The setting sun shines through bougainvillea flowers in central Guatemala. Dear friend, I write to you today from my kitchen table, thankful for the pink-blossomed trees outside and the available resources for digital communications. On behalf of all of us at NISGUA, I want to offer [...]
The march begins to form outside of the Supreme Court of Justice. A sign reminds of the negative impact that the mine has on the local watershed. One year after the historic Constitutional Court (CC) decision that suspended the [...]
July 23, 2019 Escalation of tension, threats and defamation against the peaceful resistance to mining in Mataquescuintla, Guatemala On July 5th, in the evening, members of the Peaceful Resistance of Mataquescuintla were at one of the two encampments set up on either side of the Escobal mine, owned by [...]
An image made by the Xinka Parliament reads: "In our Xinka territory, water, our cosmovision, and spirituality are worth more than gold and silver." On Wednesday, May 8th, hundreds of members of the Peaceful Resistance of Santa Rosa, Jalapa, and Jutiapa gathered at the resistance encampment [...]
(Vancouver/Victoria/Ottawa/Tatamagouche/Washington, D.C.) Ahead of Pan American Silver’s annual shareholder meeting in Vancouver today, the Xinka Indigenous Parliament released a statement calling on the company to stop attempts to engage with communities outside of the court-ordered consultation process over the Escobal silver project. They insist that the company’s community relations [...]
On International Human Rights Day, we recognize that the language of human rights has not always served to advance social justice. In many cases, it has functioned as a smoke screen for imperial institutions to validate or obscure their violence. The U.S. government used the rhetoric of human rights [...]
More than 30 Xinca and campesino communities from the municipalities of Quesada and Jutiapa in southeastern Guatemala are resisting a biomass energy plant that will burn eucalyptus trees for electricity. Representatives from the communities have formed a resistance camp, maintaining a constant present at two different entrances to the project site [...]