Guatemala had the longest and bloodiest civil war in Central American history: 36 years (1960-96). The US-backed military was responsible for a genocide (“scorched earth policy”) that wiped out 200,000 mostly Maya indigenous civilians. War criminals are still being tried in the courts.
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During the fall of 2023, civil society groups across Guatemala held mobilizations to ensure the peaceful transition to power of then President-elect Bernardo Arévalo while also demanding the resignation of Attorney General María Consuelo Porras, who sought to block his inauguration. In Totonicapán Department, an association of 48 Indigenous K'iche' communities led peaceful protests that shut down highways across Guatemala for three weeks.
On April 23 of this year, police arrested two of the former leaders of 48 Cantones of Totonicapán. Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán have been remanded to pretrial detention in the military prison Mariscal Zavala on allegations of terrorism because of the protests.
The arrests of Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán have prompted widespread condemnation. President Arévalo stated that the arrests were unfounded and “criminalized principles and rights that are guaranteed.” The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights referred to the arrests as “a continued spurious instrumentalization of the constitutional function of investigating crimes.” To show their solidarity with Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán, the Committee for Campesino Development (CODECA) blockaded 18 simultaneous locations on April 28. On May 2, members of 48 Cantones de Totonicapán held a press conference at the Plaza of the Constitution in the nation’s capital demanding their release.
Attorney General María Consuelo Porras has been accused of criminalizing the constitutional rights to freedom of expression and assembly. She has been sanctioned for corruption by the US and over 40 other countries, all while using her position to persecute those who have fought against corruption.
We are urging that authorities in Guatemala 1) drop all charges against Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán and release them to their families; 2) investigate Attorney General María Consuelo Porras for violating the rights of Indigenous peoples and impeding corruption investigations; and 3) end the misuse of the judicial process against human rights defenders, Indigenous leaders, and others who have fought against corruption.
For two decades, the 68-yar-old award-winning anti-corruption journalist José Rubén Zamora has been subjected to threats, physical violence, and now false criminalization and detention.
In June 2003, Zamora and his family were held hostage in their home in Guatemala City for hours by a group of assailants who beat Zamora's children and forced him to strip and kneel at gunpoint. In August 2008, Zamora was kidnapped and beaten after a dinner with friends and was left unconscious and nearly naked in Chimaltenango, about 16 miles away. Due to the threats he faced as a journalist, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) ordered precautionary (protective) measures for him twenty years ago.
In July 2022—five days after local media outlets published strong criticism of various officials of President Giammattei’s administration involved in corruption—Zamora was detained after an arrest on questionable charges of money laundering, blackmail, and influence peddling. Following reports of torture and solitary confinement and an international campaign calling for his release, a judge finally ordered him to house arrest in May 2024. But prosecutors persisted, and because of subsequent appeals court proceedings, he remained in pretrial detention until October 2024, having been detained for more than 800 days. Then after only four months of house arrest, an appeals court sent Jose Rubén Zamora to Mariscal Zavala prison on March 10, 2025.
The renewed detention of Jose Rubén Zamora is clearly an attack on the freedom and integrity of the press. His persecution and arbitrary detention are deeply distressing and, sadly, exemplifies the criminalization of journalists, environmental defenders and other social leaders who are working for justice in Guatemala.
In the highlands of Izabal Department, the courts are siding with influential landowners who are contesting ancestral claims of Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ communities. (It is also worth noting, as we did in our letter to authorities on April 14, 2025, that many of these same communities that are involved in land disputes are also resisting the expansion of large-scale metallic mining.)
For three days in a row (March 5-7), the National Civilian Police (PNC) fired gunshots in the Maya Q'eqchi' community of Río Tebernal, Livingston municipality. They forcibly removed a few dozen families from their homes. The living conditions of the families post-eviction are dire. Between March 18 and April 7, observers from a Costa Rican human rights commission documented lack of food, drinking water, electricity, healthcare, and children’s education.
Authorities are also criminalizing land defenders. On March 15, Luis Xol Caal, a leader from the Q’eqchi’ community of Chaab’il Ch’och’ (also in Livingston municipality), was arrested by the National Civil Police (PNC) on false charges of aggravated usurpation, threats, and illegal detention. Luis Xol Caal, a member of the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA), was detained despite the fact that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) had previously granted precautionary measures to his community, which is situated near the Chocón Machacas nature reserve and with access to the Caribbean Sea. In 2018, community residents testified before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that the private individuals who are claiming land ownership had been using their land for drug trafficking.
We are urging that authorities end the practice of enforced eviction while land rights are still being disputed in the court system. We also urge that they end the criminalization of land defenders.
The harms caused by metallic mining are well-known to the communities of Panzos, Livingston, and El Estor in the Maya Q’eqchi’ region of the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range. For sixty years, they have been exposed to the pollution caused by the El Fénix nickel mine in El Estor. It was finally in December 2023 when the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the government of Guatemala is responsible for human rights violations (threats, assaults, killings) and ordered reparation measures. The following year, Hudbay Minerals Inc. (which owned the El Fénix mine from 2008 to 2011) resolved a decade-long lawsuit brought by victims’ families in a court in Toronto, Canada involving assassination and sexual assault.
When Maya Q’eqchi’ communities learned that Canada-based CAN (Central America Nickel) was seeking to expand mining, they mobilized. On April 7, more than 50 communities came out to start a several day blockade of a main highway in protest. Local municipal officials are also opposed to mining expansions.
IRTF echoes the demand of the local Maya Q’eqchi’ communities to: 1) suspend all mining operations in the Santa Cruz region; 2) form a commission to investigate harms against the Q’eqchi’ people and the environment between 2004-2024 resulting from mining operations; 3) devise a plan for reparations for past harms; and 4) implement a consultation process, based on prior and complete information in the Q'eqchi' language (as required by national and international law, the ILO Convention 169) to decide if mining operations will continue into the future.
NACLA editorial committee members Jorge Cuéllar and Hilary Goodfriend recently wrapped a marathon, three-episode podcast series on Central America with The Dig, a podcast hosted by Daniel Denvir through Jacobin Radio. This sweeping conversation on the region’s history, political economy, and present conjuncture is intended to serve as an accessible yet comprehensive tool for scholars and activists, beginning with Central American state formation and the imperialist interventions of the late 19th century and concluding with reflections on the far-right demonization of migration in the United States today.
IRTF is grateful to the 200 supporters who gathered on October 27 at Pilgrim Church in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood for IRTF’s annual Commemoration of the Martyrs. In addition to marking the 44th anniversary of the martyrdom of Cleveland’s missioners in El Salvador (Jean Donovan and Sister Dorothy Kazel, alongside Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke), we commemorated 36 human rights defenders killed in Central America and Colombia this past year because they dared to speak truth to power.
Our keynote speaker, Lorena Araujo of the largest campesino organization in El Salvador (CRIPDES), held the crowd’s attention with horrific stories of mass arrests, detentions and deaths currently happening under their government’s State of Exception, now in its third year. With more 88,000 imprisoned (and more than 300 deaths in prison), El Salvador now has the highest incarceration rate in the world—surpassing the astronomical rate of incarceration in the United States.
As the people of El Salvador face the greatest challenge to their democracy since the end of the civil war in 1992, they invite us to renew and deepen our solidarity.
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In Guatemala, Mayan Ixil youth are reclaiming their cultural identity and resisting socio-political challenges through a transformative civic-political training program supported by the AFSC and the Chemol Txumb’al youth network. This initiative empowers young leaders to reflect on historical injustices, understand their roots, and take action for their communities' well-being. The program addresses topics such as Ixil history, migration, and the impact of extractive industries, while fostering cultural preservation through traditional practices like community gardening and Mayan ceremonies. By equipping the youth with knowledge and agency, it is nurturing a new generation of leaders dedicated to the Ixil people's resilience and future.
