Rights Action - March 15, 2011
Guatemala Impunity & Justice Watch
DEMAND JUSTICE FOR FEBRUARY 12th STUDENT MASSACRE &
FREEDOM FOR RAMIRO CHOC, AN INDIGENOUS POLITICAL PRISONER
The massacre of three university students on February 12, 2011 in Livingston (eastern Guatemala) appears to be the latest atrocity in a campaign of repression against Maya Qeqchi [pronounced kek-chi] Indigenous rights activists in Guatemala's epicenter of organized crime, the department of Izabal. In Izabal, powerful economic interests, ranging from tourism to organized crime, confront communities.
No functional justice system exists to protect the fundamental rights of communities. Rather, administration of justice officials and security forces are part of the repression.
BELOW: See article by Annie Bird
FOR MORE INFORMATION, ENGLISH & ESPANOL
Annie Bird, Washington DC, annie@rightsaction.org
Grahame Russell, Connecticut, info@rightsaction.org
* Please re-publish this information, citing author and source
* To get on/ off RA's listserv: www.rightsaction.org
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RAMIRO CHOC - A POLITICAL PRISONER - & THE FEBRUARY 12, 2011 MASSACRE OF THREE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS, IN LIVINGSTON
By Annie Bird (annie@rightsaction.org), March 15, 2011
It would be hard to imagine a more beautiful place than Livingston, Izabal. Mayan Qeqchi [pronounced kek-chi] communities live amidst the mangroves where the Rio Dulce river empties into the Caribbean.
But on this river, on February 12, 2011, three university students, Catalina Mucu Maas, Alberto Coc Caal and Sebastian Xuc Caca, were massacred while taking a motorboat home to their villages after classes in the town of Rio Dulce, their bodies left floating near the empty boat.
All three were active members of their communities, helping in the defense their fundamental land rights, promoting access to education. Catalina was a board member of the Ak Tenamit school and Sebastian was a teacher in his community of Quebrada Seca, Livingston.
The three had worked with political prisoner Ramiro Choc in defense of their lands.
Their bodies were found on the eve of the third year anniversary of the detention of Ramiro Choc, an indigenous rights activist from the region. Ramiro is currently serving an unjust six year sentence.
Precisely because of their beautiful and strategic location, communities in the area have been subject to constant intrusion by a range of economic interests, from tourism to petroleum to nickel mining to drug trafficking, particularly in the area of the Cerro San Gil where Quebrada Seca is located. In the area of Cerro San Gil, where Ramiro worked closely with communities, a series of environmental preserves and biospheres, implemented over existing indigenous territory, helped to attract vacation home investment right in Qeqchi territory. These homes are mostly owned by powerful, wealthy national elites who travel in the region by helicopter and yacht, but also by international tourists.
Though the students' killers have not been identified, many suspect the powerful interests in conflict with their communities.
JUSTICE IN A NARCO-STATE
Pretty much everyone in Guatemala knows that the department of Izabal is the heart of drug trafficking. The most important, longest running organized crime families are based out of Izabal and neighboring Zacapa. It is not a coincidence that this area is renowned as the region from which a disproportionate number of military officers originate.
Organized crime is the de facto government in the region, they control the justice system; judges, prosecuting attorneys and police, let alone operating their own hit squads. This has allowed organized crime to take territorial control, threatening, torturing, killing and massacring anyone who got in their way with absolute impunity.
Control of land is a critical issue for drug traffickers, and Izabal, which spans Guatemala's Caribbean coast and has a long border with Honduras, is strategic. Drug traffickers have a longstanding practice of taking any farm they want, at times altering land titling records, but more frequently buying farms by threatening those who refuse to sell, or killing them and buying it from their widows. Several years ago traffickers in Izabal are reported even to have created a land purchase program in which they lend money to farmers to buy land, gaining control of the community through their mortgage, and laundering money to boot.
The significant degree of corruption and control of the justice system exercised by organized crime is taken advantage of by other big money interests in the area, like mining, tourism, and banana production, allowing them to undertake illegal actions and trample the rights of communities with impunity.
WHO IS Ramiro Choc?
Ramiro Choc's case received disproportionate coverage in the Guatemalan press, where it has been misrepresented and manipulated. He has been presented as the leader of an armed movement, paraded in shackles when moved, used as a tool to demonstrate hardline law enforcement against someone who in reality is a peaceful, indigenous rights activist, while extrajudicial executions of those close to him remain in impunity.
Ramiro, a Maya Qeqchi man born and raised in El Estor, worked with the parish in El Estor in 1992-93 on land issues and income generating projects, and went in representation of the Church to one of the early General Assemblies of the National Indigenous Campesino Council, CONIC. In the General Assembly the people from the Polochic Valley asked Ramiro to become the regional coordinator for CONIC. He began to work full time with CONIC out of Guatemala City, where he met his wife Isabel Solis.
In 1999, the couple had their first child, and decided that Ramiro would quit his job at CONIC, with whom he had had some differences of opinion, and take care of the couple's baby, while Isabel continued working.
In 2000, Ramiro was arrested in Puerto Barrios in relation to a land conflict in which he had accompanied the communities involved as part of his work with CONIC, and CONIC helped secure Ramiro's quick release. At that time, the communities of Livingston came together to support Ramiro, and asked him to continue to accompany them, on his own.
WHAT WAS RAMIRO DOING in Livingston?
Between 2000 and 2007 Ramiro supported and accompanied the traditional community authorities in the Maya Qeqchi communities of Livingston, mostly in the area of Cerro San Gil. He gave workshops about indigenous rights and agrarian law; he accompanied the communities in negotiations with State officials in the defense of their territories.
In June 2007, Ramiro and the community leaders he worked with carried out a regional meeting of communities, an "encuentro campesino." Around the time of this meeting a violent illegal eviction occurred in the community of Barrio de Buena Vista, a community adjoining the town of Livingston. During the illegal, forced eviction, in which a reported 400 soldiers and police attacked 80 families and destroyed their homes, an eight year old child was killed.
Silvia Lemus Solorzano de Castellan, a powerful local woman, claimed rights over the land, though land studies have shown that this is a part of the municipal land title and the mayor backs that assertion.
Many communities, particularly indigenous communities, throughout Guatemala are located on lands registered to the municipal government, but are recognized as the land owners.
Ramiro heard about the eviction and visited the community at that time.
THE AGRARIAN SECRETARY ASKS RAMIRO TO MEDIATE A CONFLICT IN BARRIO BUENA VISTA
About two weeks later, on June 27, 2007 Ramiro was in the community of Quebrada Seca in the area of Cerro San Gil, in a meeting about a land conflict negotiation process he had been accompanying. He received a call from the Agrarian Issues Secretariat (SAA) asking him to come to Barrio de Buenavista to translate and moderate in a crisis. He traveled an hour in boat to come to the assistance of the Agrarian Secretary.
When he arrived he learned that in the morning three local hit men, or private security guards, depending on who you talk to, came into Barrio de Buenavista firing off their guns and looking for the community leaders. The community had recently resettled the land after the violent attack earlier in the month. A large group came together to wrestle the guns from the three men and tie them up. In the struggle, several community members were injured by the gunmen's machetes.
People ran to the closest police station, which was the Politur or the Tourism Police, who told the people they could not intervene since they only protected tourists.
The community began calling all the authorities they knew from their land conflict negotiation table - the mayor, the Governor, the Agrarian Secretary, the Human Rights Procurators Office, etc. The first to arrive was a functionary from the Agrarian Secretary office, but according to the community he arrived with a very abusive attitude, ordering the people to release the detained gunmen and threatening that if they did not do so immediately he would rip up the agreements from the negotiation table, while using racial pejoratives. In reaction, the community captured him and tied him up.
Ramiro arrived around noon, and negotiations lasted from noon until about 5pm. The gunmen were turned over to the authorities and the functionary from the Agrarian Secretary office was released, agreements were drawn up and signed by those present.
Following that incident, Lemus de Castellan perceived Ramiro to lead the community with which she was in conflict, and brought charges against him.
POLICE ARREST, BEAT AND ATTEMPT TO EXECUTE RAMIRO
In September, Ramiro heard a rumor that an arrest warrant had been issued against him, but he was never served notice to appear before a judge as would have been required by law.
On February 14, 2008 Ramiro was aboard a bus to Guatemala City from Rio Dulce that was stopped by the police. Ramiro called one of the community leaders he worked with in Livingston to inform him the bus had been stopped and that he might be arrested.
Agents of Politur took him to an alley behind the police station in Rio Dulce and beat him. They then put him back into the police car and took him to a field between Rio Dulce and La Ruidosa, telling him "Your day has come," "You end here", etc. He told the police they could kill him if they wanted but that they should know that he had made a call, so people knew that he detained by the police. They reviewed his cellular phone and noted the call.
They returned him to the police car, and discussed taking him to a river that is more hidden, when they began receiving phone calls, telling them that communities in Livingston had occupied the Justice of the Peace office, demanding Ramiro's release. Five hours after his detention, the police took him to the courthouse in Puerto Barrios.
However, they did not register his detention there, rather they drove him out toward Zacapa, and at the turn into the town of Morales, stopped and waited for a judge who arrived with papers for him to sign. They struck him and then held a gun to his head while he called the people occupying the Livingston Justice of the Peace to ask them to leave the building. The police promised the communities he would be released the next day. They continued on to the courthouse in Zacapa, where he was held for five days before being presented before a judge.
COMMUNITIES UNDERTAKE ACTIONS DEMANDING RAMIRO'S RELEASE
Communities in Izabal know that many of the frequent massacres and killings in Izabal are carried out by or in the presence of police. The communities were concerned for Ramiro Choc's safety and undertook a series of actions aimed at raising the profile of his case, insuring his safety and to gain his release.
Based on Ramiro's testimony, it is clear that their first action, on February 14, 2008, when communities spontaneously occupied the Justice of the Peace office in Rio Dulce at the time of Ramiro's arrest, saved his life at that time.
Two subsequent actions however made national headlines and contributed to the misrepresentation of Ramiro in the press. Also, it is more than clear that Ramiro was not implicated in the actions undertaken by communities given that he was being illegally held, in abusive conditions, when they occurred.
During the evening of February 20, 2008 Ramiro was taken from the holding cell in Zacapa. The following day, when Ramiro's whereabouts and safety were still unclear to those close to him, communities in El Estor took over police station in Puerto Barrios, demanding Ramiro's release. According to press reports 29 police officers were disarmed, moved into a boat, and held in a community; however events are still unclear. Apparently no charges have been filed in relation to this incident.
The government brought a delegation of the communities in a helicopter to Guatemala City to negotiate with the Vice President, Governance Minister, Defense Minister, etc. The community representatives arrived at 9pm and by 3am they left the discussions when it became clear that Ramiro would not be released and that he was being held in a detention center in Guatemala City.
Then March 14, 2008, press reports indicated that communities had taken four Belgian tourists hostage, demanding Ramiro's release. Community members claim that the tourists were never held against their will, that the community approached the Belgians on the beach, explained their problems and asked them for their solidarity in accompanying them for a while to help them pressure the government. In this version, the Belgians went willingly and were not held against their will, though the tour guide and boat driver did not want to go but would not leave the tourists. Apparently there were no legal complaints filed by the tourists against the communities.
On March 18, 2008 the Prensa Libre, Guatemala's largest circulation newspaper, indicated that on March 15, 2008, Adolfo Ich, a teacher in El Estor and Ramiro's brother in law, and catholic priest Daniel Vogt led a mob of 250 Qeqchi people with the intention of taking over the police post in the town of Chichipate.
At that very time Daniel Vogt was giving mass in his parish, several hours from El Estor. Moreover, no police post existed in Chichipate.
Adolfo Ich cannot tell his version of that day as he was shot in the head by HudBay Minerals/ CGN nickel mine security officers on September 27, 2009.
RAMIRO'S WIFE KIDNAPED AND MARIO CAAL EXTRAJUDICIALLY EXECUTED BY GUATEMALAN MARINES
On March 14, 2009, the first day of Holy Week, a national holiday, Ramiro's wife Isabel went from her home in Guatemala City, where she studies law and cares for her children, to El Estor to spend Holy Week with her husband's family. She heard on the radio that four Belgian tourists had been taken hostage by people asking for Ramiro Choc´s release, and immediately called Mario Caal, a community leader Ramiro had worked with, to find out what was going on. He suggested she come out to Livingston. He picked her up in boat in Rio Dulce, less than an hour from El Estor, and they went out to Punta Arena, his home town.
As they were pulling up to the dock, they noticed a Marine boat following them. Later they heard shots and saw 5 to 10 Marines leaving the community; they realized the Marines must have docked behind the community. They then saw many more Marine boats arriving and they called the Human Rights procurators office to ask for help. Just as the Human Rights Procurator was arriving, the Marines started throwing gas canisters and entering the community, two men were detained.
Isabel was sitting on the dock, the only spot in the community that had cellular phone service, when Marines threw her onto the Marine boat where they were holding a man and a boy they had detained.
The Marine boat pulled out, and Isabel assumed she was being taken to Puerto Barrios, but the boat stopped in the middle of the river. The boat sat there from about 6:30 pm to about midnight when a functionary from the PDH arrived and asked them to sign some papers. They left and returned to take Isabel and the two men off the boat, at that point the PDH representative told Isabel that this was an exchange, trading Isabel for the Belgian tourists.
THE KILLING OF MARIO CAAL
During the attack on Punta Arena, Marines killed Mario Caal. Family members called the Public Prosecutor to pick up the body but he refused to come. Finally, three days later, on March 17, the PDH picked up the body.
The communities of Nueva Generación, Puntarenas, Creek Maya and El Cedro were attacked in a similar manner on March 14, 2008.
RAMIRO'S "TRIAL"
Over a year after his detention, in February 2009, Ramiro Choc was put on trial. For approximately 6 months of his detention he had been held in a cell in which he did not have room to move around.
Ramiro was charged with Land Usurpation, Illegal Detention and Aggravated Robbery, all in relation to the June 27, 2007 incident in Barrio de Buena Vista. He was condemned to 8 years in prison for Aggravated Robbery; the notoriously corrupt Prosecuting Attorneys from Livingston claimed Ramiro had instructed the community members in Barrio de Buena Vista to steal guns from the police during the June 27, 2007 incident.
Interestingly, no police ever showed up to intervene in the conflict, the Governess testified that she had never been notified of missing firearms, and the police were unable to supply any type of registration or inventory information proving the existence of the guns supposedly stolen.
ADOLFO ICH's KILLING
On September 27, 2009, Qeqchi communities protested what appeared to be an illegal attempted eviction by the Governess of Izabal and private security guards employed by CGN Nickel Company, property of Canadian nickel giant HudBay Minerals. When the private security guards and paramilitaries opened fire on protesters close to a soccer game by local students, Adolfo Ich, a local teacher, ran into the scene of the shooting, looking for the head of the security force.
When Adolfo found the head of Security, Mynor Padilla, he identified himself by name and as the teacher, and explained there was a soccer match going on and to please stop shooting. Witness claim that Padilla then said Adolfo, I have been looking for you, and shot him in the head. Several were injured that day, and one young soccer player lost use of his legs.
Adolfo Ich was Ramiro's brother in law, a known and trusted community leader and an outspoken critic of the forced evictions and other human rights violations caused by a series of nickel mining companies, from INCO (in the 1970s and 80s), through Skye Resources, to HudBay Minerals. Just weeks before his killing he had guided representatives of Amnesty International Spain around El Estor demonstrating the negative impacts of the HudBay nickel mine.
Miraculously, Adolfo survived the shooting, and his son was able to reach him and speak with him. The family desperately called for medical assistance, but apparently the Guatemalan army, police, the HudBay security guards and paramilitaries blocked entry for ambulances. While pleading with the Human Rights Procurators office to intercede to permit medical attention, the family was told that an ambulance would be allowed to enter if the "turned over their guns." It was later asserted in the press that protesters had stolen weapons from a nearby police post.
CRIMINALIZATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS
The events over the past three years in Izabal demonstrate a pattern of criminalizing indigenous community leaders with unsubstantiated accusations, constructing the false impression of an armed movement. Press and the justice system have both participated in the distortion reality in portraying indigenous rights defenders, criminalizing human rights defense.
Corruption of the justice system allows it to be used as a means of repression of human rights defenders, particularly land rights defenders, while it allows powerful interests, like mining companies, tourism investors and organized crime networks to commit acts of violence, murder, fraud, environmental destruction and other crimes with impunity. At the same time the poor and indigenous are given heavy sentences for clearly trumped up charges in processes riddled with illegal actions by justice administrators.
Ramiro Choc's case is just one of many cases of criminalization of human rights defenders.
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WHAT TO DO
FUNDS NEEDED - tax deductible donations
Rights Action asks for financial support to support the work of the provisional El Estor Defense Committee in Guatemala that promotes community controlled development, indigenous and human rights and the environment, and that seeks justice for the crimes set out in this article. Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:
CANADA: 552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: Go to www.rightsaction.org, or directly to: http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm
DONATION OF STOCK?: Contact Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org
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LETTER
Please send letters, similar to the one below, to the following official, asking that international investors, whose interests escalate the violence, be warned not to invest in the region, urging:
the release of Ramiro Choc
prosecution for February 12, 2011 university student massacre
prosecution for the September 27, 2009 extrajudicial execution of Adolfo Ich
prosecution for the March 14, 2009 extrajudicial execution of Mario Caal
prosecution for the January 2007 gang rapes of women in the Lote 8 community by soldiers, police and HudBay/ CGN private security forces
Mr. Michael Posner
Assistant Secretary of State
Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
millermg@state.gov; MaggioGF@state.gov
Dear Sir:
I write to call your attention to the February 12, 2011 massacre of three university students, Catalina Mucu Maas, Alberto Coc Caal and Sebastian Xuc Caca in Izabal, Guatemala.
This atrocity was just the latest example of ongoing repression of indigenous rights activists from the area of Izabal, Guatemala. Examples of other repression include the ongoing imprisonment of human rights activist Ramiro Choc, the extrajudicial execution of Mario Caal on March 14, 2008, the killing of Adolfo Ich on September 27, 2009, and the documented pattern of gang rapes of women by security forces in the hire of mining companies.
I urge you to warn investors in that region that the justice system is not capable of protecting the fundamental rights of communities who may be impacted by 'development' investment, and to express your concern to the Guatemalan government about these abuses, urging the release of Ramiro Choc and prosecution of the atrocities.
Sincerely,
[your name]
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, ENGLISH & ESPANOL
Annie Bird, Washington DC, annie@rightsaction.org
Grahame Russell, Connecticut, info@rightsaction.org
* Please re-publish this information, citing author and source
* To get on/ off RA's listserv: www.rightsaction.org