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 ›
Resource Extraction
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 ›
Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ Denounce Eviction Threats of New Communities in El Estor
Aldo Santiago writes in Avispa Midia about the threat of forced displacement facing Indigenous Q’eqchi’ communities in the Polochic Valley. Resource extraction, for the benefit of local elites and the international market, continues to take a heavy toll on Indigenous… Read More ›
“Despite the new government, the advance of mining in Guatemala is already decided”
Roman Gressier interviewed journalist Carlos Choc about his criminalisation by the state and the continuing struggle against rapacious resource extraction companies stirrping Guatemala of its wealth. Carlos Choc is Maya Q’eqchi’ and a high-profile practitioner of periodismo comunitario (community journalism)’…. Read More ›
Guatemala Mourns Murder of Peasants’ Rights Defenders
Grassroots International posted a press release into the murders of José Alberto Domingo Montejo and Marcelo Yaxón Pablo, within the context of attacks on grassroots social movements by those allied to corrupt state actors. Tensions between Guatemala’s right-wing Pacto de… Read More ›
Long Live La Puya: Organizations Around the World Celebrate 12 Year Anniversary of La Puya Peaceful Resistance
It is now 12 years since the peaceful resistance of La Puya came into being in response to the attempt to set up a gold mine north of Guatemala City and against the wishes of the local people. The ‘La… Read More ›
‘He had a machete in his cheek’: how Guatemala’s hydropower dream turned deadly
Paloma de Dinechin wrote in The Guardian recently about the struggle that small and isolated Maya communities are facing in Ixquisis, a remote area close to the Mexican border. A struggle against global capital and led, in the main, by… Read More ›
GHRC – El Quetzal
The Winter edition of El Quetzal, from The Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC), has recently been published. It features the leadership of Guatemala’s Indigenous in the struggle to defend democracy with pieces by Marta Estela Gutiérrez Montúfar and Isabel Solis…. Read More ›
Guatemala Solidarity Network 