IRTF News

Mega-projects like hydroelectric dams are promoted to international financiers as progress to help poor countries. But peak behind the curtain and we see the investor-profit motives of private actors, both foreign and domestic.

The International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 (commonly known as ILO 169) is a binding international convention concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, adopted in 1989, which guarantees their rights and requires prior consultation for measures affecting their territories, such as the construction of hydroelectric dams or large-scale mechanized mining. In the Western Highlands of Guatemala (Huehuetenango Department), Indigenous communities have been organizing resistance to the Pojom I and Pojom II dam projects. Although both were already under construction (in violation of ILO 169), in August 2025 the Supreme Court ordered the Ministry of Energy and Mines to complete a consultation process within 12 months while allowing construction to continue. Communities have challenged that ruling before the Constitutional Court, arguing that a consultation after the continued construction cannot satisfy the requirement that it be “prior.”

As is common, defenders of land rights have been criminalized in this case. Rigoberto Juárez and Ermitaño López were arrested in 2015 for their peaceful role in opposing the hydroelectric projects.  After being declared not guilty of serious charges in 2016 and released, an Appeals Court in 2021 reversed the ruling and significantly increased their sentences (to 8 and 24 years). After the Constitutional Court confirmed these sentences in February 2026, IRTF has joined with Indigenous rights organizations to review their convictions and address the documented procedural violations that led to their sentencing.

Members of the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace (CIJP) are subjected to continuous surveillance, intimidation, and credible threats against their lives. Beginning in March, CIJP member Juan Carlos Gaona, began receiving text messages. The first stated that an operation to murder him in Sincelejo, Sucre Department, had failed only by chance due to the presence of an Army truck near the place where he was holding a meeting. The message described his recent activities in detail, revealing that he was under surveillance, and warned that he would not be as fortunate next time, with the clear intention of attacking him and other members.

This incident is not an isolated occurrence but more a symbolic case of the danger faced by human right defenders in Colombia by illegal armed groups who directly target those who support and accompany victims of human rights violations. The failure of the state to fully implement the protection scheme ordered by of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Protection Measures 629-03) needs to be addressed now. When defenders are silenced through threats, fear, and violence, the protection of all victims is placed at risk.

Nahua Indigenous communities in the states of Michoacan and Guerrero—already victim to criminal organizations for decades—are now being forcefully displaced and targeted by military grade weaponry as the territorial disputes between the groups “Los Tlacos” and “Los Ardillos” are intensifying. Using high-caliber weapons, surveillance drones, and paramilitary tactics, the rivaling groups have encircled villages, burned homes, cut electricity and phone service, and fired shots at residents from the hillsides. There have been more than 2,000 people displaced at least five reported murders.

We are concerned that the forced displacement might be linked to corruption and economic motives. Considering that the municipalities under attack hold forests, aquifers, fertile farmland and over 2,000 hectares that have already been granted as concessions to mining companies, there are surely other beneficiaries to the communities being forcibly removed.

While the Trump administration is exploiting this crisis to create a narrative to justify threats of military intervention in Mexico—a framing that we at IRTF entirely reject—the answer to what is happening cannot be silence or inaction. 

Human rights groups around the world are calling for an investigation into the death of political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera, Indigenous leader and Yatama political party leader.

After speaking out against the government of Nicaragua before the United Nations, Brooklyn Rivera was subjected to enforced disappearance and imprisoned in September 2023. Since that time there had been no confirmation of his imprisonment, and his family was barred from seeing him. But just a few days before he died on May 30, 2026, the Ministry of the Interior confirmed Rivera’s detention and published photos of him intubated in a hospital. The government attributed his death to a  COVID infection, but human rights groups demand an independent investigation.

In IRTF’s letter to Co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosa Murillo, we urge (1) an independent, transparent and thorough investigation on what happened exactly to Brooklyn Rivera, (2) an account of the specific conditions of his detention, including whether he had access to adequate medical care, and the exact sequence of events that led to his death, and (3) release of all arbitrarily detained persons and assurance that detention centers fully comply with international human rights standards