Peace Brigades International UK (PBI-UK) recently held a launch of a report drawn up by a group of international human rights lawyers who travelled to Alta Verapaz earlier this year on a fact-finding mission. They went there to to meet Indigenous communities, civil society organisations, government, diplomats, law enforcement representatives, and the private sector, to understand the structural causes of rural violence.
A new report by a high-level fact-finding mission of international human rights lawyers has called on the Guatemalan state to stand up to vested interests and tackle the systematic failures fueling violence against Indigenous peoples.
They used an event in London to call on the incumbent Government and judiciary to respect the democratic will of the Guatemalan people and ensure a peaceful transfer of power to the President Elect Arévalo.
“We are not trespassers: this is our land” – Agrarian conflict and Indigenous peoples’ rights in Alta Verapaz calls on both Guatemala and the international community to prioritise Indigenous rights to ancestral land, and to work to end the criminalisation and evictions characterising the country’s agrarian conflict.
The lawyers travelled to Alta Verapaz in Guatemala in March 2023 to meet Indigenous communities, civil society organisations, government, diplomats, law enforcement representatives, and the private sector, to understand the structural causes of rural violence.
“The situation facing Indigenous communities in Guatemala is unacceptable”, said Camila Zapata Besso, a UK human rights expert. “They face structural racism, violence and violations of communal territorial rights, exacerbated by a lack of access to justice. The election results reveal a democratic will for systemic change. An effective response, including the regularisation of Indigenous land tenure, and restorative land justice, is of the utmost urgency.”
The lawyers observed widespread criminalisation arising from complaints from private landowners against communities. They expressed concern at the lack of legal certainty regarding how Indigenous people can defend their territorial rights and defend them within a fragmented system of land ownership.
Their report also calls on the international community and multinational entities operating in or linked to Guatemala to respect Indigenous rights, advocating for strong supply-chain laws to prevent companies profiting from human rights abuses abroad.
You can find out more, including the link to the press report and the report itself, here, “We are not trespassers: this is our land”: Agrarian Conflict & Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Alta Verapaz.
Categories: Accompaniment, Corruption, Criminalisation, Environment, Evictions, Genocide, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Land, Lobbying, Military, Mining, Report, Resource Extraction, Solidarity in Action, Violence
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