Category Archives: Indigenous peoples

Human rights and land rights defenders are still under attack in Guatemala

by Jim Hodgson

Despite the inauguration earlier this year of a more progressive government in Guatemala, community land defenders still face criminal violence and judicial threats.

The government of President Bernardo Arévalo condemned the murder June 5 of a 47-year-old lawyer who worked to protect Indigenous and small-farmer land rights.

José Alberto Domingo Montejo worked with the Comité de Unidad Campesina (CUC, Committee for Farmworkers Unity) and had been part of CUC’s legal team since 2019. 

Left: A poster from Prensa Comunitaria denouncing the murder of José Domingo. Right: a statement from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights upholding the right of small farmers’ organizations to work freely and safely, and calling for a fast and impartial investigation.

Domingo was shot during an ambush on a gravel road in Palin, Escuintla department, southwest of the Guatemalan capital. Two other CUC members, Gustavo Yoxon and Marcelo Yoxon, were wounded in the same attack.

They were doing what CUC and another organization with which I am more familiar, the Comité Campesino del Altiplano (CCDA, Highlands Committee of Small Farmers) do all the time: working to advance the interests of small farmers and Indigenous peoples by helping to legalize a community land title. The CCDA condemned the attack and expressed its solidarity with families of the victims.

“This attack is added to the wave of violent judicial and extrajudicial evictions, captures and arrest warrants,” said CCDA in a statement on social media. 

The Pact of the Corrupt

Guatemala may have that more progressive government but Arévalo and his cabinet do not control all the levers of power. 

A key obstacle is Consuelo Porras, the attorney general appointed in 2018; her term was renewed in 2022 and extends to 2026; she can only be removed if convicted of a crime. 

Left: A CCDA news conference [text in English] on June 3 warned the “Pact of the Corrupt” tries to provoke confrontations between government and small farmers and Indigenous communities.

The U.S. Department of State added Porras to a list of “undemocratic and corrupt” officials in 2021. And last year, the Organization of American States (OAS) called her efforts to annul Arévalo’s election “an attempted coup d’état.”

“Porras has served as the spearhead of the Pact of the Corrupt,” wrote former Guatemalan foreign minister Edgar Gutiérrez in December while she was still trying to quash the election result. He described the Pact of the Corrupt as “a loose coalition of politicians, bureaucratic and business elites, plus powerful drug trafficking groups, which has pushed back civil and political liberties, unleashing fierce persecution against dissent, particularly against independent justice operators, who now number half a hundred in exile.”

For people in a community that is struggling to establish a land claim, even with good legal advisors from CCDA or CUT, it is often a challenge to identify opponents. One example is the Xinca Indigenous community of Nueva Jerusalén, located further south in the same Escuintla department where José Domingo was killed. By March 2023, the community had exhausted legal avenues within Guatemala (despite having shown the land in question belongs to the government and having proven irregularities in the claim of a supposed owner. After I had joined a meeting with community leaders and CCDA advisors, I wrote about the community’s appeal to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR).

But a few months later, on August 9, police and private security forces burned the community to the ground and forced the 53 resident families to flee. 

In these scenarios—and there are scores of them—it can be difficult to distinguish between a legal, court-ordered eviction (even if fraudulently obtained) and a private army: in effect, a paramilitary death squad. 

And so you find a paragraph like this one in an Amnesty International report that (correctly, in my view) blends the crimes of state and non-state actors. From the victims’ point of view, it’s hard to see the difference.

“The Unit for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders in Guatemala (UDEFEGUA) reported 5,965 attacks against human rights defenders between January and November 2023, including threats, killings, harassment and arbitrary detentions. Criminalization increased, particularly against those involved in the fight against impunity and corruption.”

And this paragraph from a Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking The Silence (BTS) Network report on the Nueva Jerusalén eviction:

“[T]he state abets and perpetrates violence against the community. The police—the armed wing of the state—have…ransacked homes, destroyed possessions and sought to provoke community members to protect themselves. With this sleight of hand, they bring charges against community members, used to defame and criminalize the residents of Nueva Jerusalen.”

“Bringing charges.” “Criminalization.” 

Mélisande Séguin of BTS notes that land defenders continue to meet with government officials to stop future arrests. “Nonetheless, with Consuelo Porras at the helm of the Public Prosecutor’s office, criminalization remains a major threat for Indigenous and campesino movements.”

On Feb. 8, the new government signed an agreement with CCDA, CUT and other organizations of small farmers and Indigenous peoples. 

“For our administration, dialogue is not just a tool but a key pillar that promotes citizen participation in defining the agendas that effectively solve different needs,” said Arévalo during the signing ceremony. He said the agreement was the product of a dialogue process that began in the last quarter of 2023.

“All Guatemalans are equal in dignity and rights. The new government embraces the idea that everyone has something valuable to contribute and deserves to be heard,” he said.

Speaking at the ceremony, CCDA national coordinator Neydi Yasmín Juracán stated: “For us, it is a historic day because we have been meeting politically and technically for these agreements.” She said CCDA has worked for more than 28 years to prevent and end land evictions, but:

  • 12 community leaders were assassinated between 2018 and 2022.
  • Seven leaders are currently imprisoned.
  • 1,788 arrest warrants, 35 per cent targeting women.
  • Seven active temporary shelters to attend to agrarian conflicts.
  • 1,320 cases were accompanied by the CCDA.

Human rights, ecology, in the spotlight as Canada-Ecuador trade talks move forward

Behind all the bad-news headlines from Ecuador these days (political murders, gang violence, a government crackdown, a police raid on the Mexican embassy), Indigenous people and environmental groups continue to organize in opposition to resource extraction industries.

On April 21, they claimed victory when voters rejected two government proposals that would have fortified investments by transnational corporations and provided “flexibility” in their ways of contracting workers. Those victories, however, are overshadowed by approval of a range of security measures that, in turn, provoke greater concern about human rights under President Daniel Noboa.

Headlines in English about the April 21 referendum focused on President Noboa’s security agenda. La Jornada (Mexico) and TeleSUR (Venezuela) examined Noboa’s failure to advance his market-oriented economic agenda.

The proposals to expand public security that were approved include: involvement of the armed forces in fighting crime, increased penalties for serious crimes, the possibility of extradition of citizens to face charges in other countries, seizure of illicitly-obtained good, and restrictions on private ownership of weapons.

In contrast, the package of measures sought by corporations were rejected: international arbitration of investment and trade disputes, and a measure that would establish time-limited contracts and hourly-work—the “flexibility” to replace permanent, full-time jobs. 

Meanwhile, in the face of human rights and security concerns, Canada is pressing ahead with plans for a free trade agreement with the South American nation.

Canada’s objectives for negotiating this FTA look nice: “a modern, ambitious and inclusive trade agreement, reflecting the latest approaches, including in areas such as digital trade, trade and gender, environment and labour.” Mention is made of women, Indigenous peoples and labour rights.

But it is the experience of Indigenous people in Ecuador with Canadian mining companies and with the Chevron Texaco oil giant that drives opposition to free trade and one of its hallmarks: protection of foreign investors.

Canadians have seen the harmful effects of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) processes, both with corporate lawsuits against Canada and others involving Canadian companies overseas. (One of the latter with which I became very involved was that launched by mining companies against the government of El Salvador after it rejected an application to re-open a gold mine in Cabañas department. Salvadoran water defenders and their international allies won that fight, but such victories are rare—and our victory has provoked a cruel response by the present government.)

Stuart Trew of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) points to a “litany of expensive and controversial ISDS awards against Ecuador involving natural resources” that led the former government of Rafael Correa to withdraw his country from ISDS processes. Constitutional reforms in 2008 include a ban on such arbitrations, and it was this article of the constitution that the Noboa government sought to amend in the referendum. 

Throughout the lead-up to the vote, the Union of People Affected by Texaco/Chevron Operations (UDAPT), the Indigenous and peasant movement led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), and others like Acción Ecológica campaigned to ensure the “no” vote.

On its website, Acción Ecológica maintains ongoing actions on mining, petroleum, protection of nature defenders, and free trade.

Christian Pino, a lawyer who specializes in investment law, welcomed the result, saying that approval of international arbitration of investment disputes would have benefited the transnationals and those Ecuadorans who hold their investments in offshore “fiscal paradises.”

I like to say that I have been fighting free trade since 1848, when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels described it in The Communist Manifesto as “that single, unconscionable freedom” that drowns all others. But no: more like 1988, when Canadians gave Brian Mulroney a mandate to sign the first FTA with the United States, abandoning more than a century of caution in Canada-U.S. trade relations, transforming modes of production, and provoking the loss of more than 300,000 jobs. 

So this is not our first free trade fight or struggle to defend human and ecological rights in the face of resource extraction companies. As these FTA negotiations proceed, bear two things in mind: 

  • In the Harper years, when Canada was negotiating free trade with Colombia, we called for a “human rights impact assessment” (HRIA) but ended up with a fake mechanism that has failed to protect rights. 
  • We also pressed for a ombudsperson who could press for accountability by Canadian companies operating overseas so as to protect individuals and organizations who complain about abuses. But we ended up with a toothless office, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), that has no investigatory power.

CCPA, together with MiningWatch Canada and Amnesty International, have amplified the concerns of Ecuadoran organizations and shared them with Canadian parliamentarians.

While any Canada-Ecuador FTA cannot now include ISDS, the deal could still exacerbate the human rights situation in Ecuador.

“Amnesty International Canada’s Human Rights Agenda for Canada calls for guarantees that no free trade agreement will advance without meaningful consultation with affected Indigenous Peoples and their organizations and their free, prior and informed consent. The organization is also calling for credible, independent human rights and environment impact assessment of any proposed trade agreement,” states an April 30 news release from the three Canadian organizations.

We can do better this time.

No Ecuador trade deal without human rights, consultation and consent

If you too wish to express your concern about Canada’s free trade plans for Ecuador, Amnesty International has set up a page from which you can send a message to Trade Minister Mary Ng telling Canada to put human rights and the environment first.

Transformation in Mexico: a work in progress

Zapatista leaders: Marcos and Moises in La Realidad, Chiapas, November 1996. Photo: Jim Hodgson

by Jim Hodgson

On Jan. 1, 1994, the same day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) seized control of several cities in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico’s southern-most state.

Within a few days, it was clear that the group was Indigenous-led and that it had a charismatic spokesperson in Subcomandante Marcos. The movement also had expectations of social transformation that extended beyond the immediate goal of improving the lot of the Maya people of the Chiapas highlands.

From mountains of southeast Mexico, the Zapatistas put forward a vision of a world where there is respect for diverse ways of being human and of organizing political life, where there might be diverse expressions of truth in the face of supposedly universal truths like the one offered by business elites about the all-powerful “invisible hand” of the free market. They invited us to imagine a world with room for all – “un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos.”

Headlines on Jan. 1, 1994: “Uprising in Chiapas,” “EZLN takes 4 cities in Chiapas”

The Zapatistas pressed for new ways of thinking about power – that leaders should obey their communities – and rejected the hegemony of political parties. The vision had a big impact on those who created the World Social Forum series of encounters that in turn have helped to transform politics in Latin America over the past quarter-century.

Zapatista communities established autonomy from other levels of government, and set about ruling themselves. In the words of a chronicler of social movements in Latin America, Raúl Zibechi, these processes “modify” how people relate to each other as they manage health, education, production, justice, celebrations, sports and art: more mutual, less expert-client, relationships.

Competing posters: Bishop Samuel Ruiz was a man “wanted” for “treason;” EZLN says, “The world that we want is one with room for many worlds.”

“Disorganized crime” and “remilitarization”

Thirty years on, the communities say they have to re-organize themselves in the face of violence between rival drug cartels – “disorganized crime,” the EZLN called them in a recent statement – that now afflicts Indigenous territories near the border with Guatemala and indeed across most of Chiapas. 

Forced displacement, said the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Centre (known as Frayba), is among the most serious human rights violations in Chiapas today. In a new report launched in July, the San Cristóbal-based group said 16,755 people had been forced from their homes between 2010 and 2022. Frayba attributed the violence to actions by paramilitary groups that have afflicted the state for decades and to the newer criminal gangs, adding that the violence affects the Zapatista communities. At the same time, Frayba describes a “remilitarization” –more soldiers, more bases – in the area. 

Mexico’s Fourth Transformation

In 2018, Mexicans chose their new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on the same day as the people of Chiapas elected their new governor, Rutilio Escandón. Their party, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), promotes a program of change they call the “Fourth Transformation” (4T), the previous three being the war of independence, the mid-19th-century liberal reforms of Benito Juárez, and the Mexican Revolution (1910 to 1917 – or through 1940, if you include the massive land reform led by Lázaro Cárdenas in the mid and late 1930s).  The 4T includes a security component: “abrazos, no balazos” (hugs, not shootings), the idea being to ensure that people have viable economic possibilities so that they do not turn to lives of crime.

More than five years into their respective administrations (and six months before the next elections), reviews are mixed. The old conservative parties loathe AMLO – “socialist!” “Chavista!” A more responsible critique comes from Indigenous people and sectors of the left that reject “neo-developmentalist” approaches that emphasize resource extraction and mega-projects for the sake of job creation – but again mostly benefit the traditional elites. Those criticisms were also levelled at all of the so-called “pink tide” governments that produced some changes over the past 25 years, but did not transform the systems of dependence on the export of natural resources. (This problem afflicts Canada too and in the face of climate change, requires urgent action.)

Despite promises, Mexico’s 4T government has not tried to implement the San Andrés Sakamch’en Agreement that was achieved in negotiations among Indigenous peoples and the government in 1996. Those talks, sparked by the EZLN-led rebellion and moderated by Bishop Samuel Ruiz, marked the first (and only) time that the government has negotiated face-to-face with Indigenous peoples. It was not a comprehensive peace deal, but rather the first step in a planned process to address Indigenous rights in Chiapas and beyond.

On June 2, 2024, voters will elect a new president and a new governor for Chiapas. These will be the sixth since the EZLN uprising. Over the years, the Zapatistas have used a variety of strategies to have an impact on Mexico’s political culture. They won’t be silent in the coming months.