Rapid Response Network

National Civil Police used violent repression against a peaceful demonstration by residents of the community of Chicoyogüito, municipality of Cobán, Alta Verapaz Department. In 1968 the Q'eqchi families of Chicoyogüito were dispossessed and uprooted from their land by the Guatemalan state. In their place, the government built Military Base #21, a center where the army carried out forced disappearance, torture, execution, and burial of hundreds of indigenous men, women, and children. On June 9, community members demonstrated in Cobán, asking authorities for the return of their ancestral lands. The National Civil Police beat and injured several people. They arrested 21 men.

Five thousand members of the Indigenous Tolupán community of Agalteca in Yoro Department are being threatened with eviction. Tolupán lands contain precious resources, such as mahogany forests, silver, and iron oxide. To seize those resources, those with economic interests carry out attempts at forcible evictions (some successful). As a consequence of government concessions to mining companies over the past eight years, Tolupán communities have experienced an increase in evictions, as well as destruction of their land and waterways. Those who resist outside encroachment on their ancestral territories suffer attacks, murders, and judicial harassment. Over the past twenty years, forty Tolupán community members have been murdered.

Many sacrifices have been made by the people of El Salvador to build a democratic system of government. Tens of thousands fought and died for a democratic El Salvador during the civil war; one million people had to flee as refugees to escape the massacres and other armed violence. Now the president and members of the Legislative Assembly are actively weakening democracy. On May 1, a coalition of four political parties (led by the majority New Ideas party) wiped out the judiciary when it fired all five magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court without adhering to constitutionally-established justifications for doing so. Attorney General Raul Melara was also dismissed. We are calling on President Bukele and the Legislative Assembly to reverse the firing of the Supreme Court magistrates and grant them a defense hearing, as is their right under the law. Maintaining an independent judiciary is crucial to strengthening democracy in El Salvador.

The National Electric Power Company (ENEE) has been granting licenses to private companies to construct thermoelectric generation plants without the prior consultation and consent of impacted populations. In Baracoa, the National Police broke up a demonstration of residents along highway CA-13 by firing tear gas canisters at the residents. Residents are also concerned that they will not be given the opportunity to attend town meetings at which final approval for the electric generation plant will be given. Residents near other thermoelectric plants in Honduras face health risks from being exposed to constant emissions from turbines, including emissions from fuels so toxic that they are banned in other countries.

State-sponsored violence against popular demonstrations across Colombia has left upwards of 40 people dead. We are calling on the government to: (1) withdraw all military personnel from the streets because soldiers are trained for armed conflict, not for public safety; (2) investigate all reports of violence against demonstrators by security personnel and address any violations of human rights; (3) continue official talks with the National Strike Committee, which represents various groups including indigenous people, unions, environmentalists and students, to discuss key demands; (4) stop stigmatizing protesters and suggesting that they are linked to armed rebel groups; (5) guarantee the rights of peaceful assembly and to protest

National Police (and suspected military personnel as well) are waging armed violence against members of the Tolupán indigenous community of San Francisco de Locomapa in Yoro Department. On May 5, National Police fired on their encampment (Campamento Digno por la Defensa del Bosque y el Territorio Tolupán) that was set up to protect a pine forest against illegal logging. Norma Yackelin Ávila suffered a gunshot. We are unsure how many others might have been wounded.

A man was approached by unknown persons on the streets of the Garífuna community Nueva Armenia and threatened: “if you do not want to die, stop hanging around Mabel Robledo, because we have already been authorized them to kill her." A half-hour earlier, an unknown individual entered Mabel Robledo's place of business and threatened: “…we are going to kill you.” This occurred after Mabel Robledo denounced before local and national officials the appropriation of ancestral Garífuna territories by palm growers and the extraction of sand from the Papaloteca River by drug traffickers.

Juan María Cruz is a member of Triunfeño Front in Defense of Life and the Social Environmental Movement of the South for Life (MASS-Vida, Movimiento Ambientalista Social del Sur por la Vida). He was threatened with a firearm by individuals linked to landowners in the logging industry in the community of Santa Catarina in El Triunfo municipality, Choluteca Department. MASS-Vida works to preserve land, water, beaches, and forests in Valle and Choluteca Departments, putting them at odds with companies engaged in extraction of natural resources. As a result, members of MASS-Vida have been subject to criminalization, persecution and selective assassinations, which involve the military, police, and paramilitary forces that are defending the interests of extractivist companies.

In Quiché Department, Indigenous journalist Anastasia Mejía Tiriquiz faces up to 12 years in prison on trumped up charges following an arrest in August 2020 while reporting on an Indigenous-led protest against a local mayor’s alleged corruption in distribution of COVID-19 assistance. Her trial has been delayed multiple times. We believe that the judicial delays and continued obstacles to Anastasia Mejía’s reporting are attempts to silence the voices of Indigenous peoples, to conceal information on corruption and human rights abuses, and to generate fear among communities. This is the third letter we have written regarding the journalist’s false criminalization since September 2020.