RIGHTS ACTION - ACTION ALERT
November 12, 2006

GUATEMALA - XALALA DAM PROJECT: WATER PRIVITIZATION, “DEVELOPMENT” &
REPRESSION! [Chixoy Dam Revisited!]

Below, a Rights Action mini-report about violence in the area where the
construction of the huge Xalala Dam project in Guatemala is being planned
along the Chixoy River.

Please express your concern to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a
major proponent of this “development” project. Addresses and sample letter
below.

CHIXOY DAM REVISTED: the Xalala project will be built down river from the
infamous Chixoy dam, funded by the IDB and the World Bank [WB], that
resulted in the forced displacement of dozens of Mayan-Achi communities and
the massacres of hundreds of Rio Negro villagers. To this day, neither the
IDB nor the WB has given the affected communities due compensation or
reparations.

PRIVATIZATION OF WATER: The IDB is supporting the Xalala Dam, including
promoting the project in forums that bring together private investors who
would build and own the project, and Guatemalan government representatives
in charge of providing the concessions.

FORCED DISPLACEMENT: Not only will this dam displace and impoverish
thousands of Mayan-Qeqchi farmers, but it is becoming increasingly clear
that the existing conditions of violence and impunity in Guatemala cannot
protect people in the area from other gross human rights violations,
violations for which not only the Guatemalan government but also the
financiers and investors in the project must be held accountable.

***

If you want on-off this elist: info@rightsaction.org. WHAT TO DO: see
below.

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XALALA DAM PROJECT: WATER PRIVITIZATION, “DEVELOPMENT” & REPRESSION
By Rights Action, November 12, 2006

Yet another internationally funded mega “development” project has resulted
in death. Mayan communities in the area where the Xalala hydroelectric dam
construction is planned are extremely alarmed at recent violence in the area
and accusations made by the Guatemala National Institute for Electrical
Development (INDE) against community leaders from the town of Margaritas
Copon, the village situated where the actual dam would be constructed.

Though studies are underway to determine the extent of possible damages, it
appears that the construction of the dam could destroy the agricultural
lands and livelihoods of approximately 6,000 to 8,000 Mayan-Qeqchi farmers.
The affected population lives along the Chixoy river and are distributed
between the municipalities of San Miguel Uspantan (Uspantan) and the Ixcan
in the department of Quiche, and communities in the municipality of Coban in
the department of Alta Verapaz. This region is very isolated, jungle region
with no road access, and forms part of an area known as the ‘Zona Reyna’.

VILLAGE OF MARGARITAS COPON
On October 21 and 22 residents in the area witnessed a group of men, who
according to witnesses claimed to be teachers in search of jobs, pass
through villages. In Margaritas Copon, witnesses claim the group spoke only
to the family of a resident who had studied in a teaching academy with one
of the men, and then left the village.

The next day the group’s supervisor reported the disappearance of two
members of the four person team he had sent to the area. As it turned out,
the group members were employed by INDE to gather information about the
communities in the area to be negatively affected by the dam.

The other team members have widely reported on local radio the events they
claim occurred outside of Margaritas Copon. Though versions vary, they
claim that after leaving the village of Margaritas Copon they were
approached by armed men. They fled and lost track of two team members.

Though in their public declarations they do not identify community members,
their supervisor, in local radio interviews, has implicated community
leaders in the area, accusations which have been repeated in the national
press, including the mayor and the Catholic Church’ Social Outreach team.

When community leaders in the area learned of the accusations against them,
they immediately and voluntarily presented themselves in the District
Attorney’s office on October 27, accompanied by members of the municipal
government and social organizations. At that time all became alarmed upon
learning that INDE requested that the Guatemalan National Army undertake the
search for the missing workers.

They became yet more alarmed when they learned that INDE had contracted the
workers to gather information about community leaders opposing the dam,
information similar to that gathered by military intelligence during the
armed conflict and used for violent repression of social movements.

The communities issued a communiqué denying the charges and expressing
concern that this situation could become a pretext for repression against
their peaceful opposition to the dam and their peaceful defense of their
land; they have requested the presence of human rights observers.

DISCOVERY OF THE BODY
On November 1, authorities from 29 villages in the region organized a search
for the missing men and discovered the body of one of them, Jose Manuel
Ordon. They immediately called upon the District Attorney’s office to
collect the body and conduct the appropriate investigations, but were
shocked when justice officials told them to bury the body in the nearest
cemetery, which they refused to do and insisted the authorities investigate
the scene.

THE IXCAN AT A TURNING POINT
All communities in the region repudiate this killing. They are also greatly
concerned about growing violence in the region, and fear the worsening
conditions will make impossible the guarantee of their fundamental rights
during a dam construction process.

In Guatemala, the Ixcan municipality in northern Quiche is a region with a
particularly difficult history of military repression but also an
extraordinarily high level of social organizing and achievements in
re-building their region after the genocide and devastation.

Today the Ixcan is at a turning point that is representative of Guatemala as
a whole, a decade after the signing of the “peace accords”. If Guatemala’s
civil society and the international community do not take action now, almost
15 years of intensive peace building effort, and decades more than that of
community struggles to create a decent, dignified life may be destroyed.

THREATS, REPRESSION & IMPUNITY
Over the past several years violence and instability in the Ixcan have been
growing along side a lack of any functional justice administration and
constant attacks against the municipal government designed to undermine its
capacity to defend the residents against shadowy interests in the region.
There is an increasing presence of armed men of unknown origin in the area
and an increasing number of murders.

The mayor, in his second term, is a leader from the internally displaced
community of Primavera where a successful agricultural cooperative operates.
He is also a member of the URNG political party. His municipal government
has been under constant attack particularly in its second term.

On the day of the election in November 2002, a mob stole and burned ballots,
which in the end did not affect results as the final count had already been
filed with the elections board. Throughout his term he has received
constant death threats, avoided attempted kidnappings, attempted
assassinations and recent attempts to burn the municipal building with
workers trapped inside.

The mayor is under constant surveillance and rumors exist that hit men are
planning his assassination. Coincidentally, on the day the Xalala dam
affected communities went before the District Attorney to respond to the
charges related to the disappearance of the INDE workers, the municipal
government was unable to open because of threatened attacks.

All of these acts have been reported to the justice system but nothing has
been done. The people orchestrating these attacks are well known in the
area. Particularly implicated is a former mayor who would like to return to
the office and is reported to be linked to various shadowy economic
interests in the area. The leader of the INDE team is his son in law and is
reported to have participated in the orchestration of attacks on the
municipal government.

ECONOMIC INTERESTS & IMPUNITY
At the same time it has become clear that there are strong and possibly
related economic interests in the region: a growing presence of drug
traffickers interested in the Ixcan’s strategic position on the border with
Mexico; “development” and investment interests centered around the
construction of internationally-funded hydroelectric dams; introduction of
privatized energy lines from the national energy grid (in competition with
the municipal distribution company); exploitation of petroleum resources
(in protected areas); and, the creation large scale sugar cane plantations
for ethanol production.

For many of these economic interests, the municipal government and the
network of civil society organizations in the region represent the biggest
threat to advancing their “development” plans. Not only does logic lead to
the conclusion that they are related to the growing attacks and threats
against civil society and the municipal government, but also there witnesses
with the knowledge of who and how different economic actors are related to
the growing violence and instability.

ILLEGAL ARMY INCURSION INTO IXTAHUACAN CHIQUITO
The government’s complicity through lack of action in the investigation and
prosecution of violent actors is even more worrying analyzed in conjunction
with recent actions by the government and army in the area, as in the case
of the recent illegal army occupation of the return refugee village of
Ixtahuacan Chiquito.

During a public event held to celebrate the 21st anniversary of the creation
of the of the Municipality of Ixcan, participants witnessed seven
helicopters and one airplane pass over the municipal center, Cantabal, soon
to learn of the terrifying occupation of the returned refugee towns of
Ixtahuacan Chiquito, a town still in the process of healing and constructing
a new life after its residents spent more then 12 years in refuge in Mexico
after fleeing Guatemalan army massacres, torture and genocide in the early
1980s.

According to press reports, the Guatemalan Army - accompanied by elements of
the U.S. DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) - were searching the villages for 3
tons of arms and the two drug traffickers who have figured most prominently
in the press, Otto Herrera and Carlos Sanchez.

The accusation of the presence of arms and drug traffickers in this return
refugee community is ridiculous to any who know the region. While
undoubtedly there is a growing presence of arms and drug traffic in the
region, the return refugee villages, which have maintained a constant
presence of international human rights observation and social organizations,
have remained free of these problems.

According to Ixcan’s mayor, the helicopters landed in the soccer fields,
dozens of camouflaged soldiers disembarked and crept through the grass to
surround the school and the community corn mill where the women were
grinding their corn. The soldiers surrounded the community members pointing
guns at them, and generally terrifying the community members, some of whom
had survived army massacres twenty five years earlier.

The actions in Ixtahuacan Chiquito lead to the conclusion that the objective
of the operation may have been the intimidation of the sector of the
population most organized in defense of land and human rights in the region.

The accusations against Ixtahuacan Chiquito, and the recent events in
Xalala, unfortunately give the impression that the government, rather then
investigate the growing violence in the region, is intimidating and
criminalizing organized communities and social organizations like the
Churches Social Outreach Program.

BRINK OF DISASTER - The growing violence, instability and related economic
interests must be documented and widely denounced to agencies with the
capacity to intervene. The Ixcan is at the brink of disaster, but the
decades of hard work dedicated to building a functional society still have
the capacity to bring it back, and the international community must come
together to support this.

BACKGROUND ON THE REGION
In the 1960’s the Ixcan was a focus of one of Guatemala’s first major
national development initiatives. Following a development strategy designed
for the country by the World Bank, the government initiated a massive
resettlement program in which relatively large tracts of land were granted
to landless farmers in the jungle region of the Ixcan, and the first ‘roads’
were forged into the area.

The strategy of populating the jungle was a tactic to reduce growing
pressure for land reform elsewhere in the country, which had been initiated
by the Arbenz government in the beginning of the 1950s, but was stopped by a
U.S.-CIA supported coup carried out under the pretext of stopping
‘communism’; there exists a massive amount of historical documentation
demonstrating that the Arbenz government was not ‘communist’, but rather had
social democrat orientation, and the accusations were a pretext for
protecting ill gotten land held by U.S. based banana companies.

Landless farmers desperate to create a viable life for themselves and their
families signed up, unaware of the conditions that awaited. They were moved
into the region, assigned tracts of land and left there, in the middle of
the jungle without viable roads, health services, education facilities or
food.

The first years were extremely difficult as many died from malaria, dengue
and preventable diseases for which they had no resistance or medicines to
fight, given the living conditions.

THE IXCAN COPERATIVES
But the perseverance and dedication of the people triumphed as they cut back
the jungle and created productive farms. In the 1960s and 1970s the
Catholic church became very active in the area, promoting the creation of
some of Guatemala’s largest agricultural cooperatives which continue to
function to this day.

The growing wealth generated in the region, and its strategic position on
the border with Mexico, attracted attention during the civil war. A
presence of the revolutionary movement called the Guatemalan Army of the
Poor (EGP) was established, and at the same time Guatemalan National Army
commanders took note of the tantalizing, growing expanses productive
agricultural land that had been cleared, mostly by hand, by campesinos.

Thus, as massive state repression was unleashed across the country, the
violence in the Ixcan was used as a mechanism to enrich some at the expense
of the majority. Accusing farmers, church workers and cooperative leaders
of being ‘guerillas’, a scorched earth policy was unleashed in which dozens
of massive massacres were carried out against the civilian population
forcing the villages to flee into refuge in Mexico. These massacres were
amply documented in Ricardo Falla’s famous book ‘Massacres of the Jungle’
and later by the United Nations sponsored Truth Commission.

Once the land was forcibly cleared of its inhabitants, military officers
took control of large farms in the less accessible area known as the Zona
Reyna, in the South and West of Ixcan. This area was populated mainly by
Mayan-Keqchi who, over decades or longer, had slowly populated the area
moving in from their millennial homelands of neighboring Coban.

New settlers from other parts of the country were brought in to populate the
lands “abandoned” by massacre survivors fleeing the Army, in the more
conflictive northern part of the Ixcan along the border with Mexico where
elements of the EGP prevented the total occupation of the area. The new
settlers formed military patrols, called Civil Defense Patrols (PACs), and
some of the previous settlers were allowed to stay in their lands on the
condition they form PACs.

In the end of the 1980s, the Peace Process began, and as part of this the
refugees in Mexico began to negotiate the terms of their return to
Guatemala, a process which began in 1994. In these mass returns, entire
communities were moved from the camps in Mexico to farms in Guatemala. In
the Ixcan, many communities were able to return to the very same lands they
had been forced to abandon over a decade before.

The orchestration of these returns represented a massive effort on the part
of Guatemalan civil society, international humanitarian and human rights
organizations, and the United Nations. Not only were negotiations with the
government necessary to achieve the cooperation of the military and
disarmament of the PACs, but it was also necessary to negotiate with the
recent settlers who in some cases had to turn some of ‘their’ land over to
its original owners.

Given this context it was indispensable that the population of the Ixcan
remain strongly organized; it is one of the areas of the strongest community
level organization in the country. Not only has the population formed
cooperatives and other forms of joint agricultural initiatives, but it has
created strong, active human rights organizations working to create a viable
justice system, vocal women’s organizations that advocate for women’s
rights, organizations of returned refugees and internally displaced people.


XALALA DAM, PLAN PUEBLA PANAMA … & OTHER “DEVELOPMENT” BEAUTIES
In recent years these organizations have come together to host activities
centered on resisting the negative impacts of free trade agreements or the
multinational development strategies like to Plan Puebla Panama and the mega
projects like hydroelectric dams and pipelines promoted by those development
strategies.

Over the past year, communities in the area where construction of the Xalala
Dam, what could become Guatemala’s largest hydroelectric dam, have become
increasingly alarmed as the national press reports that plans for the dams
construction advance. However, when the affected communities and social
organizations request information government officials deny any information
whatsoever, even at times denying plans for the construction. The total
lack of information and cooperation from the national government only adds
to the fears of the population.

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LETTER TO THE INTER AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

Philippe Dewez
Guatemala Country Representative
Edificio Géminis 10
12 Calle 1-25, Zona 10, Nivel 19
Guatemala, Guatemala
COF/CGU@iadb.org
Fax: 011 (502) 2335-3319

Luis Alberto Moreno
President
Inter American Development Bank
1300 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20577
Fax: (202) 623-3096

Dear President Moreno:

I write to express my concern about the violent and repressive conditions in
the area where planned construction of the Xalala Dam would take place.

The area has been subject to growing violence, while the justice system has
done nothing in prosecuting those responsible for the violence despite the
existence of ample evidence.

The local Mayor’s office has been subject to constant violence including
attempted kidnapping, attempts to burn the municipal government building,
threats, surveillance by armed men, physical attacks on municipal workers,
libelous disinformation, and others. Workers for the Catholic Church Social
Outreach team have been subject to similar threats as have many of the
social organizations in the region.

The deterioration of the human rights situation in the area and the
destabilization of those agencies charged with protecting residents has
created a situation in which it is impossible to guarantee the fundamental
human rights of people who would be displaced and negatively impacted by the
construction of the Xalala dam.

The recent killing of an INDE employee and the defamation campaign against
community leaders of villages affected by the dam that followed this tragic
event illustrate the dangers that exist in the region.

The Xalala dam cannot proceed without first guaranteeing that a functional
justice system exists that is capable of stopping the actions of violent
actors in the area and that there is a functional presence of human rights
agencies capable of verifying the respect for the full range of rights of
affected communities.

Without these conditions, the Inter American Development Bank and private
investors they may support in relation to the project are directly
responsible for human rights violations that may occur.

Sincerely,

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WHAT TO DO:

* The #1 line of work in favour of global justice, equality and the
environment is to fund and support local organizations leading their own
struggles in defense and promotion of development, the environment and human
rights. In the Ixcan region, where this Xalala Dam project may be built,
Rights Action is channeling your donations to community-based education,
health, enviro- and human rights organizations;

* Get involved in education and activism work in your home community
concerning the negative impacts of North American economic and military
policies on community-controlled development, the environment and the human
rights of local populations in Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Chiapas, El
Salvador;

* Consider coming to these counties on an educational-activist delegation
and invite us to give educational presentations in your home community;

* Get on our e-mail and snail-mail lists.

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QUESTIONS: info@rightsaction.org; 860-352-2152, www.rightsaction.org.