Graham Hunt

On May 18, 2011, in a massively attended ceremony carried out among the temples of Zaculeu, the Maya Mam People of Huehuetenango declared their territory mining-free.  In the presence of community, municipal and ancestral authorities from Mam territory, as well as delegations from other departments, community leaders presented the “Declaration of the Mam People Free from Mining.”  The document is reproduced below and is accessible in Spanish via GoogleDocs here.  For more information, in Spanish, see the Consejo de Pueblos de Occidente and Asamblea Departamental de Huehuetenango blogs.

Graham Hunt

DECLARATION OF THE MAYA MAM PEOPLE AS “FREE FROM MINING”
(Huehuetenango Region)
We, men and women, sons and daughters, granddaughters and grandsons of K’aib’il B’alam, authorities and organizations integrating the Consejo del Pueblo Maya de Occidente -CPO- and municipal authorities, gathered in our spiritual and political center Zaculew, on the day 6 Noj as marked by our ancestral calendar,
[have] gathered to determine the following:
CONSIDERING:
That we are the Maya Mam people and that we have maintained our existence through time and space for thousands of years, that currently we are two million, that we have conserved our mechanisms of participation and coexistence, Zaculeu being a historic referent of our spirituality and our political center, an inheritance and patrimony that has been taken away from us and which we are reclaiming.
CONSIDERING:
That our territory has immense wealth in biological diversity and transcends borders and geographical limits imposed by the colonists starting five hundred years ago; currently, we find ourselves under threat of a new transnational invasion by which, with a discourse of “development,” national and transnational companies, in complicity with successive governments, attempt to take the natural resources that by inheritance belong to us.

Graham Hunt

Graham Hunt

CONSIDERING:
That the Guatemalan state, in complicity with national and transnational [companies], has systematically violated our collective rights by authorizing, without prior consultation and without our consent, mining exploitation licenses, the construction of hydroelectric plants and other megaprojects in our territory prioritizing the interests of national and transnational companies.
CONSIDERING:
That we, the Mam people of Colotenango, Ixtahuacan, San Sebastián Huehuetenango, Santa Barbara, San Gaspar Ixil, San Pedro Necta, Santiago Chimaltenango, San Juan Atitlan, Todos Santos Cuchumatan, San Rafael Petzal, and Cuilco, respectively, making use of our values, norms and organization, and by means of a process of dialogue and good faith community referenda, in consensus, have taken the decision to categorically reject the new transnational invasion. We have carried out our consultations using national and international legal instruments, ratified and recognized by the State of Guatemala.
CONSIDERING:
That the State of Guatemala, making use of colonial, neoliberal and bad faith mechanisms, intends to refuse recognition of the decisions we have emitted via Community Consultations, and to disqualify this legitimate process; the current government is attempting to impose upon us a regulation of community referenda that minimizes and distorts the spirit of consultations carried out within our worldview and value system.
Therefore:
In assembly and in symphony with our grandmothers and grandfathers, with total clarity regarding the struggle for our free self-determination as an original people, an inalienable right:
Graham Hunt
WE DECLARE:
  • We declare the territory of the Mam people “mining-free,” free from the dispossession and usurpation of our natural resources; we set forth to construct our own processes of political, social, economic and cultural redefinition, from our worldview and value system, knowledge and ancestral practices.
  • That we, the 12 municipalities making up the territory of the Mam People, will struggle without rest for the administration of our common well-being and will collectively defend our territory against any aggression or threat.
  • That we will work together in order to advance in our territorial, economic and political autonomy, for dependence has led to stagnation and the deterioration of our collective life as Maya people, and we propose that with time we will reconstruct the Mam family that has been separated by the geographical limits imposed by the colonial, neoliberal system.
  • We declare non gratæ the persons and institutions that lend themselves to the interests of the government and business and compromise our territories in their attempt to unilaterally regulate community referenda.
  • We move to recover our spiritual and political center Zaculew, which by historical right belongs to us, and for which we will not permit another attempt at intervention and plundering as has happened in the past, but more than anything we will not permit racist opinions that place in doubt its originality and its historical continuity with us, the Maya people, its grandsons and grandaughters.
The present declaration enters into effect immediately.
Presented in our spiritual and political center Zaculew on May 18, 2011.
Be it published and fulfilled.

Graham Hunt

.