Forty years after surviving state violence, Maya Achi women return to court to demand justice, challenging a long legacy of impunity for crimes against humanity. Jo-Marie Burt, Paulo Estrada and Keily Colíndres write in NACLA Report about the long struggle… Read More ›
Violence
The Massacre of a Trial for Genocide
Benedicto Lucas García, a parachutist trained by France and the United States, was an iconic leader of the Guatemalan counterinsurgency. Decades after the horror, as some of the remaining Maya Ixil victims made the trek from the mountains of Quiché… Read More ›
Arrest of Indigenous Leaders Threatens Rights to Free Assembly and Democracy in Guatemala
In Guatemala, what we had feared would happen is beginning to happen. Indigenous leaders who put their safety on the line for democracy are being arrested. Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) posted a piece on the criminalisation and arrest of… Read More ›
GHRC – Blog: Update on Recent Developments in Guatemala
Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) posted an update last month on the latest news from Guatemala. The topics covered included: State Department Certifies Guatemala’s Efforts Against Corruption Semilla Party Official Arrested as Efforts to Weaken Arévalo Continue Constitutional Court Annuls… Read More ›
Expanding Her Enemy List, Guatemalan AG Accuses Indigenous Leaders of Terrorism
Two Maya K’iche’ pro-democracy leaders who were key in fending off an electoral coup in 2023 and 2024 have now been arrested and accused of terrorism, including a member of President Bernardo Arévalo’s cabinet. In response, Arévalo and Indigenous authorities… Read More ›
Peace Brigades International remembers the life and activism of David Hartsough
Peace Brigades International (PBI) – Canada have posted a nice piece about David Hartsough, who passed away recently. David was a human rights accompanier in Guatemala during the 1980s and was involved in the early accompaniment of GAM (Grupo de… Read More ›
Ongoing Struggles for Justice: Criminalisation of Maya Ch’orti’ Indigenous Defenders in Guatemala
Members of the Maya Ch’orti’ Indigenous Council of Olopa stand in solidarity against the mining on their land An article was recently published on the website of Peace Brigades International UK (PBI-UK) highlighting the criminalisation of Indigenous defenders in Olopa…. Read More ›
Exile is ‘a little bit less than death’ for lawyer forced to flee Guatemala
Haroon Siddique wrote in The Guardian on Virginia Laparra’s struggle for justice and her receiving of the Sir Henry Brooke award. A Guatemalan anti-corruption prosecutor forced into exile after being pursued by the country’s conservative elite has said that leaving… Read More ›
The Genocide Trial and the Tightrope
José Luis Sanz wrote a two-piece chronicle in El Faro, published in Spanish in 2014, on CICIG, Claudia Paz y Paz, the genocide trial of Efraín Ríos Montt, and exile. The chronicle has been translated by Max Granger amid the… Read More ›
Mayans in Guatemala call on multinational companies to stay away
Una Kelly writes on the RTÉ website about the struggle of Indigenous Q’eqchi Maya in their opposition to multi-national resource extraction in eastern Guatemala. Indigenous Mayans in Guatemala have called for a halt on multinational companies coming to their communities… Read More ›
