Pamela Yates, the film maker from Skylight, has featured a short film, Cho Ukayib’al (To Look Deeply), as part of her contribution to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, October 12th. The film is by Andrea Ixchíu Hernández and the Colectivo Elijo Dignidad… Read More ›
Environment
Evicting Lote Ocho
How a Canadian Mining Company Infiltrated the Guatemalan State Max Binks-Collier has written a powerful piece in The Intercept about the corporate and state violence visited on the poor community of Lote Ocho. It was often when Rosa Elbira Coc… Read More ›
PBI Guatemala – latest Bulletin
Peace Brigades International (PBI) – Guatemala Project published their latest Bulletin recently. It is a very useful resource to follow the work they do and the context within which they do so. Water Shortages in Guatemala Members of the organizations… Read More ›
El Mirador and the threat of Indiana Jones
The rule of “finders, keepers” has held true for most archaeological discoveries at least since museums, as we now know them, have existed. Collectors of foreign objects have been around, of course, as long as war, but the officialization of… Read More ›
New Report: Mining Injustice Through International Arbitration: Countering Kappes, Cassiday & Associates’ claims over a gold-mining project in Guatemala
A new report exposes omissions and misrepresentations in a Nevada-based mining company’s more than $400 million suit against the Guatemalan government. Released today, Mining Injustice Through International Arbitration: Countering Kappes, Cassiday & Associates’ Claims over a Gold-mining Project in Guatemala, examines… Read More ›
The Case of “Lote Ocho”: Indigenous women hold corporations accountable for violence
Indigenous women in Guatemala are using the concept of extraterritorial obligations to hold corporations accountable for violence—and to set important precedents in human rights law. Andrea Bolaños Vargas and Andrea Suárez Trueba write an interesting and increasingly relevant article in… Read More ›
Laguna Larga: Evicted families struggle to survive
The Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office and the law firm (BDH – Bufete de Derechos Humanos) demanded that the Guatemala state fulfilled its obligations under the ruling of the Inter-American Commisison for Human Rights (CIDH) with regard to the 111 families… Read More ›
Bernardo Caal Xol is a prisoner of conscience – Amnesty International
Amnesty International has just recently declared the Q’eqchi’ Maya Indigenous leader and Guatemalan human rights defender, Bernardo Caal Xol, a prisoner of conscience, for having been wrongly imprisoned for more than two years. He had been defending the rights of… Read More ›
Working in fear
Gildaneliz Barrientos writes on the D+C Development and Cooperation website about the challenges facing journalists in Guatemala including murder, threats and acts of intimidation. This is compounded by the lack of protection from the police. In what is unfortunately a… Read More ›
Guatemala’s White Flags: COVID Community Response
They say that viruses don’t discriminate, but as COVID-19 sweeps across the world it has become ever more clear that this is not the case. Populations who have faced historical discrimination and marginalisation are far more vulnerable to both the… Read More ›