Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates

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.

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.

On the same day of the forced disappearance of Max Castillo (cf our letter 15 APR 2025), the brother of the community council president of Punta Piedra (a Garífuna community along the Atlantic coast in Colón Department), another Garífuna community, El Triunfo de la Cruz (Atlántida Department) faced an incursion. On April 12, two buses carrying armed individuals—allegedly hired to “clear” land—arrived in the community. Fortunately, residents were successful in their resistance and turned them away. But then on April 14, community leaders of El Triunfo de la Cruz received voice messages containing direct threats—as did prominent Garífuna leader Miriam Miranda. The threats came from an individual claiming to be a bodyguard for an investor tied to a tourism complex illegally situated within Garífuna territory—land that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled must be restored to the community.  

These attacks follow a well-documented pattern of repression that strategically coincides with Garífuna mobilizations and symbolic actions—such as the recent symbolic funeral for the CIANCSI (Intersectoral Commission for the Compliance with International Sentences), held to protest the State's failure to implement international rulings in their favor. The Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) has rightfully described this as a synchronized cycle of terror aimed at silencing community demands and halting the recovery of ancestral lands. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has already warned that this violence will persist as long as the Honduran State refuses to uphold international legal mandates.

The Garífuna, an Afro-Indigenous people with a profound historical and cultural presence in Honduras, continue to be targeted for defending their rights to territory, culture, and life. Despite legal victories, the Honduran government has failed to implement structural reforms or offer protection for these communities.

On April 10, the Garífuna community, which lives primarily along the Atlantic coast, led mobilization in the nation’s capial,  Tegucigalpa. They demanded that the Honduran government comply with binding rulings issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2015, 2023)  in favor of three Garífuna communities in Colón (Punta Piedra) and Atlántida (Triunfo de la Cruz, San Juan). 

Barely two days later, in the early morning hours of April 12, Max Gil Castillo Mejía, brother of the president of the community council of Punta Piedra was kidnapped from his home in San Pedro Sula (Cortés Department) by armed individuals who identified themselves as police officers. Just two days later, prominent Garífuna leader Miriam Miranda and other members of the Garífuna community of El Triunfo de la Cruz received threats.

Silencing Indigenous and Afro-descendant voices through fear and violence is a violation not only of human dignity but of binding international commitments.  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has already warned that this violence will persist as long as the Honduran State refuses to uphold international legal mandates. IRTF calls on the government of Honduras to implement the rulings of the Inter-American Court to ensure that justice, reparations, and peace are no longer deferred for the Garífuna people.

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.

Indigenous Women for the Conservation, Research, and Use of Natural Resources

Danger to social leaders is real in Oaxaca, the state with the fifth highest number of attacks on human rights defenders and journalists. Sandra Domínguez, an Indigenous Zapotec activist who had denounced Oaxacan government leaders, was disappeared a few months ago.

On February 27, while she was away at an intergenerational human rights workshop, the home of Zapotec defender Silvia Pérez Yescas was burgaled and her computer equipment stolen.  She had already been forcibly displaced from her home for more than a year because she fears physical assault should she return. As the founder of Indigenous Women for the Conservation, Research, and Use of Natural Resources (CIARENA, AC), she and others with CIARENA decided to close the office temporarily out of safety concerns.

We are urging that top officials in Oaxaca request that the National Mechanism for Women Human Rights Defenders strengthen protection measures and guarantee the safety of the members of CIARENA.

Indigenous rights defenders and other social leaders are at great risk in northern Cauca Department, where illegal armed groups battle for territory and control of land for illicit crops.

On March 1, armed men on a motorcycle in Toribío, Cauca, shot Édgar Tumiñá Gembuel nine times in the head. He was taken to a municipal health center but died due to the severity of his injuries.

Édgar Tumiñá, age 48, was a recognized leader of the Nasa people of northern Cauca. A member of the Indigenous Guard (Kiwe Thegnas), he taught children how to avoid being recruited into armed groups, how to provide first aid to injured persons, and how to shelter during gunfire. Illegal armed groups have a strong presence in Toribío, growing marijuana and coca (for cocaine production) on the reservation of the Nasa people. Since February, thousands of people have been displaced or forcibly confined because of conflicts between the armed groups.  Furthermore, they attempt to recruit the Indigenous children into their ranks.

The brother of Édgar Tumiñá Gembuel was assassinated in 2014. Édgar Tumiñá Gembuel himself had received threats and already survived other assassination attempts. According to the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN), he was being targeted by the Dagoberto Ramos Front (a dissident group that splintered from the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).  

For many years, the Afro-Honduran and Garífuna residents of Diamond Rock (Bay Islands) have been victims of harassment, threats, and persecution, which has generated a climate of fear and uncertainty in the community. At the root of the controversy is ancestral land of the residents of Diamond Rock, which was legally granted to them in 1965. For the past twenty years, the powerful Cooper-McNab family has been illegally occupying land belonging to the McLaughlin family, in violation of their land and cultural rights. The McLaughlin family, with support from other residents of Diamond Rock, has repeatedly filed complaints against the Cooper-McNab family for the crime of land usurpation. This year, in an exercise of their right to self-determination, the McLaughlin family began the process of  reoccupying their ancestral territory. On January 5, they decided to lift the gates, remove the wooden fence, clear the entrance and recover their property.

On January 28, the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a prosecutorial request seeking arrest warrants and judicial detention orders against 13 residents of Diamond Rock, including members of the McLaughlin family.  They are being accused of arson, robbery with violence, and property damage within the very ancestral land of the McLaughlin family. This misuse of the powers of the Public Prosecutor is an abuse of criminal law.