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"A PEOPLE DAMMED: THE CHIXOY DAM, GUATEMALAN MASSACRES AND THE WORLD BANK"

- By Matt Pacenza
Published in the Multi-National Monitor, in 1997. [202-387-8030. monitor@essential.org]

PACUX, Guatemala

Manuel and Lucio would like to forget what happened to their village of Rio Negro in 1982. They are tired of the nightmares and headaches that accompany their memories. But the first sight that greets them each morning when they leave their huts -- the shimmering waters of the Chixoy Reservoir -- brings it all flooding back.

For Lucio, Manuel and other survivors of the 1982 Rio Negro massacres, the waters of the Chixoy [chee-SHOY] do not represent the "progress" -- cheap, bountiful and sustainable electricity -- that World Bank, [Inter-American Development Bank] and Guatemalan authorities promised them. Rather, they remember the destruction of family, land and livelihood that the project brought them. Water is not the only substance that they see each morning, for, in their eyes, "the Chixoy reservoir was built with the blood of our people."

The blood flowed heaviest on March 13, 1982. "I lost more than 80 family members that day," Lucio says. "I had a large family -- many aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews. So many were killed. Today we are few."

Manuel was an eyewitness to that massacre. The Guatemalan Armed Forces and local civil defense patrol units forced him and nearly 200 Rio Negro women and children to gather together outside their homes in north-central Guatemala. Telling them that they were being brought to a "meeting," soldiers marched them several hours up a steep hill above their riverside community until they arrived at a place known as Pacoxom.

"There they began to rape the women, and to kill," remembers Manuel. "They killed them in so many ways," Lucio interjects. He watched the violence from a hiding place on a nearby hill. "Some were shot, others had their throats slit with a machete. Some were strangled, or beaten with rocks and rifle butts. They killed the children by smashing their heads against the rocks. Because their skulls were so tender, they died instantly."

Manuel says softly, "That's how one of the civil patrollers killed my younger brother. I was running after him, and watched him pick my brother up by the ankles and smash his head into a rock."

In total, the patrollers and soldiers killed 178 people in Rio Negro on March 13, 1982: 70 women, 107 children and an old man who was forced into a canvas sack and thrown off a cliff. In a series of massacres later that year, they killed hundreds more in Rio Negro and neighboring villages.

"What happened to Rio Negro in 1982 was so unjust," Lucio says, "but we were not innocent. We had committed many crimes: the crime of being indigenous, the crime of being Catholic, and most importantly the crime of being united, of working together to fight that cursed dam."

The "cursed dam" was part of the Chixoy Hydroelectric Project, a massive dam, reservoir and power station built by the Guatemala state electricity company (INDE) with funding and technical support from the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank. The village of Rio Negro stood in the path of the project.

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DEVELOPMENT DREAM OR NIGHTMARE?

The [Banks] counseled Guatemala that the Chixoy project would bring the poor Central American nation cheap, sustainable power. Soon after Guatemalan authorities announced their plans to build this "development dream," the World Bank promised $72 million and the IDB $105 million, although adequate feasibility and social and environmental impact studies had not been conducted.

One example of the planning flaws that characterized the Chixoy project: neither INDE nor the [Banks] consulted the people that lived along the river to be flooded by the Chixoy dam. Almost two years after project construction began, in 1977, INDE officials flew by helicopter into the small village of Rio Negro to inform residents that they would need to abandon their homelands.

These Maya Achi people had maintained a rich cultural heritage along the fertile banks of the Rio Chixoy for hundreds of years. "Life was hard, but it was good," one elder remembers. "People were content. Everyone lived nearby, we all knew each other, and we lived peacefully."

Rio Negro villagers were angered by the abrupt announcement that they would soon need to leave their land. "Many people did not want to leave and stood up for their rights," Lucio remembers. He was a leader of a committee chosen by the community to negotiate with INDE. The people of Rio Negro drew upon a long history of collective organization -- community work, education and health projects promoted primarily by the Catholic Church -- to support their struggle with INDE.

INDE and the Rio Negro committee reached an agreement on a resettlement package in 1980. However, when the people of Rio Negro saw the rocky, marginal land that was supposed to sustain them in their new lives -- the farm of Pacux -- they refused to leave Rio Negro unless they were provided with basic resources needed -- fertile land and water -- to rebuild their lives.

Lucio recalls how INDE responded, "They told us, 'If you don't leave, we'll send the army to drive you out with bullets.' And that's what happened."

Violence first struck on March 4, 1980, when three INDE security officials arrived in the community to arrest several community members for stealing from a local store. "We told the soldiers to leave," one resident recalls. "They began shooting, killing seven of us, and then they attempted to flee. One escaped, the second we caught and later released and the third drowned in the river. For this, we were accused of murder."

In July 1980, two Rio Negro committee members went to meet with INDE officials at the dam site. They were carrying the community's only records of the resettlement and cash payment agreements that had been reached with INDE. Both men "disappeared." Their heavily tortured bodies were found a week later. The records were never recovered.

These acts of violence terrorized the people of Rio Negro, and peaceful efforts at negotiation broke down. Stubbornly, they remained on their land, hoping that a miracle would allow them to stay. Project construction continued and, by the start of 1982, was nearing completion. The people of Rio Negro were in the way, and that year they paid the price.

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