Cover image: Members of the Union de Pueblos y Fraccionamientos contra el Basurero blocked main avenues in the south of Mexico City to denounce the irregular operation of a landfill in the Choluteca region of Puebla. Photo: Noticias de abajo ML
Inhabitants of 27 communities of the volcanos region of Puebla, protested this Tuesday, June 11, in front of the offices of the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA), located in Mexico City, to demand the definite closure of the intermunicipal landfill in San Pedro Cholula.
With banners and loudspeakers, members of the Union de Pueblos y Fraccionamientos contra el Basurero blockaded the main avenues in the south of Mexico City to denounce the operation of the landfill which for sixteen years has contaminated the air, land, and water of the region.
The protestors point out that there is an increase in diseases such as leukemia in the municipalities of Puebla, including Ocoyucan, San Andrés Cholula, San Gregorio Atzompa, San Pedro Cholula, Juan C. Bonilla, Coronango, Papalotla de Xicohténcatl and Tenancingo. Furthermore, through scientific studies, its been shown that there are “brutal” levels of contamination in water sources near the landfill.
Residents of the region referred to a report published at the beginning of April elaborated by academics from the National Council of Humanities, Sciences, and Technologies (CONAHCYT), revealing that these municipalities in Puebla, located in the Atoyac River basin, have the highest mortality rates for acute leukemia in the country.
Due to this alarming situation, the protestors demand that environmental authorities permanently close the landfill to protect the health of the inhabitants, as well as the water sources of the region.
Resistance
Since March 21, organized residents have maintained a protest encampment at the entrance to the landfill, applying pressure to stop its operations. Due to the protest actions, they have daily prevented 680 tons of trash from being deposited in the landfill. This trash comes from places as far away as Mexico City and Oaxaca.
Operated by the company PRO-FAJ Hidro Limpieza, residents argue that that landfill continues its operations due to the political influence of Cuauhtémoc Ochoa Fernández, recently elected Senator of Hidalgo with the support of the MORENA party, to whom they point out as the owner of the facility.
On April 10, after denouncing the high levels of contamination with the results of a water analysis carried out by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, PROFEPA officials temporarily closed the landfill. However, on the night of April 30, local authorities tried to reopen the landfill. Police officers from the municipalities of Calpan, San Pedro Cholula, Chiautzingo and Domingo Arenas escorted a convoy of trash trucks seeking to enter the landfill.
However, the protestors of Pueblos Unidos managed to repel the aggression and prevent the reopening of the facility. During the operation, people were wounded by gunfire.
With the heightened repression, and due to the inaction of the three levels of government, in May, agrarian and traditional community authorities of the 34 communities announced the “First Assembly of the Cholulteca People Against the Killer Land Fill and the Megaprojects of Death.”
Celebrated on May 14, those who attended described the landfill as “an ecocide where impunity cannot continue,” declaring its definite closure. Furthermore, they announced the prohibition of all extractivist projects in the zone, particularly related to the Integral Morelos Project “a regional energy megaproject that affects the Nahua peoples of the Popocatépetl Volcano region of the states of Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala.”
Promises
After 3:00pm on Tuesday, June 11, at the end of the meeting with the environmental authorities, the lawyer, Juan Carlos Flores of the Union de Pueblos communicated that PROFEPA promised to carry out an inspection and verification of the landfill this week.
The visit, according to the commitment made by the federal government agency, is to verify two points that the residents of the Choluteca region have denounced. First, that the landfill has not complied with measures to prevent contamination derived from their operations, and above all, that the landfill has no more space.
Flores communicated that, after PROFEPA’s visit, the residents will be waiting for them to return seals marking the definite closure of the landfill and the elaboration of a closure plan.
However, the lawyer detailed that the federal officials didn’t commit to the closure, in spite of having been shown evidence of the saturation of the landfill. As such, he called on the residents to maintain alert in the face of any possible repression.
Cover image: Community authorities during a press conference denounce the mining exploitation. Photo: Santiago Navarro F
On Saturday, June 1, one day before the elections in Mexico, community members of Capulálpam de Méndez, in the northern sierra mountains of Oaxaca, declared a maximum alert after identifying two dump trucks transporting minerals extracted from the bowels of those beautiful mountains. Immediately, the Zapotec community blocked the exit of the community, retaining one of the trucks while the other managed to escape.
The stopped truck contained 22 tons of ground rock. The truck was let go, but the material were retained. “This material was already processed. Studies were done and it has high levels of gold and silver,” said Francisco García López, president of the communal lands commission of the municipality.
In accordance with a decision made by the community assembly, they blocked the roads between Capulálpam and Ixtlán, as well as the federal highway that connects Oaxaca and Tuxtepec. The community also prevented the state from installing voting booths in their territory for the election. “If the government doesn’t pay attention to something legitimate and just, what’s the point of installing voting booths. So, in a decision made by the community, the voting booths were not installed,” said the commissioner.
Complaints against Compañia Minera de Natividad and Anexas, S.A. de C.V. for the exploitation of minerals without the permission of the community are not new. “On two occasions the governor of the state (Salomón Jara) visited the community. We let him know that the mining activities need to be suspended. However, we were told that the company wasn’t operating.”
As a result, the community agrarian authorities decided to take matters into their own hands. They decided to hand over evidence. “For that reason, the assembly retained the truck with the minerals. It is evident that they are working late at night and in the early morning hours. The government doesn’t say anything. So, we presented them with the evidence. They didn’t listen, so we blocked the roads.”
Following the measures taken by Capulálpam, with support of other communities who also began to set up blockades at the entrances to their communities, the state government promised to receive a commission of local authorities on Monday, June 3. Those who were to attend on part of the government were the Secretary of Government, Jesús Romero López, the Commission of Peace and federal authorities. “We decided to lift the highway blockade and attend the meeting,” says García. However, they decided to cancel the dialogue because “unfortunately they are once again mocking our communities, bringing 2nd and 3rd level officials to resolve the problem. With this, we decided to cancel the dialogue requesting instead that it be directly with federal authorities.”
The communities again installed the highway blockades. On Monday night, they were told that on Wednesday, June 5, they would be received by federal authorities from the Secretary of Economy, Secretary of Environment, and National Water Commission, the same authorities who have already received countless complaints.
The Legal Context
In February of this year, the community of Capulálpam won an injunction in relation to three mining concessions pertaining to Compañia Minera de Nativdad y Anexas, S.A. de C.V. However, they didn’t specify which concessions they are because, according to authorities, they are still in litigation.They explain that the judge ordered the mining concessions in Capulálpam be rendered invalid.
Photos: Santiago Navarro F
Likewise, on Tuesday, June 4, authorities of Capulálpam, Lachatao, and other communities declared in a press conference that since 2003 they have filed multiple complaints against the company without any response from state or federal authorities. “They haven’t acted in supervising and applying the laws for the protection of the environment and the protection of the rights of our community and the communities of the Sierra Juarez that have been directly impacted by the Natividad mining operation,” they pointed out.
Among the impacts mentioned are the depletion of thirteen aquifers, contamination of the soil and water sources with mining waste, and the collapse of three toxic waste tailings deposits in 2010, which to this day have not been repaired.
Community of Capulálpam de Méndez, Oaxaca. Photo: Santiago Navarro F
The communities also pointed out that the mining company is responsible for the emission of different pollutants, like Polychlorinated biphenyl from abandoned electrical transformers, that are a mix of chemical compounds which, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, cause neurological and immunological alterations in children and cancer in animals. They also denounced the contaminants such as arsenic, lead, and cadmium in the soil and bodies of water.
For this reason, the community demands that the federal government close the mine and that the company take responsibility in repairing the “damages caused by the contamination.”
More Concessions
The community authorities mention that in their territory there exists only three concessions that were suspended through a writ of amparo. The Avispa Midia team reviewed the cartographic database solicited from the Secretary of Economy, proportioned by the Unidad de Coordinación de Actividades Extractivas in February of 2024. We were able to identify that in the municipality of Capulálpam, as of 2024, there are thirteen concessions: seven concessions with exploitation titles, six with exploration permits.
Of the total concessions, at least nine belong to the Compañia Minera de Natividad y Anexas, S.A. de C.V. The others, according to official documents, are original concessions granted to Fausto Calvo Sumano and Judith Patricia Underwood, who own Sociedad Underwood and Calvo Compañía, S.N.C.
In total, the thirteen concessions—with gold, silver, copper and lead deposits—exceed 5,000 hectares. One of the mining concessions called “Providencia 1” covers part of the urban center of the community.
Likewise, another mining concession called “Providencia 2” covers three municipalities. In addition to Capulálpam, it expands into the municipalities of Natividad and Santiago Xiacuí.
The communities lack clear information regarding the location, extension, and status of the concessions which are permitted until 2050 and 2060.
The tropical forest of the Chimalapas is burning. The election noise is drowning out the struggles of the communities fighting for life, forests, rivers, mountains, and animals.
The heat waves, fires, dried up rivers, and floods are nothing more than expressions of what in recent years has been called a climate emergency; that which has roots dating far back, associated with long centuries of colonialism, genocide, ecocide, and dispossession.
For decades Indigenous peoples have been warning of the environmental catastrophe caused by mining extraction and fossil fuels. It is undeniable that both are increasing the temperature on earth, leading us closer and closer to the dreaded 1.5 decree Celsius increase. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2019 (IPCC), the effects of such an increase will be irreversible for agriculture and for human life on earth.
However, the fossil fuel and extractivist sectors are pillars in the political and economic programs of the presidential candidates of this 2024 election. The climate emergency and the rights of Indigenous peoples, whose territories are home to between 70% and 80% of the country’s biodiversity according to data from the National Agrarian Registry, do not fit into the electoral ballot boxes.
The Zoque people of Santa María Chimalapa are currently fighting a number of fires that are destroying one of the most biodiverse regions in Mesoamerica: the tropical forest of the Chimalapas. The fires have been burning for more than a week and the state institutions haven’t provided an effective response to put them out. Community brigades led by communal land commissioners are those who are fighting the climate emergency.
At the same time, the communal assembly of San Miguel Chimalapa is demanding the federal government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the state government of Oaxaca of Salomón Jara to comply with an expert appraisal so that the Local Agrarian Court can emit a resolution on the nullity lawsuits filed by San Miguel Chimalapa to delimit their communal lands.
The demand of the assembly of San Miguel Chimalapa makes sense when we see that the fires throughout Chimalapas are being fed by agrarian conflicts with neighboring ejidos. There are 26,000 hectares of land in dispute between San Miguel Chimalapa, Niltepec and Zanatepec. There are 160,000 hectares of communal lands in dispute between Chimalapa, Oaxaca, and Cintalapa, Chiapas. While the Supreme Court of the Nation emitted a resolution in favor of Oaxaca in 2023, it hasn’t been enforced. On the contrary, the plunder of the forests continues, as well as the fires that have been burning for weeks.
In the heat of these problems, the government of the so-called fourth transformation is more occupied with promoting its successor than attending to the demands of those who are continually being displaced from their lands: Indigenous and campesino peoples.
Agrarian conflicts throughout Mexico are not a minor issue. There are around 500 agrarian conflicts in the country. The existence of agrarian conflicts exhibits the racism with which the Agrarian Attorney General’s Office treats Indigenous and campesino peoples. Very slow paperwork, arbitrary legal processes, the hiding of information, and the disregard for communal authorities and security councils are just some of the most common characteristics.
In Chimalapas, as in other communities, agrarian conflicts are worsening as extractivist, energy, and industrial megaprojects push their infrastructure onto the lands in litigation. With this, they generate confrontations between neighboring agrarian communities.
These conflicts are often portrayed to be between communities, thus erasing the responsibility of international corporations and the Agrarian Attorney General’s Office in the unfortunate outcomes of these conflicts often resulting in violence, assassinations, and disappearances.
The fires, the agrarian conflicts, the extractivist megaprojects associated with fossil fuels, the institutional racism and the violence exercised against Indigenous peoples, are all deeply related. The challenge to solve them has nothing to do with the electoral agenda.
The struggle of the Zoque people of Chimalapa to put out the fires and resolve the agrarian conflicts is a concrete, urgent, and necessary action in times of climate catastrophe. Before the ears deafened by electoral noise, let’s listen to the cries of the tropical forest and the running water of the river. Now more than ever solidarity is necessary between communities and cities to put out the fire that is overtaking us.
Tzimalapa atzpa, bi nax atzpa, bi copaknax atzpa, dex atzpa, mix atzpa
(Chimalapa burns, the land burns, the planet burns, I burn, you burn).
Cover image: Residents of Unión Hidalgo peacefully protest against the cutting down of trees on communal lands for the renovation of Line K of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
In the Zapotec community of Unión Hidalgo in the municipality of Juchitán in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, residents have denounced the negative environmental impacts caused by the renovation of Line K. Line K is one of three train lines of the Interoceanic Corridor which will connect to other megaprojects like the Maya Train in the Yucatan Peninsula, and the refinery of Dos Bocas in Tabasco.
The train lines were originally built at the beginning of the 20th century becoming very important in the transportation of commodities. Use of the train was interrupted in 2005 because of damage wrought by Hurricane Stan. Currently, the train lines are being renovated by the organizational body of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT), pertaining to the Secretariat of the Navy (SEMAR).
Since February 2023, work on Line K has been done by Grupo Ferrocarrilero del Sureste (GFS), responsible for the renovation work of 472 kilometers of train line connecting Ixtepec, in the Isthmus of Oaxaca, with Ciudad Hidalgo, in Chiapas.
Map elaborated by the GeoComunes collective.
Residents of Unión Hidalgo perceive this work as major renovation, as it involves the replacement of all the materials that make up the tracks, as well as locomotives, stations, and other associated facilities.
In conversation with Avispa Midia, Édgar Martín, community organizer and land defender, resident of the Binizaá community, explains that they are even proposing the construction of military detachments run by the Secretariat of the Navy. The details regarding these detachments are very slowly coming to light as authorities have not informed the local population.
Martín says that members of the community have solicited information in relation to the scale and possible negative effects of the proposed projects, including the environmental impact report, which is an indispensable document to authorize environmental permits and give the green light for construction. The community organizer recalls that at first they appealed to the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, but they never received a response.
For his part, Óscar Marín, community member and representative of the communal lands of Unión Hidalgo, details that during a meeting with SEMAR at the beginning of 2024, the military refused to share the environmental impact report arguing that it must be solicited directly from the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT).
The residents went ahead and did that. Martín explains that the response from the environmental authorities was a surprise. They argued that SEMAR was exempt from presenting an environmental impact report. For the community organizer, this is alarming because this section of the train line is the longest of the Interoceanic Corridor extending over a coastal plain, where there is a very real threat to ecosystems like mangroves, estuaries, and rivers.
“We discovered that there is no environmental impact report, which is illegal, because the only exception possible is when there was already a previous environmental impact report. In this case there isn’t one. Legally, it is not possible for SEMAR to be exempt,” claims the community organizer
The Mexican government has announced that it seeks to finish the work in June in order to carry out tests in August, following the agenda of the President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who plans to inaugurate the first phase of the project with a visit to the Isthmus in September, just a month before finishing his term in office.
Response from SEMARNAT to the petition from the Zapotec community of Unión Hidalgo for the environmental impact report.
Consequences
Line K passes through 26 kilometers of communal lands in Unión Hidalgo. According to Édgar Martín, this represents 6% of the total amount of train line in one single community, where the impacts would affect bodies of water. In the case of Union Hidalgo, there are two estuaries, a river, and more than 20 creeks.
Beyond the lack of an environmental impact report, for the community organizer Óscar Marín, the everyday work such as welding the bridges leaves metal residues, used oil, and other toxic wastes which SEMAR has refused to clean up.
The community member also highlights the deforestation being carried out by SEMAR and GFS, “Since the beginning of their renovation work, they’ve destroyed all the trees around the train tracks,” he says.
Edgar Martín adds that, according to the community registry, there have been more than 10,000 trees cut down. In January 2024, residents of Unión Hidalgo noticed the removal of hundreds of trees in the El Palmar communal forest—common use lands of great importance for the Indigenous community—which caused indignation and action to block the workers’ camp and stop the extensive deforestation.
Environmental defenders block the path of the renovation work on Line K due to the indiscriminate cutting down of trees on communal lands in Unión Hidalgo.
Due to the protest in April, SEMAR made an agreement with the Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development in Oaxaca to carry out the production and reforestation of more than 16,000 trees. Through a letter, SEMAR solicited the intervention of the state authority to “mitigate the environmental impact in the renovation of Line K in the community of Unión Hidalgo.” The population still awaits the finalization of the renovation works to carry out the reforestation with native species.
In addition to the deforestation, for Martín, the greatest effects occurred in the hills to the south of the community. The insufficient gravel material to replace the entire embankment led SEMAR to extract gravel material from an area known as “El Barrancón,” damaging communal lands of the Zapotec community.
Residents of Unión Hidalgo surveil their territory so that SEMAR doesn’t continue extracting gravel materials. Photos: Diana Manzo
“There was a moment in which they were operating with 400 double capacity dump trucks. They were attacking two hills at the same time, with an impact that is impossible to repair,” he sustains. As a result, in October 2023, after discovering that the environmental impact report for the extraction was not authorized, residents denounced the illegal extraction.
After complaints from the Binizaá population, SEMAR and CIIT convoked a meeting to establish a dialogue and contain the protests. When they didn’t reach an agreement, in February 2024, Martín filed a writ of amparo.
The legal appeal solicited the suspension of renovation work on Line K, arguing that the extension of the authorization without an environmental impact report violates the rights to a clean environment, as well as the right to a previous consultation with Indigenous communities. In the same writ of amparo, SEMAR is accused of deforestation and ecological damage, as well as the “plunder and exploitation of El Barrancón; both without the environmental permits required by law.”
On March 5, the Seventh District Court of Oaxaca recognized the irregular operation of gravel extraction. However, Judge Mariam Fabiola Nuñez Castil refused the complete suspension of the renovation work on Line K, arguing that beyond the harm caused toward the Indigenous population, there is greater interest for society as a whole in its renovation. The judge referenced the presidential decree from May 2023 which catalogued the construction and operation of the Maya Train and the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec as projects of national security and public interest.
The resolution emphasizes the importance of the project for the federal government: “By authorizing the design, planning, implementation, construction, and operation of Line K of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, among other things, we will unite Chiapas and Oaxaca with 472 kilometers of train line, strengthening industrial activity and providing a modern and efficient alternative for national and international business.”
In spite of the suspension of the extraction of gravel materials, the devastation still affects the community. There still exists a “de facto usurpation” of the area that SEMAR has taken, because originally the right of way contemplated the use of 15 meters on both sides of the train line, taking the center of the line as reference. However, SEMAR authorities are claiming the use of 50 meters. “On the ground, through a tour of the area, we see that they are using between 50 and 100 meters,” denounces the community organizer regarding the irregularity of the renovation works.
Another community member, Marín, confirms this problem, alluding to the workers who are occupying lands outside of the established limits.
Persecution and Militarization
Édgar Martín is included in the Mechanism for the Protection for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, organized by the Secretary of Government (SEGOB). In 2022, he was victim of an assassination attempt during resistance against the transnational company Electricite de France (EDF), which sought to install a wind farm on communal lands in Unión Hidalgo.
During the last few months, due to his environmental activism, his home has been broken into twice. In addition, Martín said that on at least 20 occasions, a dump truck dumped garbage, debris, and dirt in front of his house. He describes this as harassment for his work in defense of territory.
Debris dumped in front of the house of the environmental defender Edgar Martín. Photo: Istmopress
The community organizer also points out that during the blockade against the deforestation in the communal forest of Unión Hidalgo in April, officers of the municipal police assaulted residents who protested peacefully. In this context, he explains that he is no longer protected by the Mechanism for the Protection for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.
“When I went up against the federal government, they stopped providing protection mechanisms, they left me in a vulnerable position,” he says of the risk of protesting against the Interoceanic Corridor megaproject.
For the community organizer, it is also worrying that federal authorities, in cooperation with the municipality of Juchitán, intend to install SEMAR detachments in the region. In October 2023, municipal authority Miguel Sánchez Altamirano granted a piece of land located in Pozo Peralta, less than 20 kilometers from Union Hidalgo, for the construction of a SEMAR detachment.
In an event with the presence of the Vice Admiral, Juan Carlos Vera Minjares, manager of the Unidad Coordinadora SEMAR CIIT, the municipal authority confirmed that the military detachments will “bring security to Line K of the train of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and contribute to safeguard the people of Juchitán.”
Municipal president of Juchitán during the handing over of the parcel of land to SEMAR for the installation of a military detachment.
In September 2023, SEMAR released a report where they list their works in progress including the naval station in Ixtepec and military detachments in Matias Romero and Tehuantepec.
In relation to the arming of the marines, the report assured that it provides the infantry units and naval establishments commissioned to the CIIT, and in particular to Line K, with equipment such as drones, video cameras, anti-riot security equipment, bullet proof vests and helmets.
In December 2023, during a press conference of the president, the Vice Admiral Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, General Director of the CIIT, assured that 3,000 SEMAR elements are expected to safeguard the megaproject. Furthermore, he reported the advance in the construction of the installations in Oaxaca and Veracruz, assuring that “we will establish naval stations throughout the corridor.”
“You cannot build a military installation in Indigenous territory so easily,” claims Martín, who argues that in order to establish military detachments on Unión Hidalgo lands, it would first have to get the approval of the residents of the community.
Cover image: Maya Q’eqchi’ families from the community of Buena Vista, on the north side of Lake Izabal. Photo: Juan Bautista/ Prensa Comunitaria
On the morning of Wednesday, May 22, hundreds of policemen from the National Civilian Police (PNC) of Guatemala evicted the Maya Q’eqchi’ community of Buena Vista Tzinté, located on the north side of Lake Izabal, in Guatemala.
After their previous location was declared uninhabitable by the National Coordinator for the Reduction of Disasters (CONRED) due to landslides in the Sierra Santa Cruz, since 2015, the families of Buena Vista have occupied the lands that their grandparents claimed ancestrally, and where until just a few days ago they planted food for self-sustenance.
In total, 29 families were expelled from seven caballerias (an extension of agricultural land of between 6 to 43 hectares) pertaining to the micro region “El Bongo.” This property is claimed by the agroindustrialist Luis Fernando Arriaza Migoya, owner of oil palm monoculture crops that supply the company Naturaceites, also denounced for using violence to expand its operations in the region of the Polichic Valley.
According to a report from Prensa Comunitaria, the conflict over the lands originated in 1980, when Arriaza Migoya “appropriated 7 caballerias of Bongo.” Between 2019 and 2021, the campesino families were subjected to eviction attempts by the agroindustrialists that maintain monoculture oil palm crops on those lands.
Families spent the night in the open without shelter. Photo: Prensa Comunitaria
Since 2016, the Chamber of Agriculture has accused the campesinos of invasion and land usurpation from the Tzinté Estate. Through the coffee businessman Nils Pablo Leporowski Fernández, the agroindustrial association pressured the Guatemalan judiciary to evict the families, claiming, through a complaint before the Human Rights Attorney, that the campesinos were destroying the forest.
Now, children and adults are suffering without housing after being displaced by an order emitted by judge Sandra Nineth Ayala Tello, of the Peace Court of El Estor, in response to claims of alleged environmental crimes.
A communique signed by the Comité de Unidad Campesina (CUC) asserts that this sentence is still not final, as it is currently being appealed. “Despite this, the Peace Court has proceeded with the eviction,” denounces the organization accompanied by social organizations at the international level.
The organization points out that the Tzinté Estate supplies fresh fruit bunches to the Pataxte processor, on the south side of Lake Izabal, owned by Naturaceites. In turn Naturaceites sells its palm oil to Ferrero, the third largest chocolate confectionary company in the world.
“It is clear that the eviction is being pushed by an irregular judicial order. The Tzinté Estate, where the families live, is part of a group of properties under judicial investigation for different irregularities; an investigation that still has not advanced. These actions are being pushed by occult powers that have coopted corrupt judges and courts who endorse these illegal orders,” states CUC.
Worse still, according to testimonies gathered by the journalist Carlos Ernesto Choc, in addition to the eviction, six people have arrest warrants out for them, three of them women, which has kept the campesinos in a state of alert.
State of Alert
In 2019, there was an eviction attempt against the community of Plan Grande, and Abelino Chub Caal was criminalized in the process. The historian Harald Waxenenecker presented a study to assist in the defense of Chub Caal, who was persecuted by the investment companies Cobra S.A. and Bananera de Izabal S.A., owned by Miguel Ángel Arriaza Migoya.
In his study, the historian details the family-business ties of the Arriazas, and how they obtained the estate property titles where they now produce oil palm. The document, “Relaciones sociales de poder y aprociación de recursos naturales y de la tierra en El Estor, Izabal” details the benefits granted to businessmen and military figures during and after the internal armed conflict (1960-1996), which allowed the Arriaza family to take possession of grand extensions of land.
This isn’t limited to the community of Plan Grande—and the case of Chub Caal—nor of only Buena Vista. Inhabitants of the Maya Q’eqchi’ community of Chapin Abajo, on the south side of Lake Izabal, claim that their lands were also dispossessed during the years of war. Currently they maintain processes of recuperation of their ancestral lands.
In an interview with Avispa Midia, Pedro Cuc Pan, ancestral authority of Chapin Abajo, shared the information they have received in recent days, from sources they’d like to maintain anonymous for security reasons. The Buena Vista eviction is likely to be just a prelude to new agrindusry aggressions, in complicity with the Guatemalan judiciary.
Photos: Carlos Ernesto Chuc
Photo: Festivales Solidarios
Since Friday May 17, ancestral authorities of communities around Lake Izabal have denounced the eviction threats. Worse still, they assured that the company Naturaceites seeks to capture or assassinate community leaders.
Cuc Pan details that, according to the information received, agroindutry’s plan is to detain him together with other Q’eqchi’ authorities, Pedro Choc Ico and Mariano Choc Bol. According to Cuc Pan, if they don’t capture the ancestral authorities, the company Naturaceites is willing to contract hitmen to assassinate them.
The Indigenous Q’eqchi’ authority sustains that these threats are occurring in a context of other sources of intimidation. Since January 2024, they’ve heard detonations coming from the nearby Navy yard. Cuc Pan explains that the detonations are being carried out with high caliber weaponry.
“They can capture or assassinate a couple of us, it doesn’t matter. We have men, women, youth, and children who are claiming their historical rights,” emphasizes the authority, explaining that the lands are Indigenous lands, “not what a document says, but what history says.”
On Thursday morning, May 23, ancestral authorities of Iximulew—with participation of Mayas, Xingas, and Garífunas—spoke out against what they described as the “illegal eviction” of 29 families of Buena Vista Tzinté.
Through a communique, the Ancestral Maya Q’eqchi’ Council of Estor condemned the human rights violations committed by the public prosecutor and the judge Ayala Tello. They also declared the attorney general, Consuelo Porras, non grata.
“We raise our voices as ancestral Maya Q’eqchi’ authorities in our territories. We demand respect for our rights, especially from the public prosecutor’s office. They are working at the service of corruption, organized crime, large landowners, and extractive companies. Coopted judges are criminalizing the brothers and sisters who defend mother earth and their territories,” they sustain in the document, demanding an end to the evictions and criminalization.
Cover image: Indigenous communities of Xapuri, in the Brazilian Amazon, have denounced land dispossession schemes pushed by international financial entities. Photo: GRAIN
The World Bank announced during a recent conference related to land, which took place May 13-17 in Washington, that they would increase investments in strategies and management to guarantee land tenure throughout the world. They announced in the next five years that investments would increase from $5 billion dollars to $10 billion dollars.
According to the official discourse of the financial body, the objective of the bank is to help developing countries achieve secure land tenure for all men and women.
The discussion at the conference however revolved more specifically around the necessity to guarantee land tenure throughout the world for projects that aim to mitigate climate change and promote the “energy transition.”
“We are working in 28 countries on the issue of land, and we want to duplicate that number,” days Juergen Voegele, Vice President of the World Bank. The financial body has invested $38.6 billion dollars during 2023 in initiatives related to the climate in “developing countries.” The World Bank is thus the principal international financial entity funding projects related to the “energy transition” within the guidelines of the Paris Accords.
During the conference, in the middle of discourses filled with philanthropic speeches preaching the need to protect Indigenous lands, the pragmatism of the market leapt forth. “As of today, we haven’t found the sufficient land needed for investments in renewable energy. And it is not simply that we have to get rural areas to address issues related to the environment, but that we need room for investment,” says the ex-Director of Environment and Social Policy of the World Bank, Andrew Steer, today President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, which has financed conservation projects carried out by international organizations like the WWF and Conservation International.
They not only need the lands. They need the lands to be titled as well. Why?
The discussion during the conference laid out a response to the question. In summary, poor land governance, unclear laws, and insecure land titles limit the security of the investment and access to climate project financing. Investments from the World Bank, for example, demand that the lands be titled.
According to data from the World Bank, only 30% of the population of the world have properly registered titles to their land.
“We saw that incomplete and outdated land registries cause delays and obstacles to development, with the corresponding social effects of displacement,” he said. With resources destined to land regularization by the World Bank, “we hope that it contributes to the foundation necessary allowing us to achieve the climate objectives on a world scale,” sustains the Vice President of Infrastructure the World Bank, Guangzhe Chen.
In the context of the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the maximum authority of international negotiation on climate change, land regularization is also a necessity. So much so that at COP 26 in Glasgow, the countries agreed to direct $1.7 billion dollars to land regularization, recalls Andrew Mitchell, Minister of State of the United Kingdom, one of the promoters of the conference.
Regularization to Monopolize
If for the World bank guaranteeing land tenure has meant business security for large investors, for small scale producers and organizations, Indigenous peoples, workers, and grassroots communities, it has meant land grabbing and the displacement of millions of people in the countries of the Global South.
This critique was made by 94 organizations from throughout the world just days before the beginning of the conference. The bank has promoted “the financialization of land, forests, and fisheries, transforming the traditional and customary rights of the land into private titles suitable for the market,” point out the organizations in a statement.
The organizations demand that the World Bank stay away from the lands of the communities. “The World Bank not only invests directly in land projects, but it also has a long history of promoting natural resource management via market logic…while facilitating the privatization of natural resources and their concentration in the hands of self-interested elites and corporations,” they sustain.
The World Bank’s policies of “agrarian reform assisted by the market,” with its model of “willing buyer, willing seller” promoted in different developing countries, “increased the inequality of access to land, creating the conditions for the concentration of land, in place of its redistribution.”
More recently, the financial body has become a promoter of carbon markets and other measures of market-based climate change mitigation. It is an important actor in the creation of world carbon markets through the numerous carbon trusts and financing mechanisms.
“These measures use the communities’ territories as carbon sinks for large polluters, permitting at the same time new greenhouse gas emissions and the destruction of ecosystems,” they argue.
The organizations call on states to guarantee the World Bank refrain from influencing world, regional, and national policies related to land tenure and territories, as well as climate change and the protection of biodiversity.
Furthermore, they demand that the World Bank redirect its funding related to land and climate change toward “green solutions applied by the people and the communities in their own territories.”
