New developments in Guatemala have continued to put pressure on the Goldcorp company, whose controversial Marlin mine has kept churning out the gold. As some continue in land-based struggles, others are channeling resources into courts and official proceedings—with mixed results.
The massive evictions of 800 families from 14 communities in Guatemala’s Polochic Valley, removing peasant agriculture in order to install the Chabil Utzaj sugar plantation, began on March 15, 2011. Here in Guatemala, the Colom administration poses as a populist movement that takes the side of the poor, but Colom and his now ex-wife Sandra Torres are enmbroiled in major electoral tension as Torres battles her disqualification from the electoral contest for President.
“We don’t aspire to win the election because the left in Guatemala has been hit hard. This is about taking one step forward in articulating resistance to the new alliance between the old paramilitary/oligarchy alliances and the more recent economy based on criminal activity,” explains Mario Godínez, university professor and member of the MNR (New Republic Movement).
Guatemalans from all sectors of society expressed their outrage over the murder of Argentinean protest singer Facundo Cabral. Mr. Cabral was gunned down in Guatemala City on Saturday, July 9th, after performing two concerts in the country.
Lopez Fuentes, 81 years old, is accused by the Public Prosecutor’s bureau for human rights “for over ten thousand murders, nine thousand forcibly displaced persons, and numerous rapes against women in the Maya Ixil region – all crimes took place between March 1982 and October 1983.
Guatemala is the only oil-producing country in Central America, with “black gold” being its fourth highest export. […]
“The CPRs [Communities of Popular Resistance] exist because the army has forced us to resist. We carry with us the scraps of bombs and bullets that you tried to kill us with. (…)You know very well that we are not guerrillas, but rather peasants, civilians… The Constitution gives us the right to resist when you place yourself above the reproach of civil society, when you persecute us, when you kidnap us illegally, when you have poisoned our rivers and tried to kill us by starvation.” ~ Message to the Guatemalan Army from the CPRs.
Internationally-funded Guatemalan bio-fuel interests evict Mayan Qeqchi families from their historic lands, destroying homes and crops, killing one, injuring more, while thousands are without food or shelter.
On February 28, 2011, organized action by Indigenous community members was once again met with violence in Guatemala. The goal of the demonstration was to pressure the Guatemalan government to comply with precautionary measures issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in May 2010, and particularly the temporary suspension of the Marlin mine.
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