanish here) Authorities of the Maya People of Western Guatemala, joined together as the Council, declare: Oxlajuj B'ak'tun is the time to strengthen ancestral wisdom and the practice and never-ending [...]
In September of this year NISGUA reported on the series of violent attacks against community members in San Rafael Las Flores, Santa Rosa and Mataquescuintla, Jalapa who were peacefully resisting the advancement of the Escobal silver mine project. The Escobal mine is operated by Minería San Rafael S.A. a [...]
Following over nine months of non-violent peaceful resistance to the El Tambor mining project and increased intimidation and threats during the past month, the situation at La Puya escalated last Friday, December 7th, when over 300 National Civil Police (PNC) agents and 50 patrol trucks arrived, threatening to evict [...]
Since this Tuesday, November 27th, indigenous and rural farmworker organizations were present in the Guatemalan Congress calling for the approval of Initiative 4048, a Comprehensive Rural Development Law. The Initiative, first introduced in Congress in February 2009, is the product of over twelve years of work by indigenous and [...]
For the past nine months, men, women and children from San José del Golfo, San Pedro Ayampuc and their surrounding communities have maintained a constant, non-violent presence in protest of the onset of mining activities in their territories. Beginning on Tuesday, November 13, an estimated 70 people claiming to [...]
On November 15th, the Departmental Assembly of Huehuetenango (ADH) announced that two more of the 11 political prisoners illegally detained during the 18-day state of siege imposed in Santa Cruz de Barillas, have been liberated due to a lack of evidence linking them to the crimes of which they [...]
The following press releases have been translated by NISGUA as part of its ongoing human rights accompaniment of communities threatened by the Xalalá dam project. Press Release 1 25 October 2012 Guatemala Imposition of Development Projects Threatens the Life of Communities in Ixcán Considering that the Ministry of [...]
At least six protesters were killed and dozens wounded this afternoon in repression of a protest organized by the representatives of 48 indigenous K'iche communities of Totonicapan, Guatemala. According to Guatemala Indymedia Center and social movement organizations, the protesters were shot by Guatemalan military personnel. The autonomous indigenous government of the 48 cantones (communities) of Totonicapan [...]
Another blow to the Maya people, in the style of Mano DuraStatement by the Departmental Assembly of HuehuetenangoOctober 4, 2012The Departmental Assembly of Huehuetenango -ADH- before national and international public opinion, DECLARES:Our profound outrage for the violent acts committed and mourning of the death of 3 brothers and 32 wounded. [...]
In recent weeks the municipality of San Rafael Las Flores has seen growing conflict around the installation of the Escobal silver mine, owned by the Canadian corporation Tahoe Resources. Local community organizers and allies from the Center for Legal, Environmental and Social Action (CALAS) denounced in August a wave [...]