“The person who defends Mother Earth is unjustly accused and condemned, without evidence“ PBI-Guatemala recently published a feature on the challenges of implementing, in Guatemala, the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which were endorsed by the United Nations… Read More ›
Environment
Indigenous community takes Guatemalan land rights fight to international court
Sandra Cuffe write in Mongabay about a community in north east Guatemala, Agua Caliente Lote 9, which is taking a case, against the Guatemala State, to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The case relates to land rights and, if… Read More ›
Podcast – The indigenous resistance against megaprojects
Gio B’at’z spoke, recently, on the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center podcast, Emancipated, on a book he is working on about the Maya Ixil resistance and the struggle against mega-projects in Guatemala. During the talk, he discusses state-sponsored violence, the… Read More ›
Guatemala: 25 years later, ‘firm and lasting peace’ is nowhere to be found
W. George Lovell has written, in The Conversation, on the failing of the peace accords to bring a firm and lasting peace, highlighting the legacy of violence, corruption, neo-liberalism, and over exploitation of human and natural resources. Dec. 29 marked… Read More ›
Guatemala’s Failed Promise
Jeff Abbott has written a piece for The Progressive, reflecting on the failure of the Guatemalan Peace Accords, twenty-five years after their signing, and the unmet hopes for social justice. Twenty-five years after the peace accords that ended the Central… Read More ›
2021 Alice Zachmann Award: El Estor Resistance
The Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) recently announced that the winner of the annual Alice Zachmann Human Rights Award, for 2021, is being awarded to The El Estor Resistance. In October of this year, Indigenous authorities, along with the Fisherman’s… Read More ›
Oil Palm Monoculture in Ixcán Municipality, Guatemala: A Story of Dispossession and Deception
Herbert Sandoval, from the Social Intercultural Movement of the People of Ixcán, Guatemala (Movimiento Social Intercultural del Pueblo de Ixcán, Guatemala), has a piece on the World Rainforest Movement website about the destruction being caused by palm oil monoculture in… Read More ›
Marking Another Year of Community Resistance to the Escobal Mine
Val Croft writes in the MiningWatch Canada website about ongoing community resistance, in Guatemala, towards Canadian multinational mining interests. The above are solidarity statements presented in relation to the two resistance struggles featured. Nine years ago, faced with threats posed… Read More ›
María Choc: life between awaiting trial and a state of siege
The Q’eqchi’ human rights defender has been waiting for three years for her legal situation to be resolved. Her situation is aggravated in a context of restriction of rights caused by a state of siege. Jody García writes in la… Read More ›
Denouncing Crackdown against Peaceful Protest in Guatemala
Grassroots International recently posted a piece focussing on the events in El Estor. It is a translation of a piece from ALBA Movimientos. On Sunday, October 24, the president of Guatemala declared a state of siege in the municipality of… Read More ›