MEDIA ADVISORY
Contact: David Imhoff, (510) 763-1403, david@nisgua.org
Event Details: Maya Mam Indigenous Water Defender to visit Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico & Washington
(Guatemala City/Oakland, CA): José Gómez, Maya Mam community leader and co-coordinator of the Association of Communities for Development and the Defense of Land and Natural Resources (ACODET), will tour the western United States in November to meet with other Indigenous leaders and activists fighting to protect their waters. ACODET is a coalition of Indigenous communities in Guatemala’s rural Ixcán region that has used grassroots organizing to halt construction on the Xalalá project – a mega-dam that, if built, would flood multiple communities and have a devastating impact on life in the region.
“ACODET’s fight to defend our territories and common resources is unending. Through grassroots organizing, we will continue to monitor, to organize through workshops and popular education schools, and to strengthen community organization with ancestral authorities, women, and youth, so that if one day the government tries to reactivate the Xalalá project, they’ll be met with massive organization and struggle from communities standing in defense of their territories.” – José Gómez, ACODET
As a leader of ACODET, Mr. Gómez is a key liaison for inter-community monitoring of megadevelopment in the region. He coordinates locally with community representatives, women’s committees, and local development councils to develop the organization’s community defense strategy and security plan. On the national level, he coordinates with an alliance of ancestral authorities to strengthen strategies to promote the rights of Indigenous peoples and the protection of nature. Most recently, he helped to coordinate meetings with U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People Victoria Tauli-Corpuz during her 2018 visit to Guatemala.
Mr. Gómez will be joined by Becky Kaump, the Guatemala Programs Coordinator of the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA). NISGUA advocates for an end to U.S. militarism and strengthens Guatemalan movements for justice, accountability, and self-determination through international human rights accompaniment, grassroots advocacy, and horizontal exchange.
“As Indigenous people, creating international links with communities from other countries strengthens our struggle for the protection and stewardship of our common resources. Solidarity helps us acquire information about, and intervene in, the capitalist system’s plans against our people.” – José Gómez, ACODET
On November 17, the tour will join a convergence of over 300 social justice organizations on the U.S.-Mexico border to denounce militarism and build strategies to dismantle border imperialism. The tour will also make stops in Seattle, WA; Bellingham, WA; Denver, CO; Las Cruces, NM; and Tucson, AZ.
For more information or to arrange an interview with José Gómez or NISGUA, please contact:
David Imhoff, U.S. Operations and Programs Coordinator
Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA)
(510) 763-1403 | david@nisgua.org
[…] For the past six weeks, I have had the honor of interning with NISGUA. I first became familiar with NISGUA’s work via Oberlin Students in Solidarity with Guatemala (OSSGUA). I transferred to Oberlin in the fall of 2020 and was excited to learn about ExCo (Experimental College), a program in which students have the opportunity to teach a course of their choosing to interested Oberlin students. I enrolled in a course led by OSSGUA entitled “Conflict and Resistance in Guatemala.” The class focused heavily on the Internal Armed Conflict and its legacy, especially as pertains to historic and ongoing U.S. imperialism in the country. In the Spring, I joined OSSGUA as a member, and we worked closely with NISGUA to organize a couple different events, including “Fighting for Water and Life: How Indigenous resistance stopped the Xalalá Dam,” a Zoom event featuring José Gómez of the Association of Communities for Development and the Defense of Land and Natural R… […]