Guatemalan plaintiffs seek corporate accountability in Canada for violence A fantastic new blogsite has recently been launched by Breaking the Silence, NISGUA and MiningWatch Canada revolving around the struggle taking place in the municipality of San Rafael las Flores in… Read More ›
Justice
Congress denies Genocide
An interesting development has recently taken place in Guatemala where members of Congress were asked to vote on whether or not genocide occurred there. The result was 87 out of 111 who voted that genocide did not occur. I don’t… Read More ›
Guatemala: The War of Paz y Paz
Courtesy of InSight Crime, and written by Steven Dudley, is this fascinating piece about Claudia Paz y Paz and her struggle for justice in Guatemala, which led her up against the powerful and corrupt. Her term as Attorney General has… Read More ›
Guatemala: Suppressing Dissent at Home and Abroad
Last year Otto Pérez Molina presided over the sharpest escalation in targeted attacks on human rights defenders since Guatemala’s armed conflict ended in 1996. Attacks on human rights defenders increased last year by 126 percent, by far the greatest jump… Read More ›
Official Histories
“Veterans of Guatemala’s long civil war recover the secret archive of the National Police, pulling together the missing parts of the country’s past, and of their own. In July 2005, investigators from Guatemala’s Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office stumbled upon a… Read More ›
Organizations in defense of territory denounce violence against their communities
Late on Sunday, 13th April 2014, around 10:30pm, father and daughter activists involved in the resistance against Tahoe Resources’ Escobal Mine, Edwin Alex Reynoso and Merilyn Topacio Reynoso (above), were attacked by unknown suspects. Alex and Topacio were on… Read More ›
Under the Volcano
An anti-mining banner at the roadblock reads: “Defend our Mother Earth from the rats.” Guatemala sits atop a wealth of natural resources—nickel, gold, silver, and titanium—that lie beneath the country’s rich volcanic soil. In 1960, the Canadian-owned and -operated International… Read More ›
‘La Puya’: Two years against the mine
We are all ‘La Puya’ Accompanied by great photographs from the 2nd anniversary celebrations at ‘La Puya’, from Sandra Sebastián, Oswaldo J. Hernández writes, Two years ago, just on the border between San Pedro Ayampuc and San José del Golfo,… Read More ›
La Puya: Two Years of Peaceful Resistance Against an Unwanted Gold Mine
More great photoreportage from James Rodríguez (MiMundo) chronicling the days leading up the 2nd anniversary of the Cominudad en Resistencia of La Puya. The highlight of the first few days was the removal of the heavy machinery that had been… Read More ›
Celebrating Two Years of Resistance in La Puya
Sunday, 2nd March 2014, saw the Comunidad en Resistencia of ‘La Puya’ celebrate its 2nd anniversary in its struggle for land and dignity against a rapacious mining industry and the Guatemala state. Rachel Small has put together a fine series… Read More ›