PBI-Guatemala accompanies UVOC during judicial recognition process at the El Chico-La Primavera community

On August 10, PBI-Guatemala posted: “Yesterday, PBI accompanied members of the Verapaz Union of Campesino Organizations (UVOC) and the El Chico-La Primavera community, in a judicial recognition process conducted by the Public Ministry.”

In 2013, UVOC lawyer Jorge Luis Morales commented: “The case of La Primavera is emblematic of the issue of agrarian disputes in Guatemala.” In short, Indigenous Poqomchi families have worked this land for centuries, but the current landowners do not recognize their land tenure rights and have tried to evict them.

PBI-Guatemala has explained that the ownership of part of the lands of this farm was achieved in July 2015. However, in early-2020, PBI-Guatemala noted that “there are still conflicts over the property and access to it.”

On February 28, 2020, PBI-Guatemala posted: “Yesterday we accompanied the community members of UVOC and their lawyer in the act of judicial recognition, carried out by the Justice of the Peace of San Cristóbal, Alta Verapaz, of the boundaries of the El Chico and Saq-ixim communities on the La Primavera farm.”

UVOC is an indigenous and peasant organization dedicated to the defence and promotion of access to land in the context of historical dispossession and ongoing inequality in Guatemala. UVOC represents Q’eqchi’, Poqomchi, Achi and Mestizas peoples.

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied UVOC since 2005.