PBI-Guatemala has posted: “An hour after the reading of the sentence on Caso de la Masacre de la Cumbre de Alaska the room was filled with the plaintiffs, relatives and authorities of the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán and the Ixil people.”

Reuters reports:

“A Guatemalan court on Wednesday [February 28] convicted seven soldiers for their roles in the killing of six Indigenous protesters in 2012, while a colonel and another soldier were acquitted. Of those convicted, six of the soldiers were found guilty of bodily injury caused in a fight while another was convicted of murder. They were sentenced to nearly eight years in prison while the soldier found guilty of murder was sentenced to more than nine.”

Agence France-Presse reported earlier in the week:

“A Guatemalan court will hand down the verdict Wednesday [February 28] in the trial of nine military officers accused of killing six indigenous people during the eviction of a blocked road on Oct. 4, 2012, in a case known as the ‘Alaska Summit Massacre’.

Colonel Juan Chiroy, Sergeant Edin Agustín and seven soldiers are accused of having shot at demonstrators who were blocking the Inter-American Highway in protest of the increase in the electricity rate and other social demands.

Six men of the Mayan K’iche’ ethnic group died in this event that occurred under the government of then-right-wing President Otto Pérez (2012-2015), sentenced in 2022 to 16 years in prison for corruption, in what indigenous leaders describe as the first massacre perpetrated by security forces after the end of the civil war (1960-1996).

‘I ask for justice and reparation because the soldiers killed our husbands’, Celestina Aguilar, 50, the widow of one of the six dead, told AFP.

Video: “Celestina Aguilar Soc, widow of Francisco Puac Ordóñez, points out that the death of her husband changed their lives.”

The incident occurred at the site known as the Alaska Summit because of the altitude and cold climate on that stretch of the route between the departments of Totonicapán and Sololá, about 100 km west of the capital.

Before the hearing, about 50 indigenous people performed a brief Mayan ceremony, with flowers and lit candles, outside the courthouse.

The trial began on June 15 in a high-impact court in the capital, after almost 11 years of waiting due to appeals that delayed the process.

The nine soldiers face charges of ‘extrajudicial execution’ and ‘attempted extrajudicial execution’ (for the wounded) and face sentences of between 20 and 50 years in prison.

[Those killed included] Jose Puac, a 33-year-old-shoemaker, Félix Sapón, Santos Hernández, Rafael Batz and Jesús Caxaj.

Photo: Santos Hernández Menchú.

More than 90 witnesses, mostly locals, testified at the trial, some 300 documents were presented and there were almost 30 forensic expert reports.

The defense of the victims is seeking that the court also order reparation measures and prohibit the military from repressing demonstrations.”

The Spanish news agency EFE also reported:

“’I want justice, my life will never be the same. They left us alone,’ Enrique Faustino Garcia, 54, who lost a leg to a gunshot by the armed forces when he was with a group of peasants protesting on a highway against the increase in the price of electricity in the western department of Totonicapán, told EFE.

Prior to the hearing where the future of the accused will be decided, dozens of family members went to the Plaza de los Derechos Humanos, in the Supreme Court of Justice, to make a Mayan invocation and with prayers asking for justice.

Among the accused soldiers is Colonel Juan Chiroy Sal, who is accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) of being in charge of the military contingent that acted that day.

Sgt. Edin Agustin and seven other lower-ranking soldiers are also among those who could face prison sentences of more than 50 years.”

Canada and Otto Pérez Molina

As noted above by Agence France-Presse, the Alaska Summit Massacre occurred under the government of President Otto Pérez (2012-2015).

In this feature article, The Walrus magazine has reported: “According to geographers Catherine Nolin and Jacqui Stephens, who studied the work of Canadian mining companies in Guatemala from 2004 to 2008, Canada’s ‘pro-business, pro-mining stance, through its embassy’s activities’, have shaped Guatemala’s development model and, in turn, have helped plunder the resources of Indigenous and local communities.”

“Documents received through Access to Information requests show that the embassy was active in creating a favourable environment for the operation of Canadian companies. This included forming ties with Otto Pérez Molina, Guatemala’s president from January 2012 to September 2015.”

That article adds: “According to the National Security Archive, Pérez Molina was allegedly involved in ‘scorched earth campaigns’, which annihilated entire Indigenous villages during the country’s civil war.”

In 2007, Democracy Now reported on allegations that Pérez Molina may have been involved in the assassination of Bishop Juan Gerardi in April 1998 just days after the release of a human rights report he helped prepare for the United Nations’ Historical Clarification Commission.

To listen to a Democracy Now interview with Peace Brigades International following the murder of Bishop Gerardi, please click here.

Global Affairs Canada photo and text: “October 11, 2012 – Guatemala City – The Honourable Diane Ablonczy, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas and Consular Affairs), and Guatemala’s President Otto Pérez Molina, met in Guatemala City today. They discussed  security and justice reform issues, as well as opportunities for expanding commercial engagements between Canada and Guatemala. Minister Ablonczy reinforced Canada’s support for stability and democracy in the region. Minister Ablonczy attended President Perez’s inauguration in January 2012.”

On December 7, 2022, a Guatemalan court sentenced Perez to 16 years in prison. He was found guilty of leading a massive customs fraud scheme while in office.

We continue to closely follow the situation in Guatemala.

PBI-Guatemala has posted:

“[On February 26], #PBI accompanies the peaceful walk carried out by the Q’eqchi’ communities of Santa María Cahabón.

Around 300 people mobilized towards the municipality to demand the removal of the accreditation of the hydroelectric company OXEC as a member of the Municipal Development Council (COMUDE), and that no more licenses continue to be granted to hydroelectric companies.

The mayor received them to listen to their demands, to which he pledged to respond over the next month.

“Respect the good faith consultation in which 25,000 people participated” and “No more hydroelectric plants in Cahabón”, were some of the demands that could be read on the banners of the demonstrators.

It should be recalled that the region continues to suffer the effects of the hydroelectric company that has restricted the Cahabón river,”

Maya Q’eqchi’ journalist Carlos Ernesto Choc also tweeted:

“#Alta Verapaz Peaceful Walk in the municipality of Cahabón, Alta Verapaz, Maya Q’eqchi’ communities, hold a peaceful demonstration against Oxec hydroelectric projects.

They demand from the municipal mayor Abraham Chiquin, who won for the VAMOS party the cancellation of the Oxec 3 project and that the representatives of the COMUDE hydroelectric company resign.”

The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project has previously explained: “The Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón is made of more than 190 Q’eqchi’ communities who live in the Cahabón River basin. Since 2015 they have organized around defense of territory and against the launch of the OXEC I and OXEC II hydroelectric projects installed on the Oxec River, a tributary of the Cahabón River.”

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied the Peaceful Resistance Cahabón since July 2017.

Hatch and OXEC II

NS Energy has reported: “Hatch would be engaged to deliver the conceptual design and detailed design-build-engineering for the Oxec II Hydroelectric Project.”

Hatch was founded in Toronto, Canada, by W.S. Atkins as W.S. Atkins & Associates in 1955. It has offices around the world with its headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario.

From list of Hatch Ltd. office locations in Canada.

Commenting on OXEC II, Ian Ainslie, a Hatch project manager based in Niagara Falls, Ontario, noted: “Hatch has been active in developing hydroelectric sites in Guatemala for over 20 years.” And Hatch’s managing director of power, Jim Sarvinis, says: “Projects like Oxec II are exactly why we do the type of work we do at Hatch.”

OXEC II became operational in September 2018.

OXEC III

In April 2023, Power Technology noted: “Oxec III is a 75MW hydro power project. It is planned on Cahabon river/basin in Alta Verapaz. The project construction is likely to commence in 2025 and is expected to enter into commercial operation in 2027.”

On May 10, 2023, PBI-Canada observed a march by the Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón in Guatemala City that included a banner that read: “We demand that the Oxec 3 licence be cancelled.”

Breakbulk Magazine has previously reported Hatch’s project manager for Oxec II Hooman Ghassemi “has been working on Oxec II since 2015 and finished the conceptual design for Oxec III [in 2017].”

We continue to follow the Q’eqchi’ resistance to dams on the Cahabon River.

Photo: Maya Q’eqchi environmental defender Bernardo Caal Xol spent four years in prison for his peaceful resistance to dams being built on ancestral territory without consent. He was released from prison in March 2022. PBI-Canada met with him on May 5, 2023, in Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala.

The PBI-Guatemala Project has posted: “Yesterday [February 25], #PBI accompanies the Maya Ch’orti’ Indigenous Council of Olopa Chiquimula in its eighth anniversary, which took place in a natural water birth. During the act, claims were made in defense of water and land through indigenous authorities and through their spirituality.”

Poster: Consejo Indígena Maya Ch’orti’ de Olopa Chiquimula.

In April 2023, the Regional Business and Human Rights Platform noted in their report Fourth Cycle of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Canada:

The Gold and Silver Extraction Project of the corporate structure of [the Vancouver, Canada-based] Gold Group Management Inc; that in Guatemala operate in a joint venture between Radius Gold Inc. and Volcanic Gold Mines Inc. through Minerales Sierra Pacífico S.A., did not comply with the consultation and prior consent procedures of the communities of the Maya Ch’orti’ territory of Olopa. In the face of opposition to the project, the defenders of the territory have suffered threats, criminalization, and processes of community division. Furthermore, the company, with the support of the Municipality of Olopa, has hindered the recognition of ancestral authorities to favor community authorities elected by the municipal council and try to limit the historical forms of Organization of the Ch’orti’ Mayan people.

Sierra Pacífico S.A. mineral project

Summary case information: Project name: Minerales Sierra Pacífico S.A (part of the Holly Banderas project)

Location: Olopá, Chiquimula, Guatemala

Companies involved: Gold Group is founder of Volcanic Gold Mines Inc. and Radius Gold Inc., all Canadian companies that they operate in Guatemala through the subsidiary Minerales Sierra Pacífico S.A. (Exploration company).

Financial entity: The Volcanic Gold Mines company is financed by shareholders; the main internal shareholder is Simon Ridgway and the external shareholder is True Independence LLC. In the case of Radius, the main external shareholder is the U.S. Global Investors Fund-World Precious Minerals Fund and the main internal shareholder is Simon Ridgway. They are looking for more financiers and shareholders for the development of the project.

Sector: Mining

Project Status: 4 exploration licenses requested (Arely, Ava, María Elena for which the Ministry of Energy and Mines -MEM- requests an extension of the Work Plan and Karen, in the cadastral opinion phase; the company has waived 6 applications in the 14 communities organized in the Ch’orti’ Mayan Indigenous Council of Olopa

Population or groups affected: The population of the Mayan Ch’orti’ indigenous people of the municipality of Olopa, Chiquimula.

Impacted natural environment: Cerros La Bandera, Cerro de Tituque and La Montañita; The water sources are: the Cayur ravine, the Lempa river and the Jupilingo river, in addition to the Espíritu Santo Natural Reserve.

Main human rights abuses: Right to information, consultation, right to freedom of expression and movement; rights at risk: to water, to life, to food; economic, social and cultural rights.

Organization responsible for documenting the case: Ch’orti’ Mayan Indigenous Council of Olopa/Extractive Industries Observatory

Organizations that subscribe to the report: Mayan Ch’orti’ Indigenous Council of Olopa.

Brief description of the relevance of the project:

Olopa is located in a border region of Guatemala with Honduras and El Salvador. There is a regional organization called “Plan Trifinio”, but it does not integrate the care of Mother Earth from the worldview of the indigenous communities, but rather from the extractivist vision of the authorities of the 3 countries involved.

Following the OIE investigation into another mining project that operates and impacts Chiquimula, more exploration licenses appeared from the Canadian company Minerales Sierra Pacífico S.A. They had to go to the Ministry of Energy and Mines to obtain information about the companies and their activities, because no information was disclosed in the territory impacted by these licenses. The company – from Gold Group – has already carried out exploration activities on private land, without informing, under deception and with the support of the municipality, saying that soil studies were being carried out for access to community water and the construction of tanks. distribution.

Due to the impacts already suffered with the imposition of other mining projects in Olopa, the Ch’ortí Mayan communities began to organize to inform themselves, formulate their demands to demand compliance with their rights and the rights of nature213. These communities are concerned about the number of licenses, and the impacts that all these metal mineral exploitations could generate if they are carried out, in addition to the acts of corruption that preceded the licenses.

Main human rights abuses:

The mining legal framework has not been built from the territories, nor consulted, and does not take into account the environmental, social and cultural impacts of mining exploitation. Decisions to grant environmental and mining licenses are made within ministries (such as the Ministry of Energy and Mines) without notifying the affected populations of the interests that exist over their territories. Reliable information is not shared about the impacts, benefits and reparations that exploration and exploitation activities could generate.

The Mining Law and environmental regulations favor the exploitation of territories by multinationals. In Guatemala, the right to consultation of indigenous peoples is systematically denied.

Right of access to information; right to consultation; right to free expression and peaceful mobilization

In the Ch’orti’ Mayan territory of Olopa, we have an antimony mining operation, the Cantera Los Manantiales mining company215. Faced with the actions of the Mayan Ch’orti’ Council to denounce all the illegalities and impacts generated by this mining activity (mainly on the water and health of the surrounding communities), the State and the company have responded with the criminalization and judicialization of the Mayan Ch’ortí’ authorities, events that break community harmony, increase violence and persecution. For this reason, the defense of the territory is strengthened to prevent further impacts on the ways of life of the communities and it is hoped that action will be taken legal against the company’s exploration licenses.

Actions of cooptation and community division are already being suffered. For example, the municipality prevents the recognition of ancestral authorities to favor community authorities elected by the municipal council and try to limit the historical forms of organization of the Ch’orti’ Mayan people.

Right to a clean environment

Right to water: The communities of the department of Chiquimula are seeing the loss of water resources due to the presence of numerous mining concessions, most of them in the exploration stage, but which are being exploited illegally, without an environmental license. This puts other human rights of the Ch’orti indigenous people at risk.

Right to life and a healthy environment: Linked to the right to water and the possibility of enjoying a healthy environment, the community of Olapa views with concern the mining advance that is articulated with negative impacts already visible in neighboring communities, due to the contamination of the air, soil and water.

Right to health: Exposure to heavy metals and other toxic substances, a product of mining activity, puts the population’s health at high risk, already precarious due to the little or no presence of state services, with differential effects on girls and boys. , women and older adults from the Ch’orti’ ethnic community.

Right to food: The communities have preserved their food traditions, based on agroecology, thanks to their ancestral knowledge, the conservation and exchange of native seeds and the use of medicinal plants, which have become an alternative for survival in the face of advance of the mining companies, stripping the forests and biodiversity of this Guatemalan region.

Cultural rights: As established in the international human rights instruments that Canada is obliged to protect and respect, in the territory where its mining projects are located, the indigenous right to identity is denied, their cultural integrity is affected , its spirituality, its practices based on reciprocity and the community and peasant economies of the region.

Methodology

The documentation of the cases responds to a systematic follow-up of the case by the Ch’orti’ Mayan Indigenous Council of Olopa and the investigation by the Extractive Industries Observatory. Additionally, an investigation of secondary sources has been carried out on official pages such as those of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, and the Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance. In addition, information on judicial processes has been obtained from indigenous jurisprudence. In the Las Pomas community, meetings were organized with the Ch’orti’ Mayan Indigenous Council of Olopa to expose the risks of mining and the community began a process of electing its representatives. The 14 communities of Olopa that are organized in the Ch’orti’ Mayan Indigenous Council of Olopa are in peaceful resistance against mining exploitation and defend their cultures, values, spirituality, physical territory, the community and its forests, hills, rivers, mountains. They protect the territory from development models that exploit Mother Earth and allow progress towards climate justice. They carry out social actions (such as community organization and the election of their authorities and representatives), political, legal (such as community acts for the rejection of mining activities in their territories) and communication. It is expected to be able to file a legal action for the exploration licenses in process in the Maya Ch’orti’ communities.

The full report in Spanish can be read at Cuarto Ciclo del Examen Periódico Universal de las Nacionales Unidas República de Canadá (Plataforma Regional de Empresas y Derechos Humanos, Abril de 2023).

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied the Maya Ch’orti’ Indigenous Council of Olopa in June 2021, following their request, which is based on the serious increase in security incidents, defamation and criminalization processes they are experiencing.