Guatemala: News & Updates

Please see a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to: (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, (3) bring human rights criminals to justice. IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.

Mayan indigenous communities in eastern Guatemala are waging an ongoing struggle for the defense of their lands and resources, in the face of encroachment by mining, power and oil corporations. These struggles have resulted in protests on behalf of the affected communities and against the Guatemalan government's repression of activists and indigenous inhabitants, and have now reached the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Sister Dianna Ortiz was a catholic nun and - after being tortured in Guatemala - became a human rights and anti-torture activist. As a teenager, she joined the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph and taught kindergarten for several years before moving to Guatemala in 1987 at the age of 28, where she wanted to teach indigenous children. With the 36-year civil war following the 1954 CIA coup not far in the past, it was a dangerous time to work with the oppressed people in Guatemala. In 1989, Ortiz was kidnapped and tortured for 30 hours, and returned back to the US after that. In her desire to defend human rights and torture victims, Dianna Ortiz founded Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC) - the first organization led by torture survivors to support other survivors - in 1998, continuing to advocate against torture and seek justice for what happened to her in 1989. After a battle against cancer, Dianna Ortiz died on February 19, 2022, at the age of 62. But her legacy continues to live - it is a witness to suffering the unimaginable and coming out on the other end with love.

The Guatemalan Prosecutor's Office confirmed the arrest of two assistant prosecutors from the Special Prosecutor's Office against Impunity (FECI), the latest in a string of detentions of anti-corruption officials. Both assistant prosecutors were involved in uncovering a corruption plot between lawyers, politicians and businessmen to elect judges. Guatemalan authorities say arrest warrants are pending against two other assistant prosecutors involved in that case. Human rights organizations and the international community condemned the arrests of anti-corruption officials.

The Maya Q’eqchi’ community of Agua Caliente is nestled in the mountains surrounding Guatemala’s Lake Izabal, in the sacred Valle del Polochic. Located in the municipality of El Estor, Izabal, Agua Caliente is also known for its abundant deposits of nickel. These riches have for decades made El Estor a target of looting by multinational corporations seeking to exploit and profit from the land and resources. This case against a particular Fénix nickel marks the first time the Guatemalan state has faced judgement in an international court for violating the ancestral land rights of Indigenous communities. The court’s ruling could force the Guatemalan government to finally recognize the Q’eqchi’ people’s collective rights to their ancestral lands and their right to protect their natural resources from exploitative megaprojects—including the destructive open-pit Fénix nickel mine that stands on the banks of Lake Izabal.

As a candidate, President Biden spoke out forcefully against the cruelty, xenophobia, and racism against immigrants and other communities of color stirred by President Trump and other leaders. As president, President Biden from Day One made bold commitments to build an immigration system that is fair, humane, and that “welcomes immigrants, keeps families together, and allows people across the country – both newly arrived immigrants and people who have lived here for generations – to more fully contribute to this country.” In this report, the We Are Home campaign assesses Biden’s Year One on immigration by looking at his most high-profile promises and longstanding priorities for the coalition.

A new study shows the impact the warmer climate will have on cultivating coffee, avocados and cashews, and on the farmers doing so. Of the three crops, coffee will be hit hardest by warming: The study model foresees an overall decline by 2050 in the number of regions where it could grow. For cashews and avocados, results were more complicated. Certain growing regions would experience declines in those crops while others, such as the southern United States, would likely find more land better suited to tropical food crops like cashews and avocados. By predicting decades in advance how agriculture will change, scientists can help farmers know what to expect, and can advise policy makers on how to encourage farmers to use more efficient growing methods like cover crops to prevent erosion or planting new crops when needed.

Guatemala's highest court has sentenced five former paramilitaries to 30 years in prison for raping dozens of indigenous Mayan women during the country's civil war in the 1980s. The men were members of so-called Civil Self-Defense Patrols, armed groups formed and supported by the military. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala said the sentence was a "landmark advance in the access to the rights to truth, justice and reparation for female victims of sexual violence during" the war.

The community assembly in Nebaj, Guatemala is part of the Ixil’s historical struggle to pursue peaceful and local community-based solutions and transparency to institutional, governmental, and structural corruption and impunity at all levels of government. Guatemala is experiencing a weakening of democratic structures and the further entrenchment of corruption and impunity. Many Indigenous communities have been abandoned by the corrupt state and are displaced from their territories by the armed forces. The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), created in 2006, gave Guatemalans hope that justice would be served to corrupt politicians, but the right-wing and military backlash was swift. In recent years, the Guatemalan state has become increasingly militarized and has overused states of sieges to suspend civil liberties. As a result, some fear that the government is regressing towards authoritarianism. Twenty-five years after the Peace Accords, Guatemalan democracy is at a crucial political juncture in which the safeguards against corruption, impunity, and state violence are being dismantled by the politicians, elites, and military.