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Ixcán and hydro Xalalá



Due to lack of bids on November 7 was declared void the bidding of the Hydroelectric Xalalá, planned for the region Ixcán. In the end, none of the nine companies had shown interest in the project proposal to materialize. Also came to public light that company said it had identified social risks, environmental, financial and project implementation. Officials of the National Electrification Institute (INDE) reported that they continue to drive the project would generate 181 megawatts and assured that they are considering other options to finance the project. Since February 2007, ACOGUATE has provided support to several communities that would be affected by the dam Xalalá if it was built.
.......................................... Translation
article that was published in the
San Francisco Chronicle, June 8, 2008
original English version
....................... ....................
[Alejandro Che] Paau Copón was born in Las Margaritas, a village of 300 inhabitants located on the banks of rivers and Copón Chixoy in the northern region of Guatemala. Cardamom corn and dozens of surrounding homes, which can only be reached by boat or on foot.

Crossing the river, 20 minutes from the house Paau, is the proposed site for the second largest hydroelectric dam in Guatemala - the dam Xalalá. Paau community is one of 18 communities that could be flooded by the reservoir of 7.5 square kilometers.

Xalalá The dam is in addition to other projects that the National Electrification Institute (INDE) has developed to attract foreign investment in renewable energy. Is expected to increase by 10 percent of national energy reserves, generating annual profits of between 100 million and 150 million dollars, and affordable energy to more than 2 million people, while saving 4 million barrels of oil per year.

Fredy Lopez, INDE spokesman said that the hydroelectric project presents an opportunity for Guatemala to reduce its dependence on petroleum and imported energy. "Using clean technology, hydropower will increase the productivity of Guatemala and access to energy."

Moreover, the dam would flood the homes of 2,338 people along the river 41 kilometers and 16 kilometers Chixoy Copón River, affecting 36 communities. The government has not presented a plan for compensation and according to Lopez, the Government refuses to testify about these plans at the moment.

In April 2007, the dam-affected communities Xalalá made an inquiry about Xalalá mega-projects and oil exploration in the area - a right guaranteed them by the Constitution and municipal law - of 21.155 voters, 89.7% voted "no." However, Guatemala's highest judicial body, the Constitutional Court has ruled that the results of the consultations are not binding if the issue of consultation is considered a matter of national interest. Paau

expected that the query is respected and cited as legal basis the respective steps of the Constitution and Convention 169 of the International Labour. Both documents recognize the right of indigenous peoples to define "their own priorities in relation to the development process, to the extent that it affects their lives, beliefs, institutions and spiritual well-being and the lands they occupy or Somehow, and control, to the extent possible, their own economic, social and cultural "

In 1982, the armed forces massacred 177 women and children in Black River, a village on the banks of the Rio Chixoy 50 miles south of Las Margaritas Copón, to build the largest hydroelectric Guatemala. At that time, Achi communities clearly opposed to the dam 300 megawatts. Three massacres occurred in 1982, where 444 of the 791 Black River residents were massacred, according to the Commission for Historical Clarification. Chixoy dam was largely financed by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. The community of Black River and over 27 acres of land were flooded arable. The armed forces forced the survivors to live in a militarized village more than four hours away from the flooded community.

Today, survivors of Black River are still struggling to receive compensation. They live in arid lots babes and eight hours away from arable plots that the government were provided. Although the relocation plan INDE promised them electricity and water free, most people can not pay their electric bills or water, can not even pay the fare to get to their land to farm. INDE maintains that it has complied with the obligations of relocation and that since privatization of utility companies in 1998, and is not responsible for providing electricity to relocated communities or respond to complaints related to restitution.

Although, to date, yet INDE officials have not approached the residents of Las Margaritas Copón, Paau fears that the project Xalalá leave your community with the same problems as those of Black River. "We know that they are not building this dam for us," said Paau.

Aviva Imhof, campaigns director of International Rivers, a nonprofit group based in Berkeley, California, says the government should not push the dam project until it meets its obligations to redress past.

"The government must make a comprehensive assessment of all options to achieve the country's energy needs, and should compensate communities affected by the dam Chixoy, before making any decision to proceed with the project Xalalá," said Imhof. Emiliano

Panjoj, Tzejá mayor of Santa Maria, a village where most people voted against the bill in 2007, states that ecotourism projects small scale, a comprehensive school and a better health center would most benefit their community. "Not that we are against development," says Panjoj, "We just want to be developing on our own terms."

In the meantime, Paau is waiting for any information which may affect the fate of his village. "The Newspapers say that this area is uninhabited, there are only a few families would be relocated, "said Paau. "But we are thousands. For government, rivers mean money. For us, the rivers are our lives. "
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Photo: Coordinating Committee for Consultation, Ixcán
1 Solano, Luis: Xalalá tender fails, INDE insist, Inforpress 1778, 14/11/1908.
2 NISGUA: NISGUA's Report on Guatemala, Volume 28 Number 2, Summer / Fall 2007
three INDE: http://www.inde.gob.gt/xalala/Xalala.html
4 Interview with Fredy Lopez, May 1 to 8 2008
5 Ibid.
6 NISGUA's Report on Guatemala, Volume 28 Number 2, Summer / Fall 2007
7 San Francisco Chronicle, "Placing Blame For Genocide: Guatemalan massacre survivors seek damages "from dam financiers," November 16, 2000, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2000/11/16/MN94314.DTL&hw=chixoy+dam&sn = 002 & sc = 591
8 Ibid.

Best Budget Head Unit

V Meeting on Racism and Genocide


19 and 20 November this year, 380 women and 101 men working social organizations, among others, on issues of human rights, justice and historical memory - and it includes several organizations that accompanies or is accompanied ACOGUATE - participated in the V Meeting on Racism and Genocide that took place in Guatemala City. Since 2003, the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) and the Centre for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH) have organized this annual event with the aim of creating a "space for debate, reflection and awareness around the racism and genocide in Guatemala, its causes, the need to recover historical memory and fight for justice for serious human rights violations. "The meeting was held under the theme of Justice and Resistance, guarantees of non repetition.

Inaugural Lecture - Genocide, Justice and natural resources to ensure non repetition
The inaugural lecture of the meeting, which was attended by Marc Drouin, Edgar Perez, Luis Alexis Gregory Florentino Pérez Calderón, was done under the Genocide issue, natural resources and justice to guarantee non-repetition. Perez and Calderon presented, respectively, of the sentence and the appeal that occurred in the case of Black River, village of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz (See previous articles in this blog), while Gregorio Florentino Perez talked about universal jurisdiction.

highlighted some elements of a presentation by Marc Drouin, who presented the findings of research he had conducted in 2005. In his presentation, "The Guatemalan genocide of 1982," Drouin discussed the definition of genocide under international law and enforcement of such qualification to the crimes committed in the Guatemalan highlands in the early 1980's. He explained that in recent years, the Guatemalan army followed the same modus operandi in attacks committed against indigenous populations in most of the Guatemalan highlands, in different areas and military bases, proving genocidal intent with which the army acted Guatemala. He also argued that a possible 'motives' behind the intention of exterminating the Mayan people in the cooperative movement which represented an attempt by people Indians organized to seek their own path to development and economic independence. This desire to find "a way not to go to the coast," as explained Drouin, threatened the dominant economic model from the English colonization is based on the exploitation of cheap labor that represents the indigenous people deprived of land and with little access to means of production.

Then participants were divided into several working groups according to different thematic areas. Among them were the topics of "Women and Resistance" and "Re-militarization." Mesa

work "Women and Resistance"
In the seminar "Women and Resistance", gathered some 40 participants to discuss and share about the ways in which women are fighting in the current political situation. Andrea Barrios, representing the Women Sector opened the desk by presenting the experience he had this group of women struggle to mobilize and organize and have a place as women in the negotiation of peace agreements. He explained that at the time, it was suggested that the internal armed conflict had affected women in a specific way and that, therefore, had to include in the Peace Accords a specific answer. Also suggested that Maya women during the armed conflict, the role of social reproduction took a matter of resistance: the act of giving birth and caring for children in the midst of a genocidal campaign and to keep alive traditions, cultures and languages \u200b\u200bwas to face the attempted genocide of the Guatemalan army.

Barrios suggested that a confluence of historical factors have combined to form structures of power - patriarchy, racism, neo-liberal capitalism - of which were and still barred most women. The Women's Sector has come to an analysis that, given this reality, many women start resistance from home and the fact organized and is a form of resistance. Also, the idea is to start from the personal strength and link it to broader social struggles, that is, recovery areas and territories beginning with their own bodies.

Desk "Re-militarization and peace agreements"
In the workbench on the topic of "Re-militarization and peace agreements", Amilcar Pop, Maya Bar Association, and Marco Antonio Canteo the Institute for Comparative Studies in Penal Sciences of Guatemala, spoke about a new form of militarization that is taking place at this juncture. Mentioned at the same time that Guatemala has permanently been militarized since the liberal revolution in 1871. They claimed that despite the Peace Accords of 1996 recorded that the army had to redefine their roles, their role remains the same. Justify its presence in some regions by the presence of drug traffickers and increased violence and crime, the military still serves as a tool for economic structure, imposing a stability that ensures the massive exploitation of natural resources and foreign investment, and maintaining fixed the economic powers. Pop and Canteo added that, apparently, is not a coincidence that the re-militarized areas today are located near mega capitalists.

Speakers at this workshop concluded that almost twelve years after the signing of peace, the Guatemalan State has not complied with the responsibilities of transitional justice to be followed by peace agreements, whether truth, justice, repair, and demilitarization of the country. They also emphasized the importance of breaking the impunity, which benefits the Army, events related to both the armed conflict as recent events so that there is a guarantee of non-repetition of acts of genocide and a functional democratic exercise the country.

Justice and guarantee non-repetition from the perspective of the Justice System, Civil Society and Media "
forum In the morning of November 20, Luis Ramirez, Edgar Morales, Ramon Alejandro Rodriguez Chain and presented their papers as part of the forum titled" Justice and guarantee non-repetition from the perspective of the Justice System, Civil Society and Media. "

Two presentations highlighted in this forum: the presentation of Edgar Morales, who presented the topic from the standpoint of the media and the presentation of Alejandro Rodriguez, who spoke from the viewpoint of the Justice System Morales said

most of the media in Guatemala are foreign-owned commercial media have a fundamental objective profit (not informative) and, therefore, are not acting in the interest of the majority of Guatemalans. Said he did not think it very likely that these "de-media" join the struggle of those seeking justice in armed conflicts "that they were ordered to hide." 2 On the contrary, suggested that, for the media to help ensure no repetition of the acts committed during the internal armed conflict, we should begin by building new media alternative mechanisms or own networks of information in communities.

In his presentation, Alejandro Rodríguez, Secretary of Crime Policy of the Public Ministry (MP), gave an account of how Guatemala was built historically as a racist colonial state based on exclusion and exploitation of indigenous peoples, in short: an apartheid state. Explained that, although they have been subject to minimum conditions of existence, indigenous peoples have rebelled over the history of the Guatemalan state to resist these conditions. According to Rodriguez, is this thinking that led to the Guatemalan State to adopt the massacres and genocide as a counter-insurgency policy in the 1980's. Therefore, said the transformation of MP and construction of a Human Rights Office capable of responding to the demands of indigenous peoples is not only a way to ensure non-repetition, but also the fulfillment of a "debt historic. "

latter the V Forum on Racism and Genocide ended with a recommendation by Ramon Cadena inviting avoid characterizing this struggle for truth and justice as" utopian "- which means you can never reach - because it is achievable stating that the presence in the room of survivors and relatives of victims, "attest that there are people who have courage to go and are looking for change."
Writer ACOGUATE

............. ..................... Notes

1 Policy Statement Justice and Resistance, guarantees of non-repetition "Fifth Meeting on Racism and Genocide in Guatemala.
2 Edgar Morales, a paper of 20 November 2008 at the V Meeting on Racism and Genocide, Guatemala City.
3 Alejandro Rodríguez, lecture of 20 November 2008 at the V Meeting on Racism and Genocide, Guatemala City.
4 Ramón Cadena, paper 20 November 2008 at the V Meeting on Racism and Genocide, Guatemala City.