Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates

Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ communities who live in the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range in Izabal Department, Guatemala, have been battling harmful and violent mining operations for over 60 years. Recently, following peaceful occupations, protests, and complaints filed with the Public Ministry over illegal excavations carried out by mining companies, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) announced on July 30 that ten environmental licenses granted for operations in the Sierra Santa Cruz had been cancelled. Despite this, Canada-based Central America Niquel (CAN) and its subsidiaries, Río Nickel S.A. and Nichromet Guatemala, have continued to illegally push ahead with mining operations in the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range.

Following his vital work covering local resistance to these mining operations, journalist and human rights defender Carlos Ernesto Choc is facing targeted attacks of intimidation and harassment. Since 2017, Carlos Choc has faced unfounded criminal charges related to his coverage of police brutality during protests against the El Fénix nickel mine in El Estor (where 90% of the residents are Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’), arbitrary house raids, and threatening attacks by unidentified assailants. Now, he is experiencing escalating acts of intimidation, including shots being fired near his house, an unidentified car hitting the fence surrounding his house, and defamatory messages being circulated online. We are writing to Guatemalan authorities to implement immediate measures to protect Choc. 

In November 2016, historic peace accords were signed between the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the government. But several factions (called "dissidents") broke off from the FARC and refused to lay down their weapons. One of those dissident groups, the 33rd Front, is operating in the transborder Catatumbo region of northeast Colombia, whose inhabitants are mainly campesino organizations and the Bari Indigenous people. Social leaders face extreme danger as they attempt to work in this region characterized by poverty, militarized violence, and conflicting factions.  

The 33rd Front is raising claims that the humanitarian organization Catatumbo Social Integration Committee (CISCA) is working with other armed factions in the conflict. This puts members of CISCA under increased threats of violence.  CISCA states that not only are the claims baseless and unjust, but they put CISCA’s members in an extremely vulnerable position.

We urge that the government implement structural solutions based on a stronger presence of civilian State institutions, such as the Social Pact for the Territorial Transformation of Catatumbo, that should include authorities of the Bari Indigenous people and leaders of local civil society organizations.

The Bari Indigenous people live in the Perijá mountains near the Catatumbo-Bari National Natural Park in Norte de Santander Department in northeast Colombia. The binational people live on both sides of the Colombia-Venezuela border.  Stretching between the Eastern Andes and Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, the Catatumbo region is rich in natural resources, particularly oil, but marked by extreme poverty, high militarization, armed violence, and the lack of access to health, food, education, water, and housing. These conditions have created a hostile environment for social leadership and human rights defense. The region also lacks infrastructure and connectivity with the rest of Colombia.

Since late August, dozens of people have been suffering from fever, pain, and hemorrhages; on August 26, a child died after presenting these symptoms. Residing far from municipal urban centers where health facilities exist, the Bari people are forced to travel long distances to seek medical attention. Without the resources for transport and lodging, these journeys further endanger their health. We are urging that authorities in Colombia consult with Bari settlements to establish adequately equipped medical facilities, so they do not have to risk their lives traveling for hours to access healthcare.

Indigenous communities in the southern border state of Chiapas have long been victim to political violence, paramilitary violence, extractivist dispossession, territorial and religious conflicts, and organized criminal activity.

FRAYBA (Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center) has a well-respected reputation for defending their human rights. But as FRAYBA conducts its legitimate work of denouncing the systematic rights violations against communities (and accompanying them in their search for justice), its members are subject to repeated attacks and accusations. The context of harassment, intimidation, threats, and systematic surveillance of FRAYBA members has escalated.

In late July, the newly-appointed director of FRAYBA, Dora Robledo, suffered a raid on her private home. This was the second such incident in the past ten months.

We are urging that federal authorities and those in Chiapas ensure that the protection measures issued on behalf of FRAYBA by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights be enforced.

Five members of the Indigenous Garifuna communities of Trujillo and Sante Fe are being prosecuted for defending their ancestral lands; their names are Cesia Guillén, Cindy Fernández, Gilma Bernárdez, Luis Calderón, and Cesar Geovanny Bernárdez. All of the defendants are members of the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH), an organization that has been helping the Garifuna in their fight to defend collective property. 

The defendants have been unjustly accused of forced displacement and aggravated usurpation by Dagoberto Castillo Castillo and Niobi Constantinidi Padilla. Castillo claims to be a bona fide purchaser of a property in the San Antonio area of Santa Fe Colón, despite the fact that the Garifuna people hold its property title dating back to 1882. Their fight is supported by a report from the National Agrarian Institute (INA), indicating that the land is located within Garifuna ancestral territory and that its sale is void.

This state-backed legal attack is part of a systematic act of dispossession against Garifuna communities. Central to its execution has been the repression of land defense movements through deliberate criminalization and persecution of those leading the defense of their ancestral homes. 

The courthouse in Trujillo, which is now effectively dedicated to the persecution of the Garífuna people, was built on Garifuna territory. The initial hearing for the five defendants was held there on August 11.

There are hundreds of self-governed Indigenous territorial reserves (“resguardos”) throughout Colombia. They have their own community councils and Indigenous Guards. Because the work of the Indigenous Guard involves direct confrontation with armed groups, prominent members are often labeled “military targets.”

Estiben Torres was recently elected to head the Indigenous Guard for the Honduras Reservation (aka U’h Wala Vxiç) in Morales, Cauca Department. At 9pm on June 25, Estiben Torres was leaving a community meeting at the “tulpa” sacred gathering space in the hamlet of Maco, traveling on a motorcycle. He was intercepted by armed men who signaled for him to stop. When he did not obey their request, they chased him and, upon reaching the urban area of ​​Morales, they opened fire, wounding him in one of his lower extremities.

It is unclear to us whether the National Protection Unit (UNP) has allocated security detail specifically to Estiben Torres. According to CRIC (Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca), “the existing measures implemented by the UNP are inefficient and inadequate for the level of risk.” 

We are urging that authorities consult with leaders of CRIC to strengthen security measures for the Indigenous communities of Cauca and their Indigenous Guards.

Indigenous communities continue to bear the brunt of the ongoing armed conflict in Colombia. Even if leaders are not blatantly political in their work, they are still targeted.

William Ferney Pazú Toconás, age 23, was a renowned Indigenous cultural leader from Vitoyó village in the Jambaló Reservation in the north of Cauca Department. A member of the musical group Los Tiraflechas, he was passionate about playing flute and drum music and was respected for his work teaching traditional Indigenous music and instruments to children and young adults.

The morning after a cultural celebration, his body was found on the banks of a river in the center of the reservation. He became the 21st social leader killed in Cauca Department this year, and the 85th overall in Colombia.

William Ferney Pazú Toconás, ¡presente!

The ERC Capital group, owner of the Raaxhá Hydroelectric dam in Alta Verapaz, promotes the electric generation project as “clean sustainable energy.” The name “raaxhá” means “green water” in the local Maya Q’eqchi’ dialect.

But local Indigenous communities north of Cobán saw the threats to their water supply and rallied to stop its construction. In January 2020, the government of former President Jimmy Morales (whose 2016-20 administration was riddled with corruption) approved a permit for the project. The attorney general began a legal process against the director of MARN (Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources) for the illegal approval. Both the National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP) and the National Institute of Forests (INAB) noted negative findings in the environmental impact study. Both institutions—responsible for managing the Laguna de Lachuá National Park—foresaw the probable harms of water diversion.  

Indeed, since Raaxhá began their operations on the Icbolay River, there has been evident depletion of the river’s water supply with the operation of its hydroelectric dam, contaminating what remains of the water and negatively affecting individuals’ health and the environment. MARN’s complicity in the draining and denial of accessible water for local inhabitants is reflective of a larger pattern of prioritizing the economic development of corporations over the will and well-being of Guatemalans.