In a series of tweets, Jackie McVicar has outlined the background to an important court case taking place in Canada regarding Canadian Government pressure on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights regarding the Marlin Mine in Western Guatemala. Guate’s constitutional… Read More ›
Resource Extraction
Guatemala Takes a Hard Line Against Migrants—With US Support
Long before Trump, Washington was exporting control of migratory routes, along with repressive policing, to Mexico and Central America. Jeff Abbott writes in The Nation magazine about the response of Guatemalan authorities to the recent ‘caravan’ of Honduran refugees and… Read More ›
David vs Goliath in Guatemala: how palm oil companies encroach on indigenous land
A community in northern Guatemala is fighting against the force of nature and against the expansion of palm oil. Jody García writes in Climate Tracker about a community that is increasingly trapped, literally, by the effects of climate change, on… Read More ›
Growing concerns regarding the situation of women human rights defenders in the northeast of Guatemala
Front Line Defenders recently made their concerns known about the situation of women human rights defenders in Guatemala and spoke about the challenges facing both Lourdes Haquelina Gómez Willis and Delia Adelina Leal Mollinedo. Front Line Defenders is deeply concerned… Read More ›
Guatemalan forces disperse migrant caravan
Historic elite-level corruption in Honduras, narc-trafficking, and brutal internal violence, much of it state-sponsored, as well as the effects of climate change, especially as witnessed by the successive hurricanes that battered the country, Eta and Iota, within the unprecedented situation… Read More ›
PBI-Guatemala visits the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya
Brent Patterson writes in the PBI-Canada website about a recent visit to La Puya – ‘La Comunidad en Resistencia’ – as part of their accompaniment of the community fighting against the corrupt imposition of a gold mine on their territory,… Read More ›
Guatemala mine’s ex-security chief convicted of Indigenous leader’s murder
Sandra Cuffe writes in The Guardian about the guilty plea related to the killing of Adolfo Choc in 2009. A judge in Guatemala has accepted a guilty plea by the former head of security at Central America’s largest nickel mine… Read More ›
For Indigenous Reporters, Covering Protests, Land Disputes Can Lead to Arrest
Dalia Faheid writes on VOA News about some of the challenges facing indigenous journalists covering land disputes. For nearly three months Anastasia Mejía, a radio journalist and a member of the Maya K’iche’ indigenous group in Guatemala, has been under… Read More ›
Hurricanes continue to batter Guatemala. Poverty (and poor government planning) are making things worse.
With little response from the government, “Only The People Save The People” has become the rallying cry. Jackie McVicar writes in America Magazine of the challenges facing the community of Chicoyou in the wake of Hurricane Eta, which struck Central… Read More ›
Indigenous Guatemalans Face Epidemic of Evictions
Jeff Abbott writes in El Faro about the challenges facing Indigenous communities involved in disputes over land, especially in this time of pandemic. The makeshift houses made of black plastic and bamboo line the road cutting through the lush green… Read More ›