ACTIVE: Community Consultations

Community Consultations: A model of resistance under attack in Guatemala

A bill currently before Guatemalan Congress seeks to co-opt the consultation process and violate the rights of indigenous communities to free, prior, and informed consent. Add your voice in calling on the Guatemalan government to respect the results of community-organized consultations.

Three ways to take action:

1. Print out the postcard and mail it to NISGUA’s office for delivery

2. Read more about the incredible role that consultations play in community organizing to protect land, life, and self-determination

3. Sign the extended action! Petition available here.

Photo: Graham Hunt

Download a postcard

Additional reading about community consultations

19December, 2012

Political Statement in Mark of Oxlajuj B’ak’tun

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 [...]

17December, 2012

Across Guatemala: Communities Continue to Defend Their Right to Life

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 [...]

14December, 2012

Tensions Continue at La Puya: Community Members in Resistance Threatened with Eviction

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 [...]

30November, 2012

Indigenous and Farmworker Organizations Urge Guatemalan Congress to Approve Initiative 4084

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 [...]

21November, 2012

Protect pacific resistance in San José del Golfo

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 [...]