Guatemalan Peasant Leaders Demand: NO Remilitarization

In a press conference today, indigenous and peasant leaders denounced the remilitarization of the country. The press conference had originally been called in response to the Guatemalan government’s announcement that it will reopen the military base in the Ixcan in northern Guatemala. The base had been closed in 2004 as part of the requirements of the Peace Accords which ended Guatemala’s four-decades long civil war. In its place a hospital was created, the only such institution serving the municipality of over 150 villages and approximately 100,000 people. The space also included an extension of the University of San Carlos. Now the government has ordered the space to be transitioned back into a military base.

“We know the function of the military,” said Rena Caba, former Vice Mayor of the municipality. “They are not coming here to help the families in the Ixcan. They are coming here to help multinational corporations steal natural resources from the indigenous communities in the region. We remember well the massacres – over 100 were committed in this municipality alone in the 1980s. Thousands of us had to flee to Mexico or hide in the mountains. If the government wants to help the people, build more schools and health centers. But that is not what the intention is here.”

The government recently announced that the construction of the Franja Transversal del Norte – a giant highway that will cut through the region – will begin by the end of the year. The government is also redoubling its efforts to find finances for the construction of the Represa Xalala, a hydroelectric dam which would flood dozens of communities. In a referendum in April of 2007, 90% of voters in the municipality voted against the construction of the dam. The government declared that they would ignore the vote, but the downturn in the global economy made finding investors difficult. Now the government believes they could be close to making an agreement with multinational corporations to construct the damn. (for more on local communties’ struggle against the damn, see http://guatemalasolidarityproject.org/xalala.htm)

“The (Guatemalan President) Colom administration says that they have an economic development plan for the Ixcan,” said Caba at the press conference. “But they haven’t informed us of it. We have developed an economic plan by working closely with the communities and organizing them to make their own decisions about their lives and land. We do not want an economic plan imposed upon us, our land and our children.”

Leaders of organizations working in El Estor joined the press conference because of the attempted massacres on September 27 and 28 in this municipality of eastern Guatemala. Ruben Dominguez of Rights Action, in the photo above, fought back tears and finally had to cut his presentation short as he updated the status of those injured in the attacks. Alfredo Ical Ich remains hospitalized and may not survive the numerous bullet wounds he received. Pablo Vac was released from the hospital but lost his left eye and is not yet able to return to his village because of his precarious condition. Over a dozen others are recovering from bullet wounds.

Mario Godinez, director of the Association for the Promotion and Development of the Community (CEIBA), denounced the collaboration between the government of Guatemala, the Guatemalan Nickel Company (a multinational corporation whose primary shareholders live in North America), and narcotraffickers.

“When the communities file complaints about crimes committed by security forces of the nickel company, the government does nothing,” said Godinez. “But when the nickel company complains, there is an immediate reaction. Communities have been violently forced off their lands. Their crops have been destroyed. This needs to stop immediately.”

“We demand that the state hold those responsible for this attack accountable,” demanded Izabel Solis, pictured above. “Especially the person who executed Alfredo Ich with a shot to the head at close range.” Ich, a teacher and President of his community’s Community Development Council, was murdered in front of numerous witnesses by security personnel of the nickel company.

Ich was severely slashed by a machete, shot in the head, and then other security personnel shot his body as it lay on the ground. Two days earlier, the same chief of security had threatened to fire any members of the security force who didn’t shoot at unarmed community members during an attempt to steal the community’s lands. Ich was trying to help children escape the violence on the day that he was murdered.

Officials from the government of Canada, which owns a large share in the Guatemalan Nickel Company, announced that the Qeqchi communities organizing to keep their historic lands are actually a small number of people, maybe a few dozen, who have invaded the land, and that the majority of people in the area support the Guatemalan Nickel Company. The thousands of people who braved the wave of violence and attended Ich’s funeral would argue otherwise.

Daniel Pascual (above in a photo from a demonstration last year) of the Committee for Peasant Unity ended the conference with a powerful condemnation of and call to action against the increasingly repressive government of Guatemala.

“We want to denounce and directly accuse the Guatemalan state for elaborating and executing a plan of repression,” he said to the several dozen leaders, activists and press who had gathered for the event. “We view this as a plan of repression in that is a mechanism or method of imposition of the interests of petroleum, hydroelectric, mining, cattle, narcotraffick and other big business interests.”

“This is a plan authored and executed by the government,” he continued. “Over the past year and a half, peasant leaders and their children have been systematically murdered. There are more than 100 new military bases being proposed. We are talking about large scale remilitarization that will cover areas being targeted by corporations in the departments of Izabal, Alta and Baja Verapaz, Quiche, San Marcos, Peten, and beyond.”

“There is a plan between international and national corporations, the government and narcotraffickers which includes assassinations, extra-judicial executions, illegal detention, torture, constant threats, numerous injuries. We are not talking about a few isolated incidents we're talking about a large scale escalation of repression against communities which are organizing in defense of their territories.”