Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates

On February 7, 2024, President Arévalo signed the Acuerdo Agrario  (Agrarian Agreement) with Indigenous and rural farmer (campesino) organizations, committing his administration to resolving agrarian conflicts, improving access to land, strengthening campesino communities, and establishing a permanent dialogue space between the government and campesino organizations. More than two years have passed without meaningful compliance. The Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) and the Highland Peasant Community (CCDA) have made repeated attempts to engage the government, including an open letter in May 2025, an emergency meeting in August 2025, a written request for an urgent hearing in November 2025, and a direct request for an audience submitted on March 13, 2026—all without a response. On May 7, 2026, the CUC filed a writ of amparo against President Arévalo for his failure to respond within the 30 business days required by Article 28 of the Guatemalan Constitution.

We are urging authorities to: (1) immediately halt extrajudicial evictions and ensure that any court-ordered evictions comply with international human rights standards protecting rural farming communities and (2) fulfill the commitments of the February 7, 2024, Agrarian Agreement, including establishing a functioning permanent dialogue speech with Indigenous and campesino organizations.

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: contaminating Lake Izabal and other local water sources, threatening fishers’ source of income. Because of their outspoken opposition, residents have been unjustly criminalized and many the victims of land grabbing, arson, and repression. 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. 

It is deeply concerning that after a three-year suspension of mining activities, Canada-based Central America Nickel (CAN) resumed operations at El Fénix in May 2026. We urge authorities to:

(1) suspend Fénix Nickel's operations in El Estor until a free, prior, and informed consultation is conducted in compliance with the 2023 Inter-American Court ruling

(2) stop review and approval of Rio Nickel, S.A.’s pending licenses in Livingston until necessary Q'eqchi' community consultation has taken place, (as required by national and international law, the ILO Convention 169)

(3) ensure accountability for officials connected to the corruption and bribery in regard to the mining operations

The legal persecution and violence waged on Indigenous farming communities is chronic in Guatemala. The current government indicated that there might be a change coming when it met with CUC (Committee of Campesino Unity) and other land rights groups and drew up an agreement called the Acuerdo Agrario (Agrarian Agreement), signed by President Arévalo on February 7, 2024. Still, the government continues to file undounded criminal charges of usurpation against Indigenous campesinos, filing more than 8,429 cases in the last six years. With only 1% ultimately resulting in any form of conviction, this demonstrates that most of them do not have any basis. Disputes over rights to Indigenous lands also result in deadly violence; 15-25 people are being killed every year. 

Working for the organization Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC), José Acté has been an important leader and defender of Indigenous rights. On June 17, while returning home from work in the village of El Rancho, municipality San Agustín Acasaguastlán, Guatemala Department, he was stopped and arrested. He was unjustly accused of usurpation, theft, and aggravated robbery and put into detention. Because the government prosecutors did not appear at a scheduled judicial hearing this morning, his detention has been prolonged.

In our letter to authorities, we urged his release and dropping of the unfounded criminal charges.

Good News: Two weeks after our letter, a judge dismissed the case, ruling that it did not have sufficient merit to proceed. José Acté was greeted by friends and supporters as he left the courthouse, now a free man (for the time being). 

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.

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

On April 7, 2026, indigenous leader Reinaldo Campos was assassinated after being kidnapped in the department of Arauca, Colombia. Campos was governor of the Macarieros Indigenous Reserve of the Makaguan people in Tame (Arauca) and former president of the Association of Councils and Traditional Authorities (ASOCATA). He also served as a liaison for the Special Consultation Mechanism for Development Programs with a Territorial Focus (PDET), which worked to transform Colombia’s countryside and fulfill the rights and needs of communities in the most conflict-affected areas.

The death of Reinaldo Campos marks the 37th murder of a social leader in Colombia in 2026, a stark reminder that the promises of Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement to protect Indigenous peoples and human rights defenders remain unfulfilled. As the situation for human rights defenders and community leaders in Colombia remains critically dangerous, we are calling on Colombian authorities to take immediate action to protect those most vulnerable to violence, and carry out a thorough investigation into Campos’ murder.