The Dominion - Guatemala

As Firm as a Tree

dawn — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:48:51 +0000

Portraits of Diodora Henandez, a woman in resistance against Canadian mining

SAN MIGUEL IXTAHUACAN, GUATEMALA—On July 7, 2010, Diodora Hernandez, a staunch anti-mining activist, was shot point-blank in the right eye.

The incident took place outside her home in the small community of San Jose Nueva Esperanza, in the municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacan, only a few metres from a fence that delimits Goldcorp’s Marlin Mine.

Hernandez, who lost her right eye as a result of the attack, lives with her daughter Maria and granddaughter Olga. One year after her miraculous recovery, Hernandez’s anti-mining stance and activism remains as steadfast as ever.

“They tried to kill me because I do not want to sell my plot of land,” she said while being interviewed on the local radio station, The Voice of the People.

“People around here do not think about the future or their children, but only on the present, the money they can get for the present.”

James Rodriguez is an independent documentary photographer based in Guatemala. He publishes at mimundo.org.

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Prospecting the Terrain of Struggle

dawn — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:17:32 +0000

Fight against Guatemalan Goldcorp enters halls of power, leaves disappointed

MONTREAL—New developments in Guatemala have continued to put pressure on Canada's Goldcorp, a mining company whose controversial Marlin mine has kept churning out the gold. As some of the mine's opponents continue in land-based struggles, others are channeling resources into courts and official proceedings—with mixed results.

 On May 3, Canada’s National Contact Point (NCP) released its final statement on the case brought before them by the San Miguel Defense Front (FREDEMI) in November 2009. An interdepartmental committee, the NCP's mandate is to ensure that Canadian enterprises abroad are operating in compliance with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multi-National Enterprises. The NCP is also one of the few venues at which residents of less-developed countries where Canadian mining companies operate can pursue legal complaints. The FREDEMI case was a request for review, charging that Goldcorp’s activities were causing ongoing human rights abuses around the mine. The case was closed without any investigation or resolution by the NCP.

In a joint press release, MiningWatch Canada and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) called the NCP ruling “the end of a process that was both procedurally and substantively deficient, and provides yet another example of Canada’s failure to ensure that its mining industry respects human rights around the world.”

When the NCP closed its file on the Marlin mine in May, the problems on the ground were no closer to resolution. An article from Oxfam America on June 13, 2011, reiterated that surrounding communities face “problems with access to drinking water and pollution, displacement from farming land, and threats and intimidation directed at people who openly criticize the mine.”

The mine itself has been in production since 2005, and has been a source of conflict from the very beginning. However, with the company expecting to produce an estimated 400,000 ounces of gold in 2011 with a market value of over $640 million at today's gold prices, there are strong incentives for Goldcorp to keep the mine in operation.

The May 2010 ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) calling on the government of Guatemala to suspend operations at the mine has also gone unheeded. The IACHR is a body of the Organization of American States responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights among its member states. Local communities succeeded in getting a petition heard before the Commission that granted them precautionary measures. These measures ordered the temporary suspension of activities at the Marlin mine while the IACHR completed an investigation into the alleged abuses.

However, after more than a year of inaction, the government of Guatemala announced in June that it had completed its own investigation and found no cause to suspend operations.

“After all the studies, analyses and participation of various [governmental] actors involved, we conclude that there are no grounds for the suspension of the mine,” said Ricardo Pennington, vice-minister of Energy and Mines, summarizing the Guatemalan government’s response to the IACHR. Its statement was followed by a formal resolution on July 8 from the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM).

In what Magali Rey Rosa of Savia Guatemala called "a sign of the government’s cynicism," the government's announcement obscured the fact that it was never the state’s role to investigate the ruling, but instead to suspend operations while the IACHR itself investigates.

“The IACHR ruling is clear in ordering the temporary closure of operations while the complaint is investigated,” said Yuri Melini of the Guatemala City based Center for Legal Environmental and Social Action (CALAS). 

Just days after the government's announcement that mine operations would not be suspended, the company discharged from its tailings pond into a local river. While the release was supervised by MEM as well as the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARN), local residents from the Agel and Caserio Siete Platos communities who were present when the tailings were released expressed concern.

“As the population is not informed of the results of monitoring done by the attending institutions such as MARN or AMAC, there is no guarantee that the discharge is actually made so that the concentration of pollutants in the water are below permitted levels,” according to the Pastoral Commission for Peace and Ecology (COPAE) in San Marcos.

Such discharges at the mine are relatively common and have been cause for concern in the past. Last September, a similar discharge prompted Minister of the Environment Luis Ferrate to file legal action against the company for failure to advise the Ministry. Goldcorp has denied any wrongdoing.

"On June 6, 2011, the Environmental Attorney issued a final dismissal of the claim stating that the discharge was in compliance with the permit issued to the Marlin mine, was not a violation of the law, and that there was no environmental contamination as a result of the discharge,” the company wrote in an email to interested stakeholders.

It is not explained, however, why legal action was initially filed by MARN if the the discharge was in compliance with the law. Nor is it explained how anyone could know whether or not there was environmental contamination since MARN was not present at the time and no other data has been made public. And it seems that local residents’ concern over these discharges is justified. A study released in August 2010 by E-Tech International, a New Mexico-based non-profit, found that levels of copper, cyanide and mercury in the tailings pond were respectively three, 10 and 20 times greater than international guideline levels.

While the company claims that tailings water is further processed before being discharged, the lack of publicly-available data or water studies from the company or the government on this (or any other) discharge leaves many observers skeptical.

Concerns linked to water at Goldcorp mine sites have arisen elsewhere as well. In 2007, Goldcorp and the Honduran government measured levels of heavy metals found in the blood and urine of villagers living close to the company’s (now-closed) San Martin gold mine. The results were withheld until April of this year but revealed “dangerously high levels of heavy metals poisoning in their blood that would have required immediate and sustained medical treatment back in 2007, let alone today,” according to Grahame Russell and Karen Spring of Rights Action.

The San Martin mine was in operation between 2000 and 2008, though only acquired by Goldcorp in 2006. While not as rich as the Marlin mine, the San Martin gold mine produced over 185,000 ounces of gold between 2005 and 2007.

Those making money from the illness and controversy surrounding Goldcorp's operations in Guatemala and Honduras include such institutions as the Canadian Pension Plan, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, and the BC Investment Management Corporation (responsible for public sector investments in BC). As of March 31, 2011, the CPP was holding 3.665 million shares worth $198 million at Goldcorp's current stock price. But even under pressure, the CPP has shown the same level of indifference as others when it comes to asking hard questions about Goldcorp’s operations and the situation on the ground at the Marlin mine.

In response to a letter calling on it to support a resolution at Goldcorp’s Annual General Meeting in May—a letter that asked the company to voluntarily close the Marlin mine—the CPP stated that its “engagement objectives [do] include improved standards and disclosure related to operations in high-risk countries, including human rights practices.” But its commitment to responsible investment ended there, and it fell in line with the majority of Goldcorp shareholders in voting against the resolution.

Recently, some communities have even turned to the Canadian judicial system to seek redress. Two cases were filed in a Toronto court by communities in El Estor, Guatemala, charging Canadian HudBay Minerals with accountability in a murder and a series of gang rapes during evictions around their planned nickel mine. While the plaintiffs hope their case will be precedent-setting, the Canadian courts system remains a largely untried venue when seeking justice for crimes committed in other countries.

As struggles against these mining projects drag on without justice or closure, Canadian and other solidarity activists have the responsibility to ask ourselves how best we can support grassroots activists: in courts, AGMs, or in the fields and the streets.

Andrew MacPherson has been involved in international accompaniment work in Guatemala and currently lives in Montreal.

Marlin Mine

Lies and War Crime

hillarybain — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:35:30 +0000

Guatemalan ex-military accused of war crimes held in Alberta prison

CHIMALTENANGO, GUATEMALA—Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes, ex-member of the Guatemalan special forces known as the Kaibiles, was arrested in Lethbridge, Alberta, on January 18, 2011. He was detained at the request of the United States; the US may solicit his extradition to face charges of immigration fraud.

If proven guilty of having lied about his role in the Guatemalan military on his US application for naturalization, Sosa Orantes could face up to 10 years in prison in the United States. Meanwhile, human rights groups in Canada and Guatemala are petitioning the Canadian courts to try him for war crimes.

Sosa Orantes has been implicated in the planning and execution of the massacre at Las Dos Erres, in the northern department of Peten, where at least 252 unarmed civilians were systematically killed on December 6, 1982. This massacre was carried out in much the same manner as the more than 650 massacres committed by the Guatemalan military during the country’s 36-year internal armed conflict, which included widespread rape, torture and the mass killing of men, women and children, most of whom were Mayan.

According to Aura Elena Farfan from the Association for the Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Guatemala (FAMDEGUA)—the plaintiff organization that since 2000 has been bringing forward a case against Sosa Orantes and 16 other ex-Kaibiles implicated in the massacre—it is important that he be tried for the more serious crimes against humanity, rather than for the lie he told US immigration officials.

“Of course that lie is important,” says Farfan. “But for there to be justice, it is important that he is not only judged for that lie, but for the serious violation of human rights in Guatemala.”

Even with an unprecedented amount of evidence, including survivor testimonies, exhumation records and the testimony of a repentant ex-Kaibil who took part in the massacre, Farfan does not believe the justice FAMDEGUA seeks is possible in Guatemala.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has found the Guatemalan government unwilling to live up to its judicial responsibilities to investigate and successfully prosecute those responsible for the massacre. The country is still characterized by widespread violence, while many of the intellectual and material authors—those who planned and those who carried out the massacres—retain high positions of political power in the current government and military.

Even though the Guatemalan Supreme Court issued arrest warrants in 2010 for the 17 ex-Kaibiles implicated in the massacre, Farfan believes this case is stuck in impunity. “It needs to be heard in a place where there does not exist the same danger of being bought off.” Such bribery, says Farfan “is likely to happen in Guatemala.”

Matt Eisenbrant from the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) has called on the Canadian government to launch a full criminal investigation against Sosa Orantes.

“Usually, a trial in the place where the abuses occurred is preferable,” he says. “This should only be done, however, if all due-process guarantees can be protected and there are assurances that a fair trial can proceed without being tainted by outside influences.” The CCIJ is calling on the Canadian government to ensure that Sosa Orantes will be held fully accountable by conducting its own criminal investigation into possible war-crime charges, taking this into account when considering the extradition requests.

Legal support for the case first surfaced in 1994, after FAMDEGUA officially received an exhumation request from three families from the area. Within a year, anthropologists had found 162 complete skeletons in a 12-metre grave, 67 of which were from children under age 12.

According to a report released by Amnesty International in 2002, the findings of the exhumation matched up with survivors’ testimonies about the massacre; it involved first the mass and repeated rape of the women and young girls, followed by the killing of the children and then the women, many of whom were pregnant. The men were killed last. Anthropologists’ reports reveal that most of the victims were killed by a blunt object to the back of the head, after which they were thrown into the mass grave.

Both witnesses and FAMDEGUA have received numerous threats for bringing this case forward. Still visibly affected by the case, Farfan says that “[Sosa Orantes] did not have compassion for the victims who were asking not to be killed, not to be tortured.” She expresses the weight of the blood that was spilled in Guatemala, stating that the bodies of the young children and pregnant women should tip the scales of justice further than the lie Sosa Orantes told to gain US citizenship.

“If victims are to be satisfied and if we are to provide deterrence against such abuses happening in the future, perpetrators must be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible,” says Eisenhart.

Sosa Orantes was denied bail on March 9, 2011, by Albertan judge Suzanne Bensler who deemed him too much of a flight risk. His next court appearance is scheduled for April 20, 2011.

Valerie Croft is living in Guatemala, completing a CIDA internship with CEIBA—a Guatemalan environmental advocacy organization that works on issues related to climate justice, food sovereignty and the defense of territory.

Corn and Feet

Guatemalan Women Speak Out Against Rape

dawn — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:05:42 +0000

Soldiers, police, security terrorized residents who live in nickel-rich area

EL ESTOR, GUATEMALA—It was the middle of May, just days into the rainy season, when I made the trip to Lote 8, one of the dozens of Maya-Qeqchi villages scattered about the steep and perennially green Santa Cruz mountain range in eastern Guatemala. Clouds formed and dissipated over the Western Highlands, reaching by dusk the lowlands around Lake Izabal and the Polochic River basin. Then the stagnant heat broke, in storm. In the weeks to come, the rains would increase, scouring the mountains of their red-tinted earth, forcing it to the valley below, and eventually out to sea.

Roughly 100 years ago, the Maya-Qeqchi of Izabal began to occupy the marginal lands. Many still live on these lands—on the narrow sloping tracts beneath the mountain, within view of the sprawling lake and the distant mist-shrouded ridges of the Sierra de las Minas to the south. Others, like those from Lote 8, fled the lowlands below, higher into the mountains. Despite the steep slopes and rugged terrain, they took root, grew with family, endured flood and drought, had plentiful harvests and practiced the ancient ways.

Nathan Einbinder is a graduate student in the field of geography. Much of his work focuses on the impacts of development on Indigenous and marginalized people, particularly in Central America.

Guatemalan Women Speaking out against Rape

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Raising the Flag for Union Rights in Guatemala

Moira Peters — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 05:54:43 +0000

Bottle distributors trying to unionize face 2-year strike, 2 assassinations

GUATEMALA CITY—Guatemalan bottle distributors fired for trying to organize a union are in their second year of protest, camped out in a tent outside Guatemala's National Palace.

According to Edwin Alvarez Guevara, Secretary General of the Peten Distributors Union (SITRAPETEN), Agua Pura Salvavidas employees wanted fair working conditions so they decided to organize a union in 2007. In response, their employer used classic union-busting tactics: the company temporarily closed the factory, declared bankruptcy, then opened new subsidiary companies.

Thirteen bottle distributor workers filed a union application with the Department of Labour in February 2007. That same day, the Department of Labour notified the company, which immediately fired the 13 workers.

Three days later, the remaining workers decided to strike. Later that day, at about 6:00 pm, the company said they would re-hire the workers. The company then sued the 13 workers for Q400,000 (approximately CAD$52,100) in lost revenue from the one-day strike.

The workers tried six more times to unionize. "We contacted the Minister of Labour to find out the status of our last union application and we were told that the Department meant to tell us that our union application was successful but they said it did not matter now because the company no longer exists," said Alvarez. "They are not supposed to fire workers during a union application but that is what they did. They just changed the name of the company to avoid having to deal with a union."

Alvarez worked as a bottle distributor for Agua Pura Salvavidas for 13 years. He worked an average of 14-15 hours a day in order to meet the quota set by the company. Salvavidas delivery workers are paid on commission. Workers are not paid overtime for double and triple shifts, which occur when the workers are not able to meet their quota.

In February 2009, a judge ruled that the workers be reinstated but an appeal overturned that decision. The workers have taken their case to the Supreme Court of Justice and are currently waiting for its decision. They are worried the outcome will not be in their favour since one of the judges on the Supreme Court is a well-known legal counsel for the country's business elite. The workers have vowed to take their case to the Inter-American Court if they cannot get justice in Guatemala.

SITRAPETEN initially protested the firing of workers by setting up a camp in front of the Salvavidas plant in Guatemala City for four months. Forty-one workers took shifts living under the tent. The workers demanded their reinstatement, a raise in commission, and a just and realistic daily bottle distribution quota.

Because of constant harassment, they moved their tent to the front of the Guatemalan National Palace, where they have been for the past two years. They got a permit to be there but according to Alvarez, Guatemala does not want them outside the National Palace because they are a constant reminder that the State does not protect workers.

Alvarez says the strike is not just about quotas, it is about job security, worker health and safety, and the right to organize a union. SITRAPETEN, whose members are currently under human rights accompaniment, points to two assassinations of their members and numerous death threats from company supervisors and thugs. Of the 638 Agua Pura Salvavidas workers in Guatemala, 114 workers signed up to unionize but many have dropped out due to either fear of the consequences—including assassination—or the company coercing workers to accept severance packages.

The workers are up against the largest purified water distributor in the country, Agua Pura Salvavidas, owned by the powerful Castillo Brothers Corporation. The company has a monopoly over the country's entertainment and food and beverage industries, including the Gallo Brewery.

On December 10—International Human Rights Day—SITRAPETEN's camps were violently cleared for the filming of Mexico's version of "American Idol."

"It is ironic that while Canada's Governor General Michaelle Jean was replacing the white rose to commemorate 24 hours of 'peace' in Guatemala inside the country's Constitutional Palace, 150 national civil police agents were outside violently evicting the SITRAPETEN workers from their makeshift homes in the Central Plaza," wrote Jackie McVicar, Breaking the Silence's Guatemala-based coordinator who witnessed the incident.

SITRAPETEN has filed two charges related to the eviction—one against the municipal judge who issued the eviction order and one against the Police Director. SITRAPETEN is arguing that the judge did not have the authority to issue such an eviction order and that the Police Director did not follow proper procedures.

On May 14, Alvarez spoke to a delegation of the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network. The delegation included union representatives from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and the Public Service Alliance of Canada as well as university students and professors.

Before coming to Guatemala, the two delegates with the CUPW, Darrell Kelly of Woodstock, NB, and Nicola Boone of Westville, NS, raised money to give to an organization in Guatemala. After learning of the workers' struggle, they decided to give that money to SITRAPETEN.

"As members of CUPW we have a constitutional obligation to support international solidarity movements," said Nicola Boone.

Alvarez said the economic solidarity is important and that the money will be spent on food and maybe transportation to meetings, since many of their organizers have not been able to work since they were fired two years ago.

"I have always said that what is happening here isn't just a blow to our union but a blow to the international labour movement," said Alvarez in a 2008 interview with Upside Down World. "From all sides the labour movement is suffering a number of threats. So, in whatever way possible we are asking for international organizations to help us maintain the struggle."

"Supporting SITRAPETEN is important because an injury to one union is an injury to all unionized workers," said Kelly. "The world is now a global marketplace controlled by corporations seeking the cheapest place to do business. We're all workers struggling for the right to work in a healthy and safe environment with reasonable wages and benefits. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has been supporting international solidarity work for over twenty years...SITRAPETEN is the face of the union struggle in Guatemala and we're proud to support our brothers and sisters in any way we can."

Tracy Glynn sits on the Board of the Dominion/Media Co-op and is an organizer of the New Brunswick Media Co-op. An original version of this article was published by the New Brunswick Media Co-op.

Guate Salvavidas Strike

Goldcorp Drilled by Shareholders

Moira Peters — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:28:38 +0000

Mining company challenged at AGM to respect host communities

TORONTO—Shareholders of Canadian mining giant Goldcorp Inc. got a glimpse—albeit brief—into the lives of Central Americans whose land is being exploited by the company for gold. Some even paid attention.

Representatives from communities hosting Goldcorp mines in Central America made their way from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to address the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Toronto on May 19, 2010.

Shareholders learned about the devastating effects Goldcorp’s operations have had on communities in Central America. The presenters told of an increase in health problems, cracked houses, widespread social conflict and the criminalization of protest in their towns and villages.

Carlos Amador, a teacher from Honduras, challenged the company's reclamation process at the closed San Martin mine in central Honduras, which in 1999 displaced 14 families and contaminated water to the point beyond which even the World Bank recommended.

"Who will control the acid drainage? Who is going to clean up the water contaminated with heavy metals?" he asked.

The AGM was not an easy venue for the visitors to tell their stories. Goldcorp attempted to cut Javier de Leon of Guatemala short during question period when de Leon tried to explain the environmental, health and social devastation brought by a Goldcorp mine to his town of San Miguel Ixtahuacan. He had previously been given less than a minute to address the meeting. When a supporter of the visiting group refused to be silent—protesting that de Leon deserved to be heard after traversing a continent to address the meeting—President and CEO Chuck Jeannes relented and gave de Leon the platform.

All the presenters spoke of the need not only for effective and fair consultation with potentially impacted communities before mining operations begin, but also the consent of those communities.

To that aim, a shareholder resolution was brought forward by Kathryn Anderson of the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence (BTS) Network, which called on Goldcorp to adopt a corporate policy on free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) by September 1, 2010.

FPIC is a central theme of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and is the basis of Article 169 of the International Labour Organization, which states that before a mega-project—such as a mine or a hydroelectric dam—can begin on Indigenous lands, residents need to be consulted about the proposed project and to give their informed consent.

The Goldcorp operations influenced by Anderson’s proposed policy would impact not only Indigenous communities, but all communities dependent for survival on natural resources.

Specifically, the resolution calls on Goldcorp to respect UNDRIP as best practice with regards to FPIC rights; to note the legal difference between consultation and consent; to implement the proposed policy retroactively to ensure that all Goldcorp’s mining licenses were obtained in adherence to this policy; to cease all operations, expansions, and exploration where consent of the affected population has not been obtained by the state; and to apply this policy to any license with partial or full Goldcorp ownership.

“The shareholder resolution was brought forward because in cases like San Miguel Ixtahuacan [in Guatemala], we have seen the results of not having FPIC. Communities have not had the full disclosure of costs, benefits, and risks of open-pit gold mining,” said Anderson. “When a full discussion is not there, it creates an enormous amount of conflict.”

In its pre-AGM letter to shareholders, Goldcorp urged its investors to vote against Anderson’s resolution, saying the company would be launching its own human rights platform at the AGM.

In fact, just days before its AGM, Goldcorp released a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) of the Marlin Mine in San Miguel Ixtahuacan—the result of a petition by shareholders. Initial assessments of the HRIA by various NGOs, including Amnesty International, express concerns that affected communities were not invited to discuss whether or not the study would have been appropriate or beneficial. Although both a Goldcorp representative and an investor sat on the steering committee for the HRIA, no resident was given such a privilege. Meanwhile, both the communities and NGOs argued that the study would only increase social tensions in the already-fractured communities; the assessor, On Common Grounds, itself concluded that the study resulted in escalated social tensions and polarization between and among communities.

Shareholders representing 90 per cent of Goldcorp’s shares voted against Anderson's proposed resolution. She was surprised by the 10 per cent of shares in its favour, given that shareholders rarely vote against the company line. “We do not have an explanation for that yet,” she said. “Did someone advise a large block of shareholders to vote against Goldcorp in this instance? Or is it because people specifically read and heard our concerns?”

Although Goldcorp claims it participates in consultations with populations affected by its mines, company representatives refuse to articulate a detailed consultation process or put one into company policy. Furthermore, nowhere does Goldcorp claim to respect the rights of communities to say no to mining, which is a keystone of Anderson’s resolution.

When it ignored the results of community-organized consultations in 2005 in Sipakapa, a region bordering the Marlin Mine—where 11 out of 13 communities unanimously opposed the mine’s presence—the local government was pressured to address the issue. The municipality of San Miguel has since organized its own upcoming consultation. Goldcorp General Counsel VP David Deisley said the company is not legally required to respect the results of such a consultation.

Goldcorp in general, and Jeannes in particular, consistently deny FPIC is directly applicable to the company, arguing the laws for consultation and consent apply to governments, not corporations.

Nelly Rivera de Silva of El Salvador explained that despite a moratorium on all mining exploitation in her country, she will be directly impacted by Goldcorp’s proposed Cerro Blanco mine to be built in Guatemala several kilometers upstream of Lake Guija—a binational lake. The lake is the tributary of the Lempa River, the most important watershed in El Salvador. Another 13 mining projects line El Salvador’s border with Guatemala, and 42 line its border with Honduras.

Rivera explained that she came to Canada to address Goldcorp on home soil and to inform people of the local repercussions of gold mining.

Goldcorp’s eight-page glossy handout on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) states: “Sustainable operations are dependent upon good working relationships with the communities in which we operate...We believe our transparent approach to doing business is the only way to fully engage our stakeholders in a meaningful, mutually beneficial relationship.”

But Rivera thinks this company line is an insult to shareholder intelligence.

“Why wouldn’t you think something is not quite right when members of the affected communities are coming all the way to Canada just to have their voices heard?” she asked.

As he was leaving the meeting, a shareholder addressed one of the 50 protesters demonstrating outside the AGM, asking why they were “anti-employment.” His sentiments reflect a feeling by many Canadians that mining companies are effectively bringing development and prosperity to people who would be starving if it weren’t for opportunities from the North.

De Leon had a different story. He maintained that Goldcorp is making millions in profit at the expense of the social fabric in Guatemala, where community tensions and social conflict are direct results of the affected communities having no say about the open-pit gold mine.

De Leon has felt this tension point-blank. After receiving numerous death threats, he was shot at four times on April 19, 2010, a few days before his departure for Canada. He said the majority of such threats come from mine workers or people with personal connections to the mine. Feeling tense, vulnerable, and worried for his family’s safety, de Leon said that a majority of investors do not know or care about this reality.

“No shareholder wants to hear what we have to say. They only want to see the renewal of their investment,” he said. “No-one claims ownership of the damages done to the environment, to society, or to the politics of Guatemala.”

Referenda have been organized across Guatemala to address the lack of informed consent, but neither the national government nor the company recognizes these consultations as legitimate, even though in some cases 100 per cent of an affected population has voted against mining.

Although it wouldn’t legally uphold FPIC, Bill C-300, a private member’s bill tabled by Liberal MP John McKay, could create some legal options for communities impacted by Canadian mines.

The Canadian government provides political and economic support to Canadian mining companies like Goldcorp operating abroad, through embassy relations, tax incentives and investment support with public funds like the Canada Pension Plan. Bill C-300 would make this political support and public money contingent on Canadian companies meeting certain human rights standards—standards these companies have already agreed to in various voluntary principles on corporate social responsibility, many of which are found in the CSR standards for Export Development Canada.

The bill would establish a legal complaints mechanism allowing people who wish to report human rights violations to do so with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). If DFAIT concludes that a company's actions violate established guidelines for responsible behaviour, the company’s political and economic support from Canada would be withdrawn.

Bill C-300 is a watered-down version of recommendations made at the 2007 National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility, which was approved by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. Nevertheless, the mining industry has launched strong opposition to the bill.

Rare for a private member’s bill, C-300 has passed through two votes in the House of Commons, and is currently at the end of its committee stage. MPs have reported receiving more letters in support of C-300 than any other bill in recent memory. If it succeeds in the committee, the bill will return to the House for a third and final vote; and if passed, it will go to the Senate. Since the Conservative Party opposes the bill on the basis that it would hurt the image of Canadian mining companies and their global competitiveness, the bill will likely die in the Senate because of a Conservative majority.

All four Central American activists who flew to Canada to speak to Goldcorp’s shareholders were adamant that voluntary standards for Canadian companies do not protect against human rights abuses. Although they were all in support of Bill C-300, they continue to push for free, prior and informed consent to be a focal point of Canadian legislation.

Valerie Croft worked in Guatemala as an International Accompanier in 2008 and is active in issues relating to corporate accountability.

Cleaning up Goldcorp's toxic mess

Feliciano Orellana and Carlos Amador

Underground Diplomacy

Moira Peters — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 05:57:53 +0000

Canada’s transnational mining industry implicated in abuses

TORONTO—Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani announced the termination of a mining contract for Barrick Gold’s Reko Diq project on January 5, 2010, following a unanimous decision by the Pakistani province’s cabinet. According to the minister, “They [Barrick and Chile’s Antofagasta, co-owners of the mine project] only have an exploration license, which does not cover extraction,” adding his government would not approve an agreement undermining people’s rights.

Immediately afterwards, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson warned that “multinational corporations will not invest in a country where deals are cancelled.” Canada’s international trade ministry followed suit, pressing Pakistani officials to “fulfill their obligations under a 2006 Pakistani-Canadian-Chilean agreement potentially worth billions of dollars,” according to the Vancouver Sun.

According to the Asia Times, “Critics said the local government’s action [to cancel the mining contract] was politically motivated to appease Baloch nationalists in the desperately poor and insurgency-hit province, who have been demanding the cancellation of the agreement.”

Balochistan, the province in Pakistan bordering Iran and Afghanistan, has been struggling for independence from Pakistan since 1948. The fifth uprising of the Balochistan independence movement was in 2004. More than 8,000 Baloch have been disappeared since then and 26 prominent leaders have been assassinated.

This ongoing independence struggle was overlooked by Canadian and US delegates as they pushed the Pakistani state to force Balochistan’s approval of the Barrick/Antofagasta mine. Meanwhile, in a move that the group American Friends of Balochistan say reveals insensitivity to the region’s politics, Barrick hired a Pakistani army colonel as its public affairs manager and head of security for its Balochistan mine project.

Disregard for political conflict reveals an international diplomacy concerned primarily with profits, and is consistent with the actions of Canada and its corporate ambassadors in situations around the globe where mining profits conflict with human rights.

Despite their human rights record, these corporate ambassadors of the mining sector will again be well-represented at discussions during the G20 summit in Toronto in June. Mining companies Banro, Barrick, Iamgold and Freeport McMoran will attend a parallel conference to the G20 summit, “G20 Business Leaders: Partnering with Africa’s Dynamic Markets,” at Toronto‘s Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre.

Questions about the ties between the mining sector and governement do not end in Balochistan though. Canadian Ambassador to Guatemala James Lambert published an op-ed in support of mining in Guatemala on the same day a survey revealed that 95.5 per cent of the people in San Miguel Ixtahuacan, Guatemala, opposed mining projects in their region.

Six years after that survey and the subsequent establishment of Goldcorp’s Marlin mine in San Miguel, villagers suffer from health issues linked to arsenic levels seven times the maximum limit recommended by the World Bank.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Barrick Gold officials during diplomatic visits to Chile and Tanzania, where Barrick mines have been widely protested for mistreatment of workers, environmental destruction, and for failing to pay Tanzanian taxes and royalties. Since Harper’s visit, a toxic spill killed 43 people and 1,358 livestock, according to the Ward authorities near Barrick’s Tanzanian North Mara mine.

An Amnesty International report published in February 2010 found Indigenous peoples in Colombia are at risk of being exterminated by state forces, right wing paramilitary groups and guerrilla organizations. “Far from creating a legitimate economy, as Liberal MPs have been suggesting in defence of the Colombia free trade agreement, the deal before Parliament would increase the chances that Canadian companies invested in agriculture, mining and resource extraction in sensitive areas will be doing business with murderers, drug traffickers and arms smugglers,” said Stuart Trew of the Council of Canadians in a recent press release.

As a consequence of this growing list of allegations, Canada has drawn criticism from around the world, first from environmental, religious and human rights organizations and labour unions, and now increasingly from international institutions such as the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Waste and Products.

The Canadian government has also begun to acknowledge its lack of accountability within the transnational mining industry. The first National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Industry in Developing Countries was organized in 2006, in reaction to a 2005 report from Canada’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT). The report acknowledged Canada does not have laws ensuring Canadian mining companies “conform to human rights standards, including the rights of workers and [I]ndigenous peoples.”

The Roundtables released a consensus-based, multi-stakeholder report approved by the main industry group, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC).

The Harper government took two years to respond to the Roundtables’ recommendations. Its report, “Building the Canadian Advantage: A Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Strategy for the Canadian International Extractive Sector,” rejected the recommendations and offered no tools for redressing the documented abuses of Canadian industry abroad.

Instead, the report offered increased subsidies to Canadian mining companies under the CSR banner. The “voluntary approach of CSR” is a strategy advocated by G8 countries as part of the Heiligendamm Dialogue Process, initiated at the 2007 G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany. Before this dialogue process, the Commission for Africa (CfA), launched in February 2004 by Tony Blair in the lead up to the G8 in Gleneagles, advocated the same strategies in a 2005 report.

In an analysis of the report, watchdog NGO Corporate Watch said, “The Commission for Africa does concede that ‘oil, diamonds, timber and other high-value commodities all fuel Africa’s conflicts.’ However, [CfA] points the blame at the OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] Guidelines on Multinational Companies for failing to provide ‘clear enough guidance on what companies should do in these situations.’...Rather than regulating, or even dismantling, these corporations, the CfA will allow them to continue plundering at will, apparently satisfied by their ‘corporate social responsibility’ policies and promises to be more transparent.”

Recently, members of Canada’s parliament have proposed legislation to hold Canadian transnational resource extraction companies accountable to Canadian law. Liberal MP John McKay introduced private members bill C-300 to the House of Commons February 29, 2009. The bill would withhold government funds, including billions of dollars in Canadian Pension Plan investments and diplomatic support for companies found—following a government investigation—to be abusing human rights. Some contend that this bill—while a positive step forward in holding corporations to account for their crimes—is most valuable in its exposure of the Canadian government’s support for its mining industry abroad.

Canada is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Private member’s bill C-354 aims to codify these international agreements into Canadian law. The International Promotion and Protection of Human Rights Act (IPPHRA), introduced by NDP MP Peter Julian, amends the Federal Courts Act to permit people who are not Canadian citizens to initiate lawsuits based on violations of international law or treaties to which Canada is a party if the violations occur outside Canada.

“The IPPHRA contrasts with Bill C-300 in that C-300 keeps the monitoring of corporate activities out of the criminal or civil courts, in administrative processes controlled by ‘the Ministers,’” said Grahame Russell of Rights Action in an email.

“With respect to reforming Canada’s criminal code so that corporations and their directors could be brought to trial for criminal actions in their corporate activities in ‘developing countries,’” he added, “no one in Canada has taken up this challenge.”

Sakura Saunders is an editor for protestbarrick.net, an all-volunteer news site that networks organizations and community groups around the world against Barrick Gold.

This story was published in The Dominion's special issue on the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario. We will continue to publish independent, investigative news about the G8 and G20 throughout the month of June.

For up-to-the-minute G8/G20 news from the streets of Toronto, visit the Toronto Media Co-op.

G20 Mining image

Jalil Rieki

Guatemalan Coffee a Complex Blend

Moira Peters — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:16:47 +0000

Threats, exile a bitter part of coffee farmers' work

HALIFAX—They call him “the Hurricane.”

Guatemalan coffee farmer Leocadio Juracan (his family name is close to the Spanish word for hurricane) has had a special relationship with many Nova Scotians—though most don’t even know it.

His coffee-farming co-operative—part of the Comite Campesino Del Altiplano (CCDA), or Highland Peasant Farmers’ Committee—has been delighting Nova Scotian palates with its fair trade, shade-grown organic coffee for close to nine years, through a partnership with Just Us! Coffee roasters in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

Juracan is touring Nova Scotia this weekend, speaking to audiences in Wolfville, Halifax, Tatamagouche and Antigonish. The agenda focuses on more than just light versus dark roasts.

According to Kathryn Anderson, Maritimes Co-ordinator of the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence (BTS) Solidarity Network—a long-time partner of the CCDA—the organization currently faces “perhaps the greatest threat to its existence since its founding” in 1982.

In May 2008, Juracan explained, after signing an agreement with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom on a framework for rural development, the CCDA’s car was shot at six times while driving down a rural road. The car’s passengers thankfully escaped injury.

"CCDA coffee is about more than fair trade prices for local producers," said Jackie McVicar, Co-ordinator of BTS Guatemala and former BTS intern with the CCDA. McVicar believes the CCDA’s vehicle was targeted. "CCDA coffee implies political advocacy and ongoing work in the struggle for labour justice and access to land for thousands of Guatemalan peasants. This work is happening at both the grassroots and national level," she said.

Authorities chalked up the shooting to "common crime," an assessment that may seem reasonable in a country with one of the highest violent crime rates in Latin America. But since then, the organization has suffered through two robberies in which a total of $40,000 worth of coffee was stolen. Its leaders have received threats of murder and violence by letter and by phone. A “climate of terror” surrounds the CCDA, said Juracan.

“The robbery and threats the CCDA received reflect an attempt to destabilize the organization and delegitimize the work they are doing,” said McVicar. “CCDA coffee isn't just about better wages. It's about changing structures of oppression."

In February, the threats started to target Juracan’s children. He decided to leave Guatemala, at least until the danger subsided. With the help of Canadian allies, he discreetly left the country with his family, and they found their way to Vancouver.

“If [the threats] had been just toward me,” Juracan said, “I would have kept on.”

****

The coffee grown by the CCDA—known as “Café Justicia” and sold to roasters around the world—provides capital for development projects and a fair wage for the farmers, said Juracan.

He listed home construction, a rural hospital, health promotion, training for midwives, teacher pay supplements and educational scholarships as the CCDA’s ongoing projects.

But these “alternative” economic models are threatening to some, explained Juracan.

“Guatemala is not a poor country,” he said. “There is a sector of society that is extremely rich, that has appropriated the wealth of the country and excluded the majority of the population.”

This oligarchy has a vested interest in business as usual, said Juracan. He dismissed the theory that threats and attacks against the CCDA are the work of common criminals, noting they always take place immediately after the group takes a public political position: criticizing the government for lack of action on land reform, for example, an issue for which resolution is decades overdue; or condemning the murder of unionists. “We connect [the attacks against us] to political acts,” he said.

Residual violence from Guatemala’s 36-year civil war may exacerbate the current violence. The conflict, which divided communities and in which more than 250,000 were killed—most of them by military and government-backed paramilitary groups—left a legacy of violence that has been hard for the country to shake. It is perfectly plausible, according to Juracan, that his attackers would have connections to wartime paramilitary groups.

****

Juracan and his family planned to return to Guatemala after two or three months, hoping the security situation would improve. Unfortunately, in the few weeks since they arrived in Canada, there is no encouraging news.

"There is more news of harassment and intimidation, hooded men roaming the community, gunshots at night,” said the campesino.

During his time in Canada, Juracan said he would like to generate conditions for a return to his home country. Many CCDA members continue to work hard in Guatemala for political change, and Juracan plans to strengthen solidarity between the CCDA and concerned Canadians.

Still, said Juracan, he would rather his stay be as short as possible. Being forced out of his country for doing his work is a difficult pill to swallow.

Tomorrow, March 22 at 7pm, Jurican will speak at Immaculata Hall 202, Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish. CCDA coffee is available in Nova Scotia as Just Us! Coffee’s "Breaking the Silence Blend."

Ben Sichel is a writer and teacher in Halifax. He recently took a group of students on an educational trip to Guatemala. An original version of this article was published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Leocadio Juracan

Goldcorp shows little respect for local population

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:36:57 +0000

In the surroundings of San Marcos, Guatemala, the gold and silver mine of the Canadian Goldcorp Inc. which operates in Guatemala under the name Montana Explorada, has been ready for extraction since 2004. This is yet another blow for the environment and health of the communities of San Miguel and surroundings.

Murders in Mining Country

hillarybain — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:24:46 +0000

Canadian mining companies at the scene of the crimes

San Cristobal de Las Casas, MEXICO—The mood was celebratory the weekend of August 29, 2009.

Activist and community leader Mariano Abarca Roblero had just been released after eight days in jail for alleged anti-mining activity.

In the town of Chicomuselo, near the Guatemalan border, people gathered for a weekend conference organized by the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) to discuss the effects of mining and how best to oppose local projects. Besides helping organize the event, Mariano—who had been fighting against a barite mine near his home operated by Canadian company Blackfire Exploration Ltd.—was treated like the guest of honour.

As the weekend came to a close, Mariano’s four adult children and his wife gathered around him as people attending the conference asked to have their photos taken with him. He was a hero for having survived several days in jail for his anti-mining stance. On top of everything, he said he was as determined as ever to keep fighting.

But less than three months later, Mariano was dead, shot in the neck and chest outside his home in Chicomuselo.

Three people arrested in connection with the murder all have ties to Blackfire as current or former employees. Blackfire has said they had nothing to do with the killing and they have no control over their employees outside of work hours.

Mariano’s death came after he had reported death threats by Blackfire employees to the police.

“A few weeks after my father made a report against [two Blackfire employees] one of them came to the house and said he was going kill my father,” Mariano’s son Jose Luis said.

“They completed their objective. At 8 p.m. that same day I got the news that my father was dead.”

Sadly, Mariano’s death is but one in a spate of recent killings in Mexico and Central America that have targeted locals who were known for their opposition to mining projects in their communities.

As Bill C-300—proposed legislation that would hold Canadian mining companies more accountable for their activities in developing countries—is debated back home, the practices of Canadian mining companies are yet again being questioned.

“The image that the [Mexican] population has of Canadian mines is that they’re murderers, and that’s throughout the region,” said Gustavo Castro, a close friend and colleague of Mariano’s who works for Chiapas NGO Otros Mundos.

“People have seen lives lost, dead livestock, waterways contaminated—that’s what they’ve seen of Canadian mining… And there’s a resistance movement that’s getting stronger all the time.”

It’s not that Canadian mines are necessarily worse than the mines of other countries—it’s that there are so many more of them.

“The Americans and the Brits and the Chinese and the Australians are no better, and if anything some are worse,” said Jamie Kneen, Communications Coordinator for MiningWatch Canada. “But because Canada is so dominant in the industry the odds are that if there’s a problem it’s going to be a Canadian one.”

There’s no doubt Canada is a global leader when it comes to the mining industry. According to an article written by Michel Bourassa, coordinator of the Global Mining Group at law firm Fasken Martineau, “As of 2008, over three quarters of the world’s exploration and mining companies called Canada home.” Extractive industries account for five per cent of Canada’s GDP.

A recent report released by the Latin American Observatory for Environmental Conflicts stated there are currently 118 mining conflicts in 15 countries in Latin America. By my own count, a total of 33, or 28 per cent, involve Canadian mining companies.

Kneen believes the increased violence is partly due to the mining industry's push into "more remote and sensitive areas."

“The more they have to go off into new places the more they are running into conflict, and the conflict turns deadly sometimes.”

El Salvador has seen the worst death toll with three activists killed. Each was opposed to Pacific Rim’s proposed El Dorado mine.

In an October interview, Pacific Rim CEO Tom Shrake denied the company had anything to do with anti-mining activist Marcelo Rivera’s murder in June. In a follow-up email interview in January, he said the same with regards to anti-mining activists Ramiro Rivera and Dora Sorto’s murders, accusing the media of pointing to the mining issue with no factual basis.

“These most recent murders are in the area of our now inactive Santa Rita Project, not El Dorado,” Shrake said. “They have been reported by the police to be related to a family feud. We have no presence in the area and have not since 2008. There are no mining or exploration activities in the area. Hooded armed gunmen who—according to the locals in the area—came from another town ran us off the site. Certain outlets continue to point to the mining issue as the motivation for the murders, without factual basis. We would hope they are not purposely using this feud as a tool to generate opposition and worse yet, violence.”

However activists on the ground say the violence is being generated by Pacific Rim’s presence.

“We think there’s a link between the company and the violence in our country associated with this struggle [against mining]” Roberto Calles of the Mesa Nacional frente a la Mineria Metálica said.

“The company had pitted communities and people against one another,” Calles said, noting deep divisions exist between family members who are for and against the mine. Calles said local politicians have received benefits from mining companies in exchange for their support and have been known to turn against their anti-mining constituents, generating more conflict.

“Even if the company is not directly killing people, the result is related to them and their actions,” he said.

In Guatemala, a country that has a long history of struggle against Canadian mines, two lives were lost in mining related violence in September 2009. Kneen said he’s heard of travellers in Guatemala being warned not to identify themselves as Canadian for fear of being attacked.

According to Uriel Abarca Roblero, brother of murdered Mexican anti-mining activist Mariano Abarca Roblero, Canadians are getting a tarnished reputation in Chiapas as well.

“The people of Chicomuselo [near where the mine is], the newspapers, the family… all say Canadians—not the company—are the murderers because they came from another country and killed us,” he said. “That’s what everyone thinks. I know it’s not true but people really feel that way.”

Blackfire admitted they paid off the mayor to control opposition in Chicomuselo. These recent admissions of corruption have done nothing to quell people’s anger.

The government authorities in Chiapas shut down the Blackfire mine near Chicomuselo in early December, citing environmental concerns. Mariano’s son Jose Luis wants the company gone altogether.

“We don’t want that company in our town, in Chiapas, or in our country. They have divided us, threatened us, damaged the environment and brought nothing but tragedy to our community.”

* Anti-Mining Activists Murdered

The following is a list of people who have died in mining related conflict in Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador since June 2009.

· Marcelo Rivera—El Salvador—opposed the El Dorado mining project headed by Canadian firm Pacific Rim. Tortured and killed. Disappeared June 18, 2009, body was found 12 days later.

· Adolfo Ich—Guatemala—opposed HudBay nickel mining project. Allegedly shot by security guards hired by the mine on September 27, 2009.

· Martin Choc—Guatemala—shot and killed when men opened fire on a minivan he was traveling in September 28, 2009.

· Mariano Abarca Roblero—Mexico—opposed mine operated by Canadian firm Blackfire. Shot outside his home on November 27, 2009.

· Ramiro Rivera Gomez—El Salvador—opposed the El Dorado mining project. Despite 24 hour police protection shot and killed when the car he was driving in was ambushed, December 20, 2009.

· Dora Alicia Sorto Recinos—El Salvador—opposed El Dorado and was the wife of a man who had lost two fingers due to opposition to the mine. Murdered while eight months pregnant, December 26, 2009.

** Bill C-300, the Conservatives and Corporate Responsibility

Liberal MP John McKay introduced Bill C-300, also known as An Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries, to the House of Commons in February 2009.

The Bill seeks to “promote responsible environmental practices and international human rights standards on the part of Canadian mining, oil and gas corporations in developing countries.” It proposes to do this by withholding taxpayer and political support and creating a complaints mechanism with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Companies that have received investment from government pension funds could see that funding withdrawn if it is proven they are violating international standards for corporate accountability.

Bill C-300 would not affect all mining companies. Blackfire Mining Exploration—the firm implicated in the murder of Mariano Abarca Roblero—would likely not be affected because it is private. But public companies like Goldcorp, which has stakes in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras “would have a lot to lose politically and financially,” according to MiningWatch’s Jamie Kneen.

While Bill C-300 has received widespread support from Canadian NGOs, the mining industry has predictably denounced the Bill. The Conservative government is also against the Bill, with Minister Peter Kent calling it a “poorly written piece of legislation which addresses some issues that are already part and parcel of our government’s policies abroad.”

Bill C-300 has been on shaky ground since it was first introduced and getting it through the Conservative-heavy Senate will be extremely difficult. The Bill barely made it to 2nd reading in April 2009, squeaking through with a vote of 137 to 133. It had most recently been debated in Committee hearings, with various interest groups presenting briefs before the Christmas break.

Surprisingly, according to John McKay, Stephen Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament may actually prove to be an advantage for the Bill.

“With proroguing we have an extra 60 days to study the Bill,” he said, adding that he’s not “overly fussed” about having the extra time.

A Facebook group for supporters of Bill C-300 has been created and McKay suggests those who support the Bill contact local Conservative MPs to express their support.

“Just make the lives of Conservative MPs as hard as possible. That seems to be about the only thing that works,” he said.

Dominique Jarry-Shore is a freelance journalist based in Chiapas, Mexico. This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Center in Ottawa.

Gustavo Castro

Flag

Justice: Transparency or Incarceration?

Moira Peters — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:08:31 +0000

150 years for forced disappearance a precedent, families not satisfied

TORONTO—An historic verdict was reached in Guatemala’s first tried case of forced disappearance, leading to the conviction of ex-military commissioner Felipe Cusanero Coj*, with a sentence of 150 years in prison.

Eleven witness testimonies accompanied evidence including bones from clandestine graves found around the military compound, and historical records and reports of the nature of forced disappearance. On August 31, 2009, President Judge Walter Paulino Jiminez Texaj, representing the Criminal Court of the Department of Chimaltenango ruled that Cusanero’s “innocence was destroyed,” and sentenced him to 25 years in prison for each of the six cases being tried.

Charges were brought against him April, 2003 for crimes he committed between 1982 and 1984 while acting as Military Commissioner in the region. The Centre for Legal Action in Human Rights (CALDH) and the Association for Families of the Detained-Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA) began the process as joint plaintiffs to the witnesses.

Several years later, the case made it to court March, 2008. The trial was stalled, however, after Cusanero claimed his constitutional right not to be tried retroactively was being violated, since his crimes were committed before Guatemala recognized forced disappearance as illegal in 1996.

After a lengthy delay in Cusanero's case, the Constitutional Court made an historic ruling when it declared that since the very nature of forced disappearance makes it an ongoing crime, Cusanero should be fully tried for it. (Since no bodies have been recovered, and Cusanero refuses to give further information about what happened and the whereabouts of the bodies, the victims are still considered “disappeared.”) The Court ruled that it did not matter when they were disappeared, but more importantly that the crime was continuing—it was being committed in the present.

Following the verdict's reading at the Constitutional Court, the case returned to the Court in Chimaltenango, where Jiminez Texaj concluded there was sufficient evidence to lead to a conviction of forced disappearance.

The implications in the judge's conclusion are deep. When the 1996 Peace Accords were signed, political amnesty was given to all military members for crimes they had committed during the war. (Without this clause the accords wouldn’t have been signed.) However, crimes against humanity—such as forced disappearance—are outside this amnesty law and can be tried.

Cusanero became the first person in the country to be tried for a crime against humanity. At the same time, he was a low-level military commissioner. Rios Montt, one of the authors of the genocide, enjoys political immunity by being a member of Congress.

Although many human rights organizations are claiming this to be a major step forward in the struggle for social justice in Guatemala, the witnesses' reality is much different.

For many, the hope in bringing the case forward was to find out information about their loved ones. “How is it important to us if he goes to prison?” asked Hilarion Lopez, father of one of the disappeared and a witness in the case. “We have always wanted to know where our loved ones are and what happened to them. But he never told us.”

Lack of information about those disappeared leaves families imagining horrors of rape and torture, and, on the flip-side, leaves room for the (unfounded) hope that their loved ones may still be alive. The nature of the crime creates such a degree of uncertainty that families are incapable of moving past or healing from its trauma. Particularly in cultures where proper burial rites are of extreme importance, the inability to lay individuals to rest leaves families in a perpetual state of paralysis and grief.

In a statement made during the reading of the verdict, Jiminez said, “For all of the cultures and religions present in Guatemala, it is almost inconceivable not to grant dignity to the deceased; it violates the dignity of everyone. For the Mayans, this phenomenon is of particular importance due to the central relevance in their culture of the active link between the living and the dead.”

He continued by describing the findings of a report made by the Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), stating that the lack of information about the disappeared continues to be an open sore in the country. “The CEH considers locating and exhuming the clandestine graves where the bodies are buried to be an act of justice and reparation, while being a fundamental step in the road to reconciliation."

Echoing these sentiments in a news conference the day after the verdict, Lopez stated, “[Cusanero] should ask forgiveness of the people of San Martin, of the community of Choatalum. I am really upset because my son is still not returned to me. And I want justice....I want to bury him in the cemetery so that I can bring him flowers and candles.”

Despite the seemingly successful verdict, it doesn’t go without notice by the witnesses that what means most—information—will likely die with Cusanero in prison.

Even so, the verdict and declaration by the Constitutional Court open doors to the possibility of trying other crimes against humanity which took place during the armed conflict.

According to representatives from CALDH, the legal organization representing the witnesses in the Choatalum trial, several other cases that have gone through the courts in Guatemala should have been tried as forced disappearance. Instead they were reduced to charges of kidnapping. Kidnapping is a much less severe crime with a maximum sentence of eight years, compared to 40 for forced disappearance.

Judges often try the accused for kidnapping instead of forced disappearance, says a representative from CALDH, because it won’t implicate the State. “[It is easier to say that] it was just some senseless members of the military who were responsible for each individual crime, and that it doesn’t have anything to do with the subsequent military leader, or the whole chain of command.”

According to CALDH, kidnapping can be an individual crime, whereas to be classified as forced disappearance, proof of a systematic plan, implemented by the state to use forced disappearance as a terror tactic, is required. The fact that the State has been implicated in a Guatemalan Court for its role in creating and facilitating a culture of forced disappearance might have widespread implications for the intellectual authors of the genocide.

Written with files from Amanda Kistler, an international human rights observer with the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA). Amanda currently lives in Guatemala City. Valerie Croft is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. She worked as an International Accompanier in 2008, in the department of Chimaltenango.

For more on precedent-setting court cases in Guatemala, read Guatemalan Court Sets Precedent in the Case of Israel Carias by Amanda Kistler, and Valerie Croft's Disappeared Before the Courts.

****

* Cusanero was the military commissioner in the community of Choatalum, in the municipality of San Martin Jilotepeque in Chimaltenango, during Guatemala’s internal armed conflict that took place between 1960 and 1996. The conflict was characterized by widespread massacres, scorched earth policies, the forming of civil patrol units, and genocide against the Mayan indigenous peoples. In addition, the use of “forced disappearance” was employed as a common terror tactic.

Forced disappearance is the kidnapping of an individual by military or paramilitary forces after which they are often raped or tortured, and eventually murdered. By selecting individuals arbitrarily, it heightens a climate of fear and uncertainty. A UN-sponsored Truth Commission found that 45,000 people were disappeared in Guatemala during the armed conflict.

Justice Photograph

Justice Inhumation

Recent killings linked to Canadian-owned nickel mine in Guatemala

dawn — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:45:56 +0000

Picture 3.png

Two Qeqchi leaders were shot and killed and over a dozen wounded this week near the site of a shuttered nickel mine in Guatemala.

The first shooting took place on Sunday, September 27 on land claimed by the community of Las Nubes, which Compañia Guatemalteca de Niquel (CGN), a subsidiary of Manitoba's HudBay Minerals, also claims to own.

Early reports indicated CGN's private security guards opened fire while attempting to remove families from their land. Adolfo Ichi Chamán, a teacher and community leader, was killed by gunshot, at least eight more wounded by bullets fired from an AK-47.

Prensa Libre, Guatemala's leading newspaper, reported that during Chamán's funeral service yesterday, thousands of people marched through the streets of El Estor, demanding that the company and the local police chief withdraw from the area within 24 hours.

HudBay released a lengthy statement yesterday claiming that there were no evictions, but instead that "protestors" went on a rampage, attacking government vehicles, a local police station (where they allegedly stole automatic weapons), destroying a hospital built by a coalition of US NGOs, and wounding five employees.

Hudbay goes on to make the absurd claim that the protesters proceeded to open fire on each other.

Reuters gets it wrong on Guatemala Mining Project

dawn — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:49:50 +0000

10.jpg

Reuters reported Thursday that there is no start date planned for the Hudbay (formerly Skye Resources) nickel mining project in eastern Guatemala.

Can't say this is much of a newsflash. I reported extensively on the unlikelihood of the project moving forward over a year ago.

But Reuters correspondent Sarah Grainger really gets it wrong when she writes:

Skye Resources, which acquired the project in 2004, came up against local opposition to the reopening of the mine, with squatters occupying company land and burning down a hospital and community relations office built by Skye.

I guess Ms. Grainger missed the part about company goons burning people's homes during violent evictions. The evictions were widely documented. There is no excuse for such a serious error.

Members of the army provide back-up to Guatemalan police during the eviction of Maya Qeqchi people, carried out on behalf of Skye Resources. January, 2007. Photo by James Rodriguez.

Guatemalan Court Sets Precendent in the Case of Israel Carias

dawn — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 05:56:42 +0000

Community remembers a leader who gave his life for the struggle

ZACAPA, GUATEMALA—June 22, 2009, was an historic day for the family of Israel Carías Ortiz, and for the people of Guatemala. The Sentencing Tribunal in Zacapa, Guatemala found two men guilty of the 2007 murder of Ortiz and his two sons Ledwin Anilson (age 9) and Ronald Aroldo (age 11).

The precedent-setting sentence recognizes Carías was killed because of his leadership in the struggle to reassert legal rights to community land, and mandates an investigation into the planning or 'intellectual authorship' of the murder: the finqueros (large land-owners) presumably responsible for contracting the assassins to protect their interests.

In Guatemala, this sentence is referred to as 'dejar abierto,' meaning that though there was a verdict, the judges do not consider the crime resolved. However, due to many obstacles impeding justice in Guatemala, action to persecute intellectual authors remains extremely difficult.

The ruling has implications in establishing guilt for human rights crimes of the past, especially those committed during the 36-year internal armed conflict, over 99 per cent of which, according to the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala (ODHAG), remain in impunity. For the first time, a Guatemalan court established that guilt in attacks against human rights defenders goes beyond the actual perpetrators. Those responsible for orchestrating the attacks must be identified and held accountable for conceiving and financing the crime.

Carías, president of the regional peasant farmers’ association (ACUS) was shot at point-blank range while walking from his community, Los Achiotes, to the city of Zacapa with his sons in February 2007.

Backed by more than 80 families, Carías had led the campaign to recuperate community lands—legally recognized as such in 1951—from finqueros illegally usurping the territory.

In an audio-recording submitted as evidence during the trial, Carías described the campaign to residents of Los Achiotes: “We don’t want to touch lands that already have papers. We are fighting for national lands. I am only the spokesman for the needs of the community. I am not a judge; I do not decide. You have a right to the land according to the law.”

Yet after years of frustration in a stagnated legal and bureaucratic process, ACUS turned to negotiation in 2004 as a more effective way to secure the land. Though it meant ceding a portion of land to the finqueros, negotiation was seen as a necessary way of curbing further finquero encroachment and establishing firm boundaries.

The timing of Carías’ assassination coincided with a final land measurement, an approximate three-month deadline for the lands to be handed over to the community, and a nationwide increase in repression against those asserting their rights to land and natural resources.

According to witnesses and police reports prior to his murder, Carías had been intimidated and received death threats from the two accused, their families, and the finqueros, beginning in 2004. These actions had one goal: to force him to stop his campaign.

In spite of the dangers, Carías never stopped organizing.

A speech filmed before his death, which had been presented as evidence, reminded those in the packed courtroom of Carías’ steadfast commitment. “Despite the persecution, I will not allow a backward step,” declared Carías in the film footage.

The panel of judges affirmed that Carías was killed for defending his community’s rights.

After languishing in the public prosecutor’s office for two years, in March 2009 public hearings began. Over the course of four months, judges heard testimonies from more than 20 witnesses and reviewed upwards of 50 documents.

On June 22, 2009 the Tribunal delivered its verdict: the two accused, Jacobo Salguero and Manfredo Ramirez, respectively perpetrated and were accomplice to the premeditated assassination of Israel Carías at the instruction and in possible employment of the finqueros. Salguero was previously acquitted of a murder in 2004 because, as he described, "No one was willing to testify against him." Ramirez is his brother-in-law, as well as the nephew of Carías. Both men lived in Los Achiotes until their arrest.

It is assumed that the two children were killed for being with their father at the time. The sentence acknowledges the complexity and danger in communities that dare to defend land rights in the face of unlawful opposition.

Although there has not yet been any movement towards prosecuting the finqueros in this case, the sentence sends a clear message to those historically protected by nationwide impunity. This aspect of the sentence is perhaps more important for its symbolism than its possibility for prosecution in the case of Carías' murder.

Although the verdict sets key precedents, the sentence does little to change the day-to-day reality in the community—at least so far. Minutes after the sentencing, Carías’ widow commented on the verdict: “It’s a little.” For many members of the community of Los Achiotes, the sentence is exactly that: a little.

Today, the community is still waiting for the final document to arrive settling the land issue, and ACUS and the Association for Community Development of Los Achiotes (ACIDEA) leaders report feeling like targets for their organizing.

Currently, the president of ACIDEA is Carías’ twenty-one-year-old niece who knows intimately the responsibility and risk of the position. Inspired by her uncle, she refuses to be silenced by fear. “[My uncle] knew that sooner or later he would be killed for his organizing. But we all die. It is a question of dying on your knees or living standing up. We choose with our eyes open.”

Despite the risks, approximately a dozen members of the community and Carías’ family attended each of the hearings in solidarity—making the two-hour hike down the mountain to the hearings as a group. Many gave testimony themselves and received threats for doing so. One of Carías’ brothers likened the community to a flock of sheep that experienced the devastating effects of a coyote in their midst—now the community is “always alert, tense, vigilant. We learned,” he explained, shaking his head.

ACUS and ACIDEA have worked to reconstruct and honor the memory of Carías’ life that had been overshadowed by his murder and the trial in the weeks since the verdict.

ACUS organized a march to the Tribunal as a tribute to Carías’ organizing, to demonstrate appreciation for justice served, and to petition the court to proceed with other pending ACUS cases. At a community lunch, people remembered Carías, their memories building upon each other as they recalled his dedication to the community:

“He was kind to everyone.”

“Even as a boy, he knew he would lead his community.”

“He was a man of vision.”

“He was a great leader. He literally gave his life for the community.”

ACIDEA hopes to construct a memorial in Los Achiotes to ensure that Carías—and his sacrifice for the common good—is not forgotten.

Amanda Kistler has been an international human rights observer with the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) since January 2008. She currently lives in Guatemala City.

For more about impunity in Guatemala and prosecuting forced disappearance cases, read Valerie Croft's Disappeared Before the Courts.

In memory of Israel Carías

Looking down at the city of Zacapa

From Memory to Resistance, Children Bear Witness

Moira Peters — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:33:34 +0000

HIJOS celebrates 10 years in Guatemala

TATAMAGOUCHE, NS–Walking through the streets of Guatemala City, HIJOS slogans are hard to miss: "Justice for Nueva Linda"; "Trial and Punishment for Military Assassins!" Words demanding an end to impunity remind everyone that 36 years of civil war in Guatemala have not ended in justice or peace.

HIJOS Guatemala—Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Forgetting and Silence—was founded in 1999 by young people who were forced into exile, or who lost family members due to State repression during the war. (The group's name, HIJOS, is a play on the Spanish word for "children.") In June 2009, HIJOS Guatemala celebrated 10 years of fighting to preserve historical memory, to end impunity, to memorialize the victims of the war, and to shed light on the human rights violations committed during the conflict.

Using public education events, protests, and political art and murals to articulate and strengthen the movement toward justice, HIJOS is comprised of students, workers and professionals of Ladinos (Guatemalans of mixed Hispanic and Indigenous origin) and Indigenous descent. A new generation of HIJOS is now being born as those who started the group 10 years ago pass on to their hijos the struggle of those before them. HIJOS members—including children of the disappeared and murdered, and Guatemalans who stand in solidarity with the group—work in rural communities as well as in the urban centre of Guatemala City. While many group members hold "day jobs" with other human rights and social justice organizations, they are more than simply volunteers for HIJOS; for many, HIJOS is a way of life, an extended family.

HIJOS not only focuses on justice for past crimes, but also draws attention to new threats Guatemalans face today. In a recent bulletin, HIJOS stated: "According to our interpretation of the history and the memory of the resistance of the People, we understand justice to be a historical demand of the grassroots struggle for dignity, sovereignty and self-determination."

Bety Reyes Toledo knows HIJOS well. Reyes Toledo is the daughter of Hector Reyes, a Guatemalan peasant who, after trying to organize workers and obtaining evidence of back-door dealings involving the owners of the Nueva Linda plantation where he worked, was kidnapped and disappeared on September 5, 2003. Reyes Toledo, her family, and over 170 other families have been camped on the side of the road outside the plantation since 2004, demanding justice and information on the whereabouts of her father.

"HIJOS has been with us throughout our struggle and because of them, more people have become involved. They help give us the strength to go on because we feel supported," said Reyes Toledo. HIJOS, in collaboration with other social justice organizations, has arranged food and clothing drives, the "Caravan for Justice" on the anniversary of the disappearance of Hector Reyes and protests to support justice for the Reyes family and all families and workers at Nueva Linda.

But not everyone is happy with HIJOS’ call for an end to impunity. The group has experienced threats and acts of intimidation, including office break-ins and an attempted kidnapping. Members of HIJOS have been victims of political campaigns and attacked through the Guatemalan media. According to a June 2008 "Urgent Action" (a call to action sent to HIJOS' national and international solidarity networks), one member was followed, beaten up on the street and warned to tell others to back off a public demilitarization campaign that involved HIJOS and 15 other organizations, or suffer the consequences.

The group continued its work and 2008 marked the first year the military parade was suspended from its annual June 30 march through Guatemala’s historic centre.

"For HIJOS Guatemala, who have been going out into the streets...to point out [and] to reject the criminal presence of the army and its high command which acts in total impunity, the suspension of the parade is a victory that has been won thanks to the people who year after year have marched in light of threats, attacks and repression," said Wendy Mendez, a human rights defender and co-founder of HIJOS Guatemala.

In fact, HIJOS' June 30 anniversary falls on the same day as Guatemala's annual military parade—a day now known, thanks to the efforts of HIJOS and others, as the "Day of Heroes and Martyrs."

"Along the way we have learned that the struggle for memory, truth and justice in Guatemala is a long and historical process for the survivors of genocide, therefore it has many actions, strategies and chapters that must be written in order for those democratic principles to become a reality." Mendez said that stopping the Military March was one such action on the road to democracy and peace.

Born in Guatemala, Mendez and her family fled to Vancouver, B.C., after witnessing the forced disappearance of her mother, Luz Haydee Mendez, by the Guatemalan Military Intelligence on March 8, 1984.

Following its investigation between April 1997 and February 1999, the United Nations Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH)—a commission created through the peace negotiations and the Accord of Oslo in 1994—reported that state forces and related paramilitary groups were responsible for 93 per cent of the violations documented by the CEH, including 92 per cent of arbitrary executions and 91 per cent of forced disappearances. Victims included men, women and children of all social strata: workers, professionals, church members, politicians, peasants, students and academics; in ethnic terms, 80 per cent were Indigenous Maya. During the 36-year conflict, the CEH reported that over 200,000 men and women were killed or disappeared. Forced disappearance is a war tactic used to systematically terrorize a population. 626 villages were completely destroyed, 1.5 million people were displaced by the violence, and more than 150,000 were driven to seek refuge in Mexico.

Ten years after the release of the report, the numbers are estimated to be higher still as clandestine graves continue to be exhumed and those once unwilling to talk about la violencia have begun to open up and tell their stories.

To date, however, none of the intellectual authors of the war—including military high command and civilians in power during the violence in the early 1980s—have been tried, let alone convicted.

The recent presentation of the Guatemalan Presidential Peace Secretariat’s "Report on the Authenticity of the Military Diary" verified facts found in a military dossier detailing crimes committed by the military during the civil war. The dossier was smuggled from Guatemalan military intelligence files in 1999. Given the release of historical documents from the national policy archive that affirm these details, Mendez is disappointed with the Guatemalan government's unwillingness to act on its own findings. She reiterated the sentiment of those who continue to struggle for justice: "We do not need another study into the authenticity of the facts. We need a judicial investigation, trial and punishment for those responsible."

It has been 13 years since the state and the URNG (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity) signed the Peace Accords for “true and lasting peace.” However, structures of exclusion, antagonism and conflict continue to oppress the majority of Guatemalans who suffer at the hands of an unwieldy and corrupt National Civil Police force, a so-called social democrat government with a neo-liberal trade agenda, corruption and weak state institutions. Above all, the power of the highly trained Guatemalan military continues to seep into and thus control all levels of Guatemalan society, provoking instability and fear throughout the country.

Mendez reflects upon the disturbing trend of increased violence in Guatemala: "At first we were certain that the wall of impunity would come down with the fulfillment of the Peace Treaties signed in 1996, but since these have not been respected by any of the governments since, and on top of that, the Free Trade Agreements' agenda and policies have been imposed, the reasons that gave origin to the war are still present and the levels of impunity and corruption have grown."

As crime levels surpass those reported during the war—of which 99 per cent go unpunished—and drug cartels control borders and entire communities, the military continues to move freely into rural communities. These are the same Indigenous communities wherein not long ago the state orchestrated massacres. The low-paid National Civil Police provide little civil security for Guatemalans, and in many cases they are not trusted due to their associations with the mafia. Practices include demanding bribery payments, brutal treatment of civilians and general abuse of power. In its desperation to reduce the high levels of crime, the population is turning to the military for protection.

On the other hand, thanks to a beefed-up military budget, military bases have been reopened and new ones have been created. In communities fighting to save their natural resources from transnational mega-projects, such as mines and dams that threaten to destroy the land and displace thousands of Indigenous people, the newly created "combined forces"—police-military patrols—are stationed to remind citizens that their moves are being watched and reported upon.

Mendez reflects on the work and struggle to which HIJOS has committed. "On our 10th anniversary, we confirm that the best way to bring honour and glory to our mothers and fathers, to all the victims of genocide in Guatemala, is to continue the struggle for social justice and democracy."

Jackie McVicar works with the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network (BTS) in Guatemala City. BTS has been supporting and collaborating with HIJOS initiatives for nine years.

HIJOS close up

HIJOS drums