Rights Action - June 15, 2011
Impunity Watch in Guatemala

CHIXOY HYDRO-ELECTRIC DAM
JUSTICE DELAYED, 30 YEARS AND COUNTING

BELOW
An open letter to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Organization of American States.

Please consider making this campaign your own campaign.  Please write to the WB, IDB and OAS at the addresses, below.

MORE INFORMATION
Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org
Annie Bird, co-director, annie@rightsaction.org

* * * * * * *
  
June 15, 2011

CHIXOY HYDRO-ELECTRIC DAM
REPARATIONS & COMPENSATION CAMPAIGN

JUSTICE 30 YEARS DELAYED & COUNTING

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

Sr. Felipe González, President
Inter-American Commission for Human Rights
1889 F Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C., 20006, U.S.A.
cidhdenuncias@oas.org

President Robert Zoellick
The World Bank
1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
Sr. Anabela Garcia-Abreu, BM en Guatemala, Abreu@worlbank.org
Fernando Paredes, BM en Guatemala, fparedes@worldbank.org
C. Felipe Jaramillo, BM, Departamento de America Central, cjaramillo@worldbank.org

President Luis Alberto Moreno
Inter-American Development Bank
1300 New York Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20577
Juan José Taccone, BID en Guatemala, JOSET@iadb.org
Hugo Amador Us Alvarez, BID  en Guatemala, HUGOU@iadb.org

* * * * * * * * * *

To officials from:

The World Bank
The Inter-American Development Bank
The Organization of American States,

With urgency, we write again.  We wrote the WB and the IDB about this in February 2011 - and got form letters back!

It is wrong that 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, a project of the WB and the IDB.

This was your project.  This was your investment financing.  Both your banks profited from these investments.  It is imperative and urgent that the IDB and WB do everything possible to make this right.

Along the Chixoy river in central Guatemala (bordering the departments of Baja Verapaz and Quiche), where your 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

This was your project.  There would not have been a Chixoy hydro-electric dam without the investment funds and initiative of the IDB and WB.  Between your banks, you provided hundreds of millions in investment funds.

You chose to partner in this project with a military regime.  At that time, Guatemala was not controlled even by the fiction of a civilian government.  Furthermore, as is widely known, you partnered with the Guatemala military regime during the very worst years of its State terrorism, repression and genocide carried out against its own population.

The Rabinal municipality, where you 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.

Your banks should never have invested in and pushed for this project, partnering with this brutal military regime.  What kind of "development" do you think this regime was interested in?  Once you started this project, your banks should have stopped this project when the repression predictably began in the villages in the dam basin area.

You did not.  Well after the massacring of 444 Rio Negro villagers (the last massacre was in September 1982), your 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 still you have not done everything in your power and authority 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 your banks 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 your wealth and influence, and because your 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, 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 your 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.

You should have.  Your banks partner with the military government of Guatemala to implement this project.  Your banks are co-responsible for the entire project, along with the government of Guatemala.  The project was your initiative, your investment funds, your oversight.

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

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

And while you have now "observed" for 7 more years, your banks have still not done everything you can and should to ensure 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/informedeidentificacionyverificacionaprobado-final-[1].pdf)  Your 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.  Your banks signed on to this report, as "observers".

2011 - STILL WAITING

And still your 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 IDB and WB to stop hiding behind their wall 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 lots more information about this issue and would be glad to respond to your questions or queries ... but, in fact, you know very well about this issue.

You know who, in Guatemala and the Chixoy Dam affected communities, that you must respond to and you know what to do. 

Grahame Russell
Rights Action co-director
860-352-2448, info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org

(& Annie Bird, co-director, annie@rightsaction.org)

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * *