The recent arrests of two Maya leaders is emblematic of increasing repression and criminalization of Indigenous peoples by the Guatemalan state.
Giovanni Batz writes in NACLA of the recent arrests of the Indigenous Maya leaders, Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán, and places these events within the context of the current regional wave of mass incarceration and global criminalization and detention of activists, and Indigenous and oppressed peoples.
The April arrest of Maya leaders Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán has sparked national and international outrage and concern that the Pact of Corrupt is escalating its criminalization of Indigenous Peoples. The Pact of Corrupt is the name given to an alliance between business, oligarch, military, and right-wing entities that has often used the Guatemalan state to carry out their own interests. Following the 2015 resignation of Otto Pérez Molina for corruption uncovered by the UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), the Pact of Corrupt escalated its efforts to curb back anti-corruption efforts and engaged in lawfare to persecute dissenting voices. Pacheco and Chaclán are being accused by the Public Ministry (MP) “of criminal association, instigation to commit a crime, terrorism, obstructing prosecution, and obstructing justice.” If convicted under the terrorism charge, they can spend up to 30 years in prison.
These alleged crimes are based on their role as leaders and participants of the 106-day National Strike between October 2023 and January 2024 that secured a peaceful transition of power after the Pact of Corrupt threatened to prevent then president elect Bernardo Arévalo from taking office. Feliciana Herrera, a Maya Ixil ancestral authority from Nebaj, tells me with regards to the 106-day National Strike, “In this case, the indigenous authorities came out to express their discontent, against corruption, against impunity, and against this attack on the law that we believe is constitutional, a fundamental right that we as a population have.” The efforts by the Pact of Corrupt, particularly from María Consuelo Porras, Guatemala’s Attorney General, sparked serious concerns of a coup attempt in Guatemala and a further regression towards authoritarianism. During that time, Pacheco was the President and Chaclán the Treasurer of the 48 Cantones of Totonicapán, one of the largest Maya K’iche’ ancestral authorities in Guatemala. Pacheco is the current Vice Minister of Sustainable Development, Mines and Energy.
One of the demands of the 2023 National Strike as calling for the resignation of Consuelo Porras, who has been implicated and signaled of corruption by the international community. In 2022, the U.S. State Department claimed that Consuelo Porras had “repeatedly obstructed and undermined anticorruption investigations in Guatemala to protect her political allies and gain undue political favor” and firing lawyers who investigate corruption. The justice system in Guatemala has been increasingly used to engage in lawfare against Indigenous communities, journalists, and human rights activists, among others. Pacheco and Chaclán’s arrest signal another wave of repression against Indigenous peoples and ancestral authorities, as this precedent now makes anyone who was involved in the 2023 National Strike susceptible to arrest. According to Human Rights Watch, “The case is currently under judicial seal, a maneuver often misused by prosecutors in Guatemala to avoid public scrutiny over politically motivated prosecutions.”
You can read the full article, including links and photos, here, Criminalization and Judicial Terrorism against Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Criminalization, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Racism, Violence
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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