Environmental Human Rights: News & Updates

Extractive projects are once again threatening the ancestral lands of Indigenous communities in Guatemala. The land conflicts we see today are rooted in the colonization of the 1500s, the civil war of the 1980’s and globalization of the 2000s that brought the full force of transnational exploitation. The cycle of inequality, discrimination, and displacement continues to be repeated. Although there are laws that uphold the right of Indigneous communities to be consulted about projects that will impact their lives, communities, lands, and futures, in practice the laws are almost always ignored. Some community leaders are calling the current destruction as “economic genocide.”

Armando Vásquez Pascual, along with other community authorities in Chinautla, Guatemala Department, has been actively protesting against sand and clay extraction companies operating without valid licenses for over two years on ancestral Indigenous Paqumam lands.  The damage to the environment, homes, and human health is significant. In a community that was once home to more than 150 families, today only 20 families remain.

The community’s years of peaceful resistance has received significant backlash, including criminalization, defamation, and death threats. On April 18, Denilson Alberto Vázquez Chacón, the sixteen-year-old son of Armando Vásquez Pascual, was fatally shot by assassins on a motorcycle. His brother, Lester Moisés Armando Vázquez Chacón, who was with him, was also seriously injured in the attack.

Indigenous territorial and environmental defenders in Guatemala continue to be persecuted with criminalization, threats, violence, and assassinations.

Environmental defender Tomás Domingo Mateo from the village of Pojom in San Mateo Ixtatán, Huehuetenango, has been one of many outspoken opponents of hydroelectric projects proposed by Energía y Renovación SA (owned by Corporación Castillo Hermanos) that threaten the environmental integrity and ancestral rights of the Indigenous communities. In 2013, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) financed US$13 million for the construction of hydroelectric power plants in the Indigenous Yichk’isis micro-region of  Huehuetenango Department. But in March 2022 IDB withdrew its financing after its independent investigative unit (MICI) determined that IDB had violated several of its own policies—sustainability, gender, environmental, cultural heritage, and Indigenous rights.  

In 2016 a sympathizer of Energía y Renovación SA in the village of Pojom alleged crimes of conspiracy and rape against Tomás Domingo Mateo and 22 other environmental defenders. A judge issued arrest warrants.  On April 14 of this year, police carried out the 2016 arrest warrant against Tomás Domingo Mateo and detained him.  After spending 25 days in detention, a judge ruled on May 10 that the charges against him be dropped for lack of evidence. 

We are urging that authorities in Guatemala (1) uphold its national and international obligations to protect the rights of Indigenous peoples to defend their ancestral lands and environment, (2) end the unjust criminalization of territorial and environmental defenders, and (3)        ensure that proper processes are followed (namely prior consultation and consent) when companies and international financial institutions propose any future megaprojects.

Since 2009, the  Los Negros de Cañaverales Ancestral Community Council (Consejo Comunitario Ancestral Los Negros de Cañaverales, CCANC), has been organizing opposition to an open-pit coal mine in their community in La Guajira Department.

Best Coal Company (BCC, a subsidiary of the Turkish multinational Yildrim Group) wants to operate a coal mine in Cañaverales, La Guajira, between the towns of Fonseca and San Juan del Cesar. The coal extraction would be located just 1.2 km from the El Manatial Nature Preserve, home to the Cañaverales Water Spring.  Mining would negatively impact drinking water and food security (irrigation for food crops).

On behalf of CCANC in 2018, the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CAJAR) filed a protection action (acción de tutela) for violation of the right to prior consultation, and in 2019, the Administrative Court of La Guajira ruled in its favor and ordered that a prior consultation process be conducted.

We urge that the Ministry of the Interior support the will of the Los Negros de Cañaverales Ancestral Community Council in preventing any mining operations of the Best Coal Company in their territory.

On March 22 of this year, the Indigenous Council of Olopa (Chiquimula Department) announced that it had petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for the violation of their rights as Indigenous peoples by the State of Guatemala. Since the government granted a 25-year exploitation license to the mining company Cantera Los Manatiales in 2012, Maya Ch'orti' community members have been victimized by threats to their ancestral lands and cultural rights, criminalization, violence, and assassination.

In March 2023, a court dimissed a bogus case against Juan Carlos Pérez Canán, Leonor Crisóstomo Méndez, Guillermo Ramírez Pérez, and Fredy Geovany Ramírez Ramírez. But the Public Ministry appealed, and on April 12, 2024, another judge ruled that the four should stand trial. Six others of their community members are facing similar false charges.

The company began operations in 2016, despite the fact that the license was granted without free, prior and informed consultation with the communities, as required by ILO Convention 169. Residents’ health and environmental concerns include the contamination of the Río Jupilingo and the Río Zacapa, cutting down of forests, and the appearance of skin diseases.  In March 2019, the Ministry of the Environment ordered the company to stop its operations. Later that year, after the Maya Ch'orti' communities had maintained a peaceful encampment for several months, the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) suspended the mining license. Moreover, the Court of Amparos granted the Indigenous Council provisional protection measures because of the risks faced.

The ruling on April 12 by the First Criminal Court of Chiquimula is clearly a case of persecution against the Maya Ch'orti' authorities for their mining resistance activities.  We are urging that the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources publicly state as much and urge that all false criminal charges be dropped.

resistance to gold mining: Cerro Blanco, owned by Canadian company Bluestone Resources

Open-pit mining is one of the most environmentally contaminating industries in the world, causing great harms to biodiversity, water, air, and human health. In the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala-Honduras-El Salvador) 23 international water basins connect 40% of the territory; currently there are 50 areas of mining interests in these shared basins.

The Cerro Blanco gold mine in southeastern Guatemala is particularly concerning because of its potential impact on Lake Güija, which drains into the Río Lempa, traversing the border with El Salvador. Millions of people depend on the Río Lempa and its tributaries for their drinking water.

Bluestone Resources and previous companies that owned the mine have been trying for more than two decades to obtain the necessary permitting to start excavating. In the final days of his administration, former president Alejandro Giammiattei authorized a change of operations from an underground mine to an open pit mine.  On January 18, the company announced that “we are pleased” and would initiate extraction operations.

 Part of the delay has been popular resistance. In the town of Asunción Mita, located just 5 km from the mine, residents voted overwhelmingly against the mine (7,4000 to 900) in September 2022. Based on Municipal Code, the result of the referendum is legally binding.  

 We are urging that the new administration of President Arévalo review all the previous environmental impact studies and permitting processes that have allowed the project to move forward over the past 20 years. We hope and expect that ultimately the government will listen to the will of the people and shut down the mine. But investors from the U.S. and Canada are hoping otherwise.