Aldo Santiago writes in Avispa Midia about the threat of forced displacement facing Indigenous Q’eqchi’ communities in the Polochic Valley. Resource extraction, for the benefit of local elites and the international market, continues to take a heavy toll on Indigenous communities in Guatemala.
Following the police operation in May of this year that resulted in the eviction of thirty Maya Q’eqchi’ families from the community of Buena Vista, on the north side of Lake Izabal, in Guatemala, there are now nine communities in the same region of the Polochic Valley who are living beneath the threat of forced displacement.
Indigenous community authorities have criticized the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s intention of enforcing eviction orders. The communities denounce that the evictions are “are being driven by officials and land owners” related to the oil palm industry, who have taken land in the region from communities both to the north and south of the lake.
The media project Prensa Comunitaria reported that during the eviction of the thirty families, in addition to police officials, Luis Fernando Arriaza Migoya and members of his private security team were also present. Arriaza owns oil palm monocrops which supply the Naturaceites company, which processes and commercializes palm oil for transnational companies.
According to local media, during discussions between the evicted populations and the Presidential Commission on Human Rights of Guatemala, officials notified that there are now nine communities at risk of eviction in the region: Plan Grande, Agrario El Tunico, Chapin Abajo, Chinebal, Las Nubes, Lote 6, Semococh, and Qotoxha of the municipality of El Estor, Izabal, as well as Santa Lucia de Panzós, in the department of Alta Verapaz. In total, there are more than 1,500 people at risk of forced displacement.
Among the thirty families who have already been displaced there are pregnant women, infants, elders, and adults from the Buena Vista community. They are currently living in an improvised encampment beneath the trees.
The camp is on land belonging to the community of Santa Rosita, which is also in danger of eviction. There is a judicial resolution ordering their eviction on June 26, which has since been rescheduled for August 28.
You can read the full piece, with links and photos, here, Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ Denounce Eviction Threats of New Communities in El Estor.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Environment, Evictions, Human Rights, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Land, Legal, Poverty, Resource Extraction, Violence
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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