President Otto Perez Molina ordered a state of siege for 30 days in four municipalities in southeastern Guatemala after security forces clashed with opponents of a Canadian-owned gold and silver mine project. | Photo: AFP
Four articles:
Amy Goodman reports on the massive protests demanding President Otto Perez Molina step down.
Canada’s mining industry threatens democracy & the environment in Guatemala.
Palm oil industry in Guatemala causes massive fish die-off.
High levels of violence have created an unceasing demand for new burial spaces, forcing Guatemala's poor to bury their murdered children in mass graves next to municipal dumps.
In Guatemala, protests threaten to unseat President, a U.S.-backed General implicated in mass murder
By Democracy Now, August 24, 2015
Amy Goodman reports on, where Guatemala, where President Otto Pérez Molina is attempting to hold onto his office despite growing calls demanding for his resignation. The president has faced months of massive protests amid a multimillion-dollar corruption scandal in which importers paid bribes to Tax Authority officials to obtain discounts. Over the weekend, most of Pérez Molina’s Cabinet stepped down. The scandal has also led to the arrest of top officials, including Vice President Roxana Baldetti, who was arrested on Friday on corruption charges. On Saturday, crowds rallied outside the presidential palace chanting "Resign now!" and waving Guatemalan flags.
On Sunday, the Roman Catholic Church joined in calling for the president’s resignation. Hours later, Otto Pérez Molina announced he would not resign. We go to Guatemala to speak with journalist and activist Allan Nairn about the current corruption scandal and Pérez Molina’s history as a U.S.-backed general implicated in the mass murder of indigenous Mayans during the country’s dirty war in the 1980s.
Canadian Mining Undermines Democracy in Central America
By: Alexandra Pedersen, teleSUR, August 24, 2015
Canadian mining companies account for 75 percent of the world’s extractive corporations. Canada is literally digging up the globe.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Ed Fast says, “Canada’s mining sector … leads the world in responsible mining practices, and we are proud of the prosperity that this sector is creating at home and in every corner of the globe.” However, the political, social and environmental costs are far greater than the Canadian government or mining corporations would have you believe.
In Latin America, Canada and its extractive industry are viewed as the new conquistadors; they are thirsty for land and minerals and hungry for power. Canadian mining companies are often positioned at the epicenter of community conflicts in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, and linked with violence, environmental degradation, corruption and murder. Research produced by Canada’s own Prospectors and Development Association of Canada (PDAC) found that Canadian mining companies accounted for the most human and environmental rights abuses globally. Harrowing examples in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras further erode Canada’s claims of bringing “good” to the world.
Canadian mining companies’ environmental and human rights abuses have been well documented by affected communities, NGOs and transnational solidarity groups. Such injustices are tangible examples of deep structural violence that Canadian extractives are inextricably linked with. Their actions, under the guise of “development,” have undermined governance in countries where democracy can be described as “uneven.” Legal scholar Debbie Johnston writes:
“Canada’s extractive industry routinely seeks out unexploited natural resources located in underdeveloped nations that feature weak, failing or often oppressive governments that, in turn, rely on foreign investment of capital and technology to exploit their resources, to prosper, and in some cases to stay in power.” Canadian companies actively choose to operate in Central American countries with corrupt governments and often limited public support. Guatemala, for example, is currently embroiled in a high-level corruption scandal. Thousands from across the country flood the plazas of municipalities and the capital each weekend, demanding an end to corruption, impunity and even the resignation of former-military general and current President Otto Perez Molina.
While the president remains in office, many of his ministers have resigned. This includes Minister of Energy and Mines, Erick Archila, who oversaw the licensing of many Canadian mining company’s exploration and exploitation projects. Archila now faces criminal charges for having granted an exploitation license to Canada’s Tahoe Resources Inc. “without adequate consideration of the more than 250 community complaints against the project,” writes Ellen Moore of NISGUA. In 2012, Tahoe Resources opened their silver mine in the municipality of Santa Rosa despite wide opposition from Indigenous Xinca and campesino residents. Since 2005, approximately 1 million Guatemalans have voted “No” to mining in their territories through community consultations. “Consultas” conducted in Indigenous territories are protected under the International Labour Organization’s (ILO’s) Convention No. 169, which outlines community rights to free, prior and informed consent regarding policies and development projects that affect Indigenous ways of life. Despite overwhelming opposition, numerous Canadian extractives continue to operate in the country.
Canadian mining company Goldcorp Inc., whose Marlin Mine operates in Indigenous Mam and Sipakapense Maya territories, continues its 10th year of operation in Guatemala despite overwhelming rejection of their gold mine by locals. Goldcorp has relentlessly criminalized Indigenous and campesino men and women who oppose the mega-project and even evaded an order from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to suspend operations after human rights and environmental concerns were brought to the international body.
In Honduras, Canada played a crucial role supporting the 2009 U.S.-backed military coup. It refused to sanction the de facto military regime which seized power because of Canadian economic investments in the country. Soon after, the Canadian Embassy lobbied for reforms in the Honduran mining law, despite open opposition in civil society to open-pit mining operations. According to a 2012 report by Mining Watch Canada, from “January 2010 to January 2013, Canadian representatives worked hard to help pave the way for a law that would be more favorable to the interests of Canadian companies.” Similarly, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs found that Canada was one of the key influences in establishing the National Association of Metal Mining of Honduras (ANAMINH), which allows for lifelong concessions, tax breaks and subsurface land rights for Canadian mining companies. Canada has tipped the scales in their favor by lobbying for greater concessions for foreign investment in the Honduran mining sector.
Beyond the new mining law, Canada positioned itself favorably in the 2014 Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement, which benefits industries’ commercial relationships with the state. The Council of Canadians, a social justice advocacy group, believes that the FTA will “weaken the ability of government to legislate for the public good and undermine community, human, labour and environmental rights.” In Honduras, 52 percent of all conflict stems from the management of natural resources. Goldcorp’s presence in the Siria Valley has attracted considerable concern regarding the multinational’s use and contamination of local water supplies and subsequent health concerns related to metallic extraction. Despite reported environmental and human rights violations, the company continues to operate with impunity.
In neighboring El Salvador, the government placed a moratorium on mining in 2008 in response to an overwhelming public outcry to ban extractive processes and protect the country’s dwindling clean water supply. Upon implementation, mining licenses previously granted were revoked, thus putting extractives out of business at a time when the price of gold was over US$1,000 an ounce.
In response, Canada’s Pacific Rim Mining Corp. (now OceanaGold) sued El Salvador for US$301 million, roughly the equivalent of 5 percent of the country’s GDP. Without a doubt, suits such as this threaten democratic decision-making processes in El Salvador (and other countries), as well as the country’s financial ability to provide funds for health care and education. These cases are increasingly heard at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an arbitration tribunal of the World Bank. According to Mining Watch Canada, the number of investor-state suits has risen from just three in 2000, to 169 in 2013; 50 percent of which are brought against Latin American nations. Ultimately, corporations have the ability remove decision-making power from citizens by financially strong-arming poorer nations in international courts.
Canada’s role in Central America has undermined democracy in the region. Canadian mining companies are often found supporting less accountable administrations and propagating corruption at local and national levels. Beyond their appalling Indigenous, human rights and environmental track record, Canadian transnationals risk tainting future generations with governments characterized by even more corruption and impunity and that continue to place the interests of foreign capital over the public’s interests. By undercutting rights-based efforts by communities, organizations and governments, Canadian extractive corporations are destabilizing already fragile post-conflict states such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Alexandra Pedersen is a critical Canadian and a PhD Candidate at Queen’s University.
Mass die-off of fish underscores dangers of palm oil industry in Guatemala
By Jeff Abbott, Truthout, July 29, 2015
Crossing the River Pasión today, nothing would appear out of the ordinary: Boats ferry people across the river while a woman washes clothing in the murky brown water. But a little over a month ago, the scene was different. On May 30, residents of the municipality of Sayaxché, in the Guatemalan department of Petén, awoke to find tens of thousands of fish floating in the river. For residents, it was clear who was responsible for the die-off: the local palm company, Reforestadora de Palma del Petén (REPSA), a member of the powerful Olmeca Group.
"We rely on the river for fish and our water," Hermelindo Choc, a resident of Arroyo Santa Maria, one of the towns most affected by the contamination, told Truthout. "But now we are afraid to drink the water and to eat the fish. The palm company has left us with nothing."
"We are afraid to drink the water and to eat the fish. The palm company has left us with nothing."
The environmental tragedy, which community members have called an ecocide, first began on April 29 when heavy rains caused the oxidation pools at the palm firm's finca to overflow, pouring into the river. The firm took steps to hide the impact of the pollution by collecting the dead fish that appeared in the river. But it could not conceal the mass die-off of river life, including 23 species of fish and 21 species of animals that feed on the fish.
The affected communities along the river have demanded that the company's operations be investigated and closed down because of the contamination.
But the firm denied responsibility. On June 15, the company issued a statement stating that there was "never an ecocide," and that the company "was not responsible" for the contamination. But this claim contradicts both scientific evidence and the company's statements immediately following the incident.
On May 5, REPSA's legal representatives sent a letter to the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources informing the ministry of the contamination and admitting the firm's (unintentional) role in causing it.
The firm could not conceal the mass die-off of river life, including 23 species of fish.
"Unusually heavy rains provoked the overflow of oxidation pools," wrote Carlos Arevalo, the legal representative for REPSA, to Gustavo Chacon Cordon, a representative from the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources. "Fish were found with signs of asphyxiation. We have sent samples to the University of San Carlos to determine the cause of death."
The report from the toxicology department at Guatemala's National University of San Carlos found high levels of the chemical malathion, an illegal pesticide, in samples collected from the river. But the government has shown little interest in investigating the contamination.
Juan Castro of the Association of Mayan Lawyers represents the communities affected by the ecocide. "This represents an economic model that cannot be controlled," Castro said during a press conference. "And it represents the negligence of the government to put into place regulations on the palm industry."
This is not the first time the palm industry has contaminated Guatemalan ecosystems. Palm companies have been tied to environmental disasters in 2012, 2013 and 2014, but none of the firms accused have been held accountable for the pollution.
A Militarized Response to Environmental Protests
Since the May 30 ecocide, community members have organized regular protests at the entrances of REPSA's fincas in Sayaxché and in Guatemala City, demanding the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources open an investigation into the contamination.
In response, politicians from Petén, including Manuel Barquin, a congressional deputy for the party Líder, approached Vice President Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre to ask that President Otto Pérez Molina declare a "state of exception" in Sayaxché, which would have suspended the constitution and led to the deployment of the military to quash the protests. On June 23, soldiers from a nearby base began to appear alongside the river and to accompany company vehicles, but a state of exception was never declared. "We don't need soldiers here, and a state of exception," Arroyo Santa Maria resident Choc told Truthout. "What we need is a state of calamity and humanitarian aid. The communities affected by the contamination don't have water, and now we cannot eat the fish. It is a desperate situation."
The Expansion of the Palm Oil Industry
Monoculture of African palm, the species grown for palm oil, has spread across northern Guatemala and throughout Central America. The expansion has monopolized land and displaced farmers.
"Everything is now palm," Juan Ixic, a teacher and representative from Sayaxché, told Truthout. "It has taken over nearly 80 percent of our lands. As a result, there is no land for campesinos to grow maize. All of our maize is now imported from Mexico or other parts of the country." "All these communities want is dignified and just work. But these firms only bring more exploitation."
Guatemala's climate is ideal for the production of palm oil, which can be used in everything from soaps and shampoos to industrial lubricants, and as a cheap vegetable oil in many food products, including Ben and Jerry's ice cream and Nutella. Furthermore, producers have found that the African palms grown in Guatemala produce more oil than those of any other country - further driving investment in the industry. Since the 1990s, five companies, including REPSA, Tiki Industries, NEISA, Palmas del Ixcan and Unipalm, have opened operations in Sayaxché and northern Guatemala.
Following the signing of Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in 2006, the Guatemalan palm industry has increasingly gained the attention of transnational capital interested in the production of biofuels.
According to Byron Garoz from the Ixim Center for Rural Studies, African palm production in the country has expanded nearly 270 percent since 2006. Guatemala is the fourth largest exporter of African palm (still well behind neighboring Honduras and Colombia). "The trade agreement has facilitated the arrival of more transnational companies operating in our country that are not paying taxes, and damaging our environment," Saul Paau, a representative for the communities affected by the ecological disaster, told Truthout. "The plan of the United States is for transnational companies to invest in our country to respond to the needs of society, and from this they began to impose the concentration of land for monocultures."
The US Department of Agriculture, and in particular its Foreign Agriculture Service, has played an important part in the promotion of African palm oil as a biofuel. And the Inter-American Development Bank has provided much of the funding.
Privately held companies are investing as well. For example, in 2007, Green Earth Fuels, a Houston-based biofuel company and a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group, acquired the Guatemalan palm producer Palmas del Ixcán, with the goal of expanding the palm company's operations to include biofuel production. The next year, when Guatemala joined the US-Brazil Biofuel Initiative, a plan to develop biofuels across Latin America, Green Earth Fuels invested $14 million in Palmas del Ixcán for biofuel production. The investment was made with loans from Goldman Sachs.
The Politics of Displacement
The expansion of palm has benefited a minority of well-connected families, but not the indigenous communities of northern Guatemala. The situation facing indigenous communities across Guatemala exposes the dark side of so-called "green energies." As Paau points out, there are always social and environmental costs. In addition to environmental devastation, African palm oil production has exacerbated land inequality in Guatemala, and has especially affected the indigenous Q'eqchi Mayan communities across the region.
"The United States is the greatest global consumer of energy in the world, and they are also the ones that are most concerned with the creation of new alternative energies, but they don't know the costs," Paau told Truthout. "The production of biofuels requires the use of land, which in turn leads to further concentration of land. It damages the land, the air and the water. We are seeing the effects here in our territory."
The firms involved have promoted the expansion of the palm industry as development, creating jobs for rural communities. But according to Lorenzo Perez Mendoza of the Consejo Nacional de Desplazados de Guatemala (National Council of Displaced Guatemalans), this "development" has come at the cost of the community's land and food security. The palm industry has transformed land that was used for the production of food staples, such as maize, rice and beans, into rows of palm, worsening the country's ongoing hunger crisis.
Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina "has said that his idea of development is further foreign investment in our country," Perez Mendoza told Truthout. "But these firms come and tear the social fabric of communities. People come from other departments, and other countries, and cause problems for the established communities. All these communities want is dignified and just work. But these firms only bring more exploitation."
The production of palm oil and other export agriculture crops such as snow peas and broccoli has monopolized land once used for the production of staples such as beans, maize and rice. According to research from the Coordinator of Non-Governmental Organizations and Cooperatives, since 2003, more than 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of land used for the production of staples has been lost to the export-agriculture industries.
Unequal Land Distribution
The expansion of the palm oil industry also builds on Guatemala's long history of unequal land distribution, a root cause of the country's 36-year-long internal armed conflict. Following the 1996 peace accords, the Guatemalan state and an internationally sponsored land fund used loans from the World Bank to begin purchasing land for displaced campesinos. But by 1999, this process slowed down and then reversed.
"Guatemala is one of the countries with the most unequal distribution of land in Latin America," Marisol Garcés, a social anthropologist who has worked in Petén for 11 years, told Truthout. "Currently, we are in a period of reconcentration of land in the hands of [the] few. There are more people now who don't have access to land than at the end of the war. It is contradictory to the peace accords and to the concept of capitalist development - it is almost feudal."
The palm companies have systematically separated campesinos from their land to encourage the land's sale. When these tactics have failed, firms have utilized other strong-armed tactics.
In 2014, community organizer Manuel Xi was murdered near the center of Sayaxché. At the time, Xi had been involved in organizing in protest of Palmas del Ixcán land acquisitions. Xi had received threatening messages at his home and on his mobile phone warning him against organizing. But there has yet to be an investigation into his assassination. "It was Palmas del Ixcán that killed Xi," Choc told Truthout. "The company wanted to get rid of him. A year later there has still not been an investigation."
"What does the law mean in Guatemala?" added Choc. "It applies to the poor campesino who is charged when he cuts down a tree in a protected area, but not the rich. It is the problem here in Guatemala - the impunity."
Note: Some of the names in this article have been changed to protect the speakers' identities.
Jeff Abbott is an independent journalist currently based out of Guatemala. He has covered human rights, social moments and issues related to education, immigration and land in the United States, Mexico and Guatemala. His work has appeared at Waging Nonviolence, Upside Down World and North American Congress on Latin America. Follow him on Twitter @palabrasdeabajo.
Exhuming Children to make room for death
By David Gonzalez, New York Times Blog, July 31, 2015
Editor’s note: click here to view slideshow
There is palpable heartbreak in the photos of Saul Martinez. On one level, it is evoked by the subject itself: The bodies of Guatemalan children have been put into mass graves after being removed from burial niches because their parents could not — or forgot — to pay the upkeep fee. But just as sad is the underlying reason: Guatemala’s mind-numbingly high levels of violence have created an unceasing demand for new burial spaces.
Mr. Martinez, who was born in Guatemala and raised on Long Island, still struggles to understand both phenomena. “If you go to the cemetery, in one day you will see six to 10 burials and half of them have to do with the violence in this country,” he said. “Outside, people are dying, and inside the cemetery, nobody says anything as the bodies are pulled out to make more room, and it is seen as something normal.”
He returned to Guatemala in 2009, after he had decided to pursue photography in earnest. His goal was to understand the country he had left when his parents divorced and his mother moved to New York when he was 6. Raised in Glen Cove — “where everything is supposedly perfect” — he didn’t identify with suburbia. Growing up, he had returned to Guatemala only a few times. But a trip in 2004 — around the time mudslides killed some 30 people in Sololá — resulted in his staying to take pictures with a point-and-shoot camera. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable getting close to people,” he said. “I felt this was something I could do.”
Mr. Martinez returned to the United States and studied photography, then went right back to Guatemala, where he landed a job with Prensa Libre, one of the country’s leading newspapers. Four years later, he was hired by the Spanish news agency EFE. A few months ago, he quit to devote himself to freelancing and personal projects.
The impulse to reconnect and understand his family’s personal journey led him to confront the country’s alarming violence and impunity. Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, which ended with peace accords in 1996, still resonates in ways big and small. Hamlets were decimated by soldiers and paramilitary groups hellbent on wiping out a guerrilla movement. In peace — or what passes for it — officers who retired or were pushed out have been linked to organized crime, gang members terrorize communities and justice is rarely meted out in a courtroom.
Whatever its origins, the results are evident in the Cementerio General — the General Cemetery — with its unending daily funeral processions. Mr. Martinez, 34, started going there in search of a story and was stunned when he heard about the burial spots that were being cleared out for new corpses. He said that if survivors went 14 years without paying the upkeep fee, about $24 for four years, they were notified. If no answer was forthcoming, the grave was emptied. A local news report estimated that the process, which began in 2014 and will continue for up to another year, will free up 3,000 spaces that once were used to bury children and adults.
“To a poor family, $24 is a lot,” he said. “Still, I found it remarkable that a family member can forget about a child and not even visit his grave.”
The mass grave that awaits them is but one reminder of that poverty. So, too, is its location, close to the fetid municipal garbage dump. “Even in death, you are placed next to garbage,” Mr. Martinez said. “That’s why you see in some pictures there are vultures everywhere, because it’s next to the dump.”
That contrasted with the rituals he witnessed every Nov. 1, when people honor their deceased relatives on All Saints Day. “Death is celebrated here on that one day,” Mr. Martinez said. “People go to the cemetery, they eat, they play music. It’s all very colorful; even among the tombs there is color.”
He admits the contrasts can be wearying. But while every year he vows to return to the United States, he remains (although he will travel to New York in October for the Eddie Adams Workshop, to which he has been accepted). For now, he hopes to travel to El Salvador, perhaps Honduras, too, to document the struggles those countries have had with violence, gangs and corruption. By taking a regional look, he can also understand why so many people uproot themselves for a new start up north.
“Being here has served a purpose in my life, to reconnect with my language, my family and my culture,” he said. “Now I understand why my mom left to chase the American dream, because it is a very unstable country. It’s a small place, and not many people know about it in the United States, but once you are here, you can understand.”