OPEN LETTER TO THE WB & THE IDB

AS A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE: 
JUSTICE & REPARATIONS NOW, 30 YEARS DELAYED, FOR MAYAN-ACHI VICTIMS OF THE CHIXOY DAM PROJECT IN GUATEMALA

October 12, 2011

President Robert Zoellick
The World Bank
1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
tel: (202) 473-1000

President Luis Alberto Moreno
Inter-American Development Bank
1300 New York Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20577
lmoreno@iadb.org,
tel: (202) 623-1000

Dear friends:

As a matter of conscience, we ask that the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) do the right thing - 30 years later - and provide full compensation and reparations to the surviving Mayan Achi family members of the Chixoy dam harmed and disappeared communities in Guatemala.

We, the undersigned, are pursuing this issue before the IACHR (Inter-American Commission of Human Rights), aiming to have the IACHR and then, possibly, the IACourtHR (Inter-American Court of Human Rights) hold the WB and the IDB legally accountable for the harms and damages caused by the Chixoy dam.

Below, you will find a copy of the Appeal letter, submitted to the IACHR, and a letter we sent your banks earlier this year, that provides extensive background information about the Chixoy dam debacle.

However, as a matter of conscience, we urge the WB and the IDB to do the right thing now.

COORDINADORA DE COMUNIDADES AFECTADAS POR LA HIDROELÉCTRICA CHIXOY

As your Banks know, the main organization representing the Chixoy dam harmed communities is COCAHICH, the Coordinadora de Comunidades Afectadas por la Hidroeléctrica Chixoy.

The WB and the IDB know that, as set out in the previous letter we sent you (below), agreements have been reached as to the harms and destruction caused and to the reparations that should be paid, ... BUT nothing has been done.

In the name of the rights and well-being of indigenous peoples, the IDB and the WB should do the right thing and work with the government of Guatemala to implement the reparations plan.

Communicate directly with COCAHICH: Carlos Chen (5190-7833; c.chenachi@yahoo.es) and Juan de Dios (4008-5242, chixoy75@hotmail.com)

* * *

We would be glad to answer any question you have, or provide more background information about this "development" project debacle.

Grahame Russell, Co-director
Rights Action
Box 50887
Washington DC, 20091, USA
Box 552, 351 Queen St. E
Toronto ON, M5A-1T8, Canada
info@rightsaction.org

Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director
Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
8 N. 2nd Avenue E., Suite 208
Duluth, MN, 55802, USA
Bret@globalinitiative-escr.org

Lauren Carasik, Director
International Human Rights Clinic
Western New England University School of Law
1215 Wilbraham Road
Springfield, MA, 01119, USA
lcarasik@law.wne.edu

***********************

APPEAL / PETITION:
to the INTER-AMERICAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - IACHR

Concerning the Illegal, Forced Evictions and Other Human Rights Violations Caused by the Chixoy Hydro-electric Dam in Guatemala, a Development-Investment project of the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank in partnership with Successive Military Regimes (1975-1985)
September 27, 2011

Santiago A. Canton
Executive Secretariat, IACHR
Felipe González
President, IACHR
1889 F Street, NW
Washington, DC, 20006, USA
cidhdenuncias@oas.org

José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General
Organization of American States (OAS)
1889 F Street, NW
Washington, DC, 20006, USA
svillagran@oas.org

Re: Appeal of the IACHR decision, reported 12 June 2009, whereby the Secretariat of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) summarily rejected the case of Sobrevivientes de la Comunidad de Río Negro y otras comunidades similares en Guatemala, P-894-04, Guatemala.

Estimados Santiago A. Canton and other members of the IACHR,

With this letter, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Global Initiative for ESCR), Rights Action, and the International Human Rights Clinic at Western New England University School of Law (Human Rights Clinic at WNEU) formally appeal the decision reported 12 June 2009 whereby the Secretariat of the IACHR summarily rejected the admissibility of the case of Sobrevivientes de la Comunidad de Río Negro y otras comunidades similares en Guatemala, P-894-04, because it ostensibly failed to satisfy the requirements of Art. 26 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission, and other applicable instruments.

We have repeatedly requested specific information from the Secretariat on why this petition was summarily rejected, but have not received a response to letters that were sent to the Secretariat (18 June 2009 and 27 July 2009) and to the member of the Commission responsible for Guatemala (19 June 2009).

The Global Initiative for ESCR is continuing human rights cases originally brought by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE).  Bret Thiele, original lead lawyer with COHRE in this petition to the IACHR (#P-894-04), continues in this capacity, now with the Global Initiative for ESCR.

Rights Action originally intervened as amicus curiae in support of this case.  The Human Rights Clinic WNEU is joining to assist Rights Action and the Global Initiative for ESCR in this appeal.

We appeal the decision of the Secretariat of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) as regards the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), being co-defendants in the original petition.

We are not at this time appealing the decision as regards the Republic of Guatemala.

We delayed appealing this decision, to give the Secretariat of the IACHR an opportunity to respond to our requests for specific information on the rejection of this petition and also to allow negotiations between the Chixoy Dam harmed and affected communities and the Republic of Guatemala to progress.

We have now concluded that specific information from the Secretariat of the IACHR is not forthcoming and that the negotiations failed to hold the WB and IDB, and specifically the States on the Executive Boards of Directors of the two banks that have human rights obligations under the Inter-American human rights system, accountable for their respective roles in the human rights violations suffered by the Chixoy Dam harmed and affected communities.

As part of the appeal, we re-submit the original petition and supplementary briefs as well as the amicus curiae brief of Rights Action.  We stand by the facts included therein and we stand by the legal arguments as to why the WB and the IDB should be held accountable.  We also reserve the right to provide updated and supplementary materials that we hope will inform the IACHR if this appeal is accepted.

30 YEARS - JUSTICE, ACCOUNTABILITY & REPARATIONS DELAYED

Almost 30 years after the so-called completion of the Chixoy Dam project, no reparations or compensation have been provided, whatsoever, to the thousands of Maya Achi families, from 32 communities, whose lives and livelihoods were illegally harmed and destroyed to varying degrees.

This was a development-investment project of the WB and the IDB, in partnership with successive Guatemalan military regimes, that resulted in widespread and grave human rights violations in addition to other environmental, social and economic harms.

These are the same military regimes (1978-1983) that the United Nations Truth Commission (1999) found guilty of planning and carrying out acts of genocide in certain Mayan regions of Guatemala, including the very region (of the Mayan Achi people) where the Chixoy Dam project was planned and carried out with such brutality.

To date, no justice has been done to remedy the violations and harms; and no reparations and compensation have been provided for the victims.

With this appeal we hope that the IACHR will finally examine the facts of this situation and hold all of those responsible accountable for their respective obligations under the Inter-American human rights system.

Sincerely,

Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director
Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
8 N. 2nd Avenue E., Suite 208
Duluth, MN, 55802, USA
Bret@globalinitiative-escr.org

Grahame Russell, Co-director
Rights Action
Box 50887
Washington DC, 20091, USA
Box 552, 351 Queen St. E
Toronto ON, M5A-1T8, Canada
info@rightsaction.org

Lauren Carasik, Director
International Human Rights Clinic
Western New England University School of Law
1215 Wilbraham Road
Springfield, MA, 01119, USA
lcarasik@law.wne.edu

****************************

BACKGROUND

Earlier this year, Rights Action sent this Open Letter to the WB, IDB and OAS, concerning the "Chixoy Hydro-electric Dam: Justice & Reparations Delayed, 30 Years and Counting".

We did not hear back from anyone, neither from the OAS, nor the WB, nor the IDB, except a one-paragraph letter from Pamela Cox, vice-president of Latin American and the Caribbean Regional Office of the World Bank, saying:

"we [World Bank] share your interest in seeing a prompt and satisfactory outcome of this process for the affected Chixoy communities."

Prompt? Satisfactory?

No reparations or compensation have been paid, at all, and almost 30 years have gone by.

*************

OPEN LETTER

June 13, 2011

CHIXOY HYDRO-ELECTRIC DAM: JUSTICE & REPARATIONS DELAYED, 30 YEARS & COUNTING, FOR MAYAN-ACHI PEOPLE OF GUATEMALA that were illegally & forcibly displaced, harmed & massacred to make way for the 1975-1983 Chixoy hydro-electric dam project

OEA

Roberto Menéndez,  Mediador de la OEA de la mesa política de negociación caso Chixoy, RMenendez@oas.org
Sr. Víctor Rico, Secretario de Asuntos Políticos de la OEA, Vrico@oas.org
Sr. Christopher Hernández, Director del Departamento de Sustentabilidad Democrática y Misiones Especiales Chernandez@oas.org
Sr. José Miguel Insulza,  Secretario General de la OEA, Jinsulza@oas.org

Copias a: Oficiales del gobierno de Guatemala, del Banco Mundial, del Banco Inter-Americano de Desarrollo

Dear OAS officials:

With urgency, we write.

Since 2005, the OAS has been mediating the Chixoy Dam Reparations and Compensation negotiations. As of today, while many meetings have been held, while much has been achieved, on paper, nothing has come from this!

The OAS must to everything it can to pressure the government of Guatemala, the WB and the IDB to provide full compensation and reparations to the Chixoy dam affected communities.

It is wrong that the government of Guatemala, the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have not done everything possible to ensure that full compensation and reparations are paid to the thousands of impoverished Mayan-Achi campesinos illegally and forcibly evicted from their villages along the Chixoy river, 30 years ago, to make way for the construction of the Chixoy hydro-electric dam.

This was a project of government of Guatemala, and of the two banks. This was the banks' investment financing. Both banks profited financially from these investments.

Along the Chixoy river in central Guatemala (bordering the departments of Baja Verapaz and Quiche), where the dam was built, some 32 remote, poor Mayan villages were devastated by this project (1975-1983). Most harmed villages were in the flood basin up river from the 125 meter high dam wall. Many were illegally forced to leave; others lost much of their lands and/or were cut off from and isolated by the existence of the flood basin.

Seven villages are down river from the dam wall. As this "development" project completely diverted the river, drying up some 40 kilometers of the Chixoy river, they have lived in dry conditions ever since. These 7 communities were not "forcibly evicted", their river and livelihood simply dried up.

COMPREHENSIVE LOSSES & DESTRUCTION - INCLUDING MASSACRES

In varying degrees, the 32 communities lost: homes and personal property; land and territory; access to water and arable land; animals and trees - everything. Not one of the communities was ever properly or legally relocated to homes and lands of equal or better quality than what they were forced to leave.

In the community of Rio Negro - that peacefully resisted being illegally and forcibly evicted -, 444 villagers were massacred over the course of 5 massacres in 1981 and 1982. There is no doubt this targeted repression was linked to the level of community organization and opposition to being forcibly relocated.

For all of the above, no justice has been done for the forced evictions and comprehensive losses, let alone for the repression and massacres. No adequate reparations or compensation have been provided to the victims for loss of homes, land and territory, access to water and arable land, animals, trees, personal property.

In every community, their lives today remain considerably worse, in every way, than they ever were before this project.

PARTNERSHIP WITH & PROFIT FROM A MILITARY REGIME

There would not have been a Chixoy hydro-electric dam without the investment funds and initiative of the IDB and WB. Between the banks, they provided hundreds of millions in investment funds and partnered in the project with a series of military regimes. At that time, Guatemala was not controlled even by the fiction of a civilian government.

Furthermore, as is widely known, the banks partnered with Guatemalan military regimes during the very worst years of their State terrorism, repression and genocide carried out against their own population.

The Rabinal municipality, where they built the Chixoy dam, is one of the 4 regions in Guatemala where the United Nations Truth Commission determined (1999) that genocide was planned and carried out by the regime against the local Mayan population.

The banks should never have invested in and pushed for this project, partnering with this brutal military regime.

What kind of "development" was this regime interested in?

Once the banks started this project, they should have stopped this project when the repression predictably began in the villages in the dam basin area.

They did not. Well after the massacring of 444 Rio Negro villagers (the last massacre was in September 1982), the banks made further investment dispersals to this project in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

30 YEARS LATER

Now, all this is known. The Chixoy dam case was one of the hydro-electric dam cases hi-lighted by the World Commission on Dams (1998-2001, http://www.dams.org/). Yet, neither the government of Guatemala nor the banks have taken the steps necessary to ensure that reparations and compensation are paid to the affected communities and families.

1993 - THE LONG ROAD OF TRUTH, MEMORY & JUSTICE

It has been 30 years since the debacle began and the forced evictions and atrocities occurred.

It has been 18 years since the Rio Negro massacre survivors began to exhume the mass graves where their loved ones were dumped and, in this way, begin to break years of silence since the massacres of 1981-1983, and since the Chixoy dam was completed and their lives and communities were destroyed.

Soon after the exhumations in 1993, the survivors from Rio Negro and other dam-harmed communities began the long process of telling the truth about all that was done to them, about all that they lost, and about getting justice, compensation and reparations.

As the OAS may know, Rights Action has been supporting these efforts since 1994 - beginning first with support for the Rio Negro survivors to build a monument to commemorate the lives of 177 children and women, victims of the 2nd big Rio Negro massacre, March 13, 1982.

1996 - CIRCLING THE WAGONS OF DENIAL & IMPUNITY

In 1996, Rights Action and Witness for Peace went to the first meetings with the World Bank to begin to re-dress the Chixoy dam debacle. Present at that meeting were a number of WB lawyers who sat in on the whole meeting, listening, saying not a word.

Soon after that meeting, the written response of the WB was that -1- the WB had no knowledge of the atrocities and illegal forced evictions, and -2- the WB complied with its responsibilities. It appeared then that under no circumstances were the WB and, soon after, the IDB going to publicly acknowledge any past or on-going responsibility.

There are words for this: denial and impunity. The WB and IDB have gotten away with your denial and impunity because of their wealth and influence, and because the banks are agents of the major investor countries. Presumably, the major investor countries do not want any direct and/or secondary liability for crimes, harms and/or violations committed directly or indirectly by WB and IDB projects.

* * *

To make a long story short (a story of work and struggle for memory, truth and justice, a struggle against denial and impunity), the growing clamour for truth and justice, compensation and reparations continued to grow from 1996 though to 2004. Still the government of Guatemala and your banks denied and delayed.

2004 - PEACEFUL DIRECT ACTION

On September 7, 2004, some 3000 Mayan Achi campesinos from the Chixoy-dam harmed communities staged a protest on the Chixoy dam wall. Noone was hurt; no property was destroyed; and this time, finally, their voice was really heard. From that moment forward, there began a formal Chixoy Dam Reparations Campaign.

At the same time, the Guatemala government laid trumped up criminal charges (the 'criminalization of work for human rights and social justice') against some of the community leaders, trying to weaken their unity and demands. To make another long story short, this manipulative and abusive tactic of the government failed: national and international condemnation and activism finally got these trumped charges dropped.

Finally, the government of Guatemala agreed to establish a negotiation table, to deal with the Chixoy dam harms and violations legacy issues.

At this time, the WB and the IDB - exercising their wealth and clout - refused to sit at the negotiation table as partners alongside the government of Guatemala, across the table from the dam affected communities.

They should have. The banks partnered with the military government of Guatemala to implement this project. The banks are co-responsible for the entire project, along with the government of Guatemala. The project was an initiative of the banks, with their investment funds and their oversight.

Even as both banks profited from these investments, they refused to be considered partners when it came to addressing legacy and liability issues.

However, the banks did agree to sit as "observers" at the negotiation table, moderated by the Organization of American States.

And while the "negotiations" have gone on for 7 years, the government of Guatemala and the banks have still not ensured that due compensation and reparations are paid.

2009 - OFFICIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF REPORT ON HARMS

In 2009, after 5 long years negotiations (and many delays and even deceptions from the government, all "observed" by the IDB and the WB), the government of Guatemala formally accepted the 'harms and damages' report that sets out all that was lost, destroyed, stolen or illegally confiscated. (At www.adivima.org, you can find this report: http://www.adivima.org/documentos/informes/informedeidentificacionyverif...) The banks signed on to this report, as "observers".

2010 - OFFICIAL ACKNOWLEGEMENT OF REPORT ON REPARATIONS PLAN

In 2010, the government finally accepted a comprehensive reparations plan, complete with financial amounts, community re-building plans and projects, etcetera, setting out what must be done to compensate and provide reparations for the victims. The banks signed on to this report, as "observers".

2011 - STILL WAITING

And still the banks "observe", and refuse to take direct action themselves and/ or pressure the Guatemala government to official release and set aside the funds for the plan.

ENOUGH / YA BASTA

It is long over due for the government of Guatemala, the IDB and WB stop hiding behind their walls of denial, impunity and immunity from legal accountability, and do the right thing.

The harms report and the reparations report are done. The communities are still suffering. They need and deserve to begin rebuilding new lives, 30 years later.

We have more information about this issue and would be glad to respond to your questions or queries ... but, in fact, the OAS knows very well about this issue. The OAS knows who, in Guatemala and the Chixoy Dam affected communities, that you must respond to and you know what to do.

Grahame Russell & Annie Bird
Rights Action co-directors
860-352-2448
info@rightsaction.org
www.rightsaction.org
www.facebook.org/RightsAction