International Scrutiny Needed as Attorney General Ramps Up Abusive Prosecutions Human Rights Watch recently issued a News Release concerning the criminalisation of Indigenous leaders by the Attorney General’s office. Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office has detained two Indigenous leaders on spurious… Read More ›
Genocide
Central America’s Last Comandante
Writing in Jacobin, Emilie Teresa Smith and Margarita Kenefic, both former militants in the Guatemala’s Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) during the Guatemalan internal armed conflict, talk of César Montes, ‘Central America’s Last Comandante’, who led rebel forces, including the Guerrilla… Read More ›
Defense Strategy and Guatemalan AG’s Decisions Reduce Odds of Genocide Conviction
In the genocide trial against retired military commander Benedicto Lucas García, initially expected to end three weeks ago, the defense has attempted to recuse the court to delay sentencing. Last-minute tension is affecting proceedings: A judge is now on medical… Read More ›
Ixil Genocide Trial Against Benedicto Lucas García Nears End
Eleven years after the genocide trial of ex-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, that of General Benedicto Lucas García, a former chief of the General Staff, began this April. In over 85 hearings, witnesses, victims, and experts have testified about the scorched-earth… Read More ›
Ixil Dignity
Víctor Peña presented this photo essay in Spanish in March 2019, in El Faro. It is now translated in the lead-up to the verdict in the trial of retired Guatemalan General Benedicto Lucas García on the charge of genocide against… Read More ›
The Voices Of Those Who Live Among Mountains
Resistance Of The Communities Of Guatemala Against Dispossession “We are Ral Ch’och, that is to say: we were born, we live and we are on our lands. We cannot go anywhere else other than our own.” Pascual Miranda, Río Cristalino… Read More ›
GHRC: July Update
The July Update from the Guatemala Human Rights Commisison (GHRC) was recently shared. In hopeful news, Indigenous land rights activist Lolita Chávez has returned to her home in the K’iche after seven years of exile. In 2017, she suffered an… Read More ›
Honouring Indigenous resistance in Totonicapán: interview with Maya K’iché exile Lucía Ixchíu
Linda Etchart, for Latin America Bureau, interviewed environment defender Lucía Ixchíu, of the K´iché Maya of Totonicapán, a community famous for its ‘48 Cantons’ resistance movement. Totonicapán was the second most important city of the K’iché and the headquarters of… Read More ›
Indigenous People’s Rights – The theory versus the reality
Lorna Ní Shúilleabháin, a former field volunteer with PBI in Guatemala, writes on International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, August 9th, on the theory of Indigenous rights against the reality in Guatemala. This year to celebrate the International Day… Read More ›
Guatemala: judicial kleptocracy at war with Indigenous peoples
Daniel Cerqueira writes in the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) blog on the manipulation of the judiciary by elements of the Pacto de Corruptos and its effect on Indigenous communities and their rights to land and challenges for the… Read More ›
Guatemala Solidarity Network 