http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6948-3376
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ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, the expansion of oil palm and sugarcane plantations in the Polochic Valley (Guatemala) has exacerbated the historical struggle of Maya-Q’eqchi’ peoples for land rights. Based on a mixed-methods approach, I examine the dynamics of the conflict between 1998 and 2014, focusing on the visibility, manifestation and intensity of violence and the role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and peasant organizations in opposition to oil palm and sugarcane plantations. I show that the evolution of the conflict can be explained by changes in the strength of organizations' alliances due to tensions and lack of coordination, as well as the fear of state repression and the funding context of these organizations. These results allow me to discuss how violence, the role of these organizations and the dynamics of related events have influenced the visibility of the conflict associated with the expansion of oil palm and sugarcane plantations in the Polochic.
Acknowledgements
The author is most grateful to Esteve Corbera, Gonzalo Gamboa, Berta Martín-López and Joan Martínez-Alier for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. This paper contributes to the EnvJustice project at ICTA-UAB. The author thanks Ana Varela for her support in graphic design, and Alexis Rojas, Melissa García-Lamarca and Andrés León for their help with language editing. Any remaining errors are her own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Sara Mingorría http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6948-3376
Notes
1 Flex-crops are commodities that have multiple and interchangeable commercial destinations. For example, palm oil can be sold as food, agrofuel or an industrial product, while sugarcane can be an agrofuel or food (see Borras et al. Citation2015).
2 The term ‘agrofuel’ was coined by the international Via Campesina movement to avoid the use of the prefix ‘bio’ that refers to life and to stress that the prime materials used for fuels come from agrarian (‘agro’) sources (Joao Pedro Stedile Movimento Sem Terra, La Vía Campesina 6 June 2007). In this paper, I use agrofuel as a synonym for biofuel.
3 This includes conflicts known as ecological, ecological-distributive, socio-environmental or ecological-social, and conflicts with environmental content.
4 These arguments come from the minutes of three national peasant meetings against flex-crops in Guatemala (2009 and 2010).
5 I included a variety of NGOs that define themselves as human right organizations, foundations or research institutes.
6 The full name of the NGO's acronyms have been included in the Appendix.
7 The Spanish conquest of the Q’eqchi’ region (Alta Verapaz) was, relatively speaking, more peaceful than that of the rest of Guatemala (Secaria 1992). However, during the conquest the Spanish church gathered the indigenous population in ‘Indian Villages’ to appropriate their lands and more easily charge them taxes on behalf of the Spanish Crown.
8 This activity included three national (14 communities represented from the Polochic) and three regional (44 communities represented) meetings.
9 ‘Desarrollo de un marco de evaluación analítico-participativo de las dinámicas socioambientales y de la calidad de vida de las comunidades campesinas del Valle del río Polochic, Guatemala’. IDEAR-Coordinadora de ONGs y Cooperativas (CONGCOOP), 2009–2010. Funded by ACCD. ‘Mecanismo de respuesta rápida frente a la fuerte subida de los precios de los productos alimenticios en los países en desarrollo’. CUC and Fundación Guillermo Toriello (FGT), 2010–2011. Funded by Oikos-EU.
10 The video-documentaries are titled The evictions in the Polochic Valley, 2011, and Aj Ral choch (Sons of the earth), 2012, and were co-produced by IDEAR-CONGCOOP and Caracolproducciones: (see http://caracolproductions.net/).
11 There are many possible reasons why the media did not report land grabbing conflicts and why there were no mobilizations. Although conflict related to land was still present, I think that the media and NGOs were focused on the discussion and promotion of the 1996 Peace Accords. Land issues and indigenous rights were approached from this supposedly ‘post-conflict phase’. Therefore, NGOs somehow left these conflicts behind and the media did not want to show a possible failure of the Peace Accords.
12 The IACHR is the main and autonomous agency of the Organization of American States (OAS) that is responsible for promoting and protecting human rights in the Americas. A summary of the Precautionary Measures can be found at www.cidh.org with Ref: 14 comunidades indígenas Q’echi del Municipio de Panzos MC-121-11, Guatemala. The petitioning NGOs were: the CUC, FGT, ECAP, Human Rights Commission, Rights Action and ULAM (Women's Union).
13 Precautionary measures: these are measures recommended to states by the IACHR when situations arise where irreparable damage could be caused to people. These include situations of conflict, violence or persecution of the defenders of human rights which if not ceased could lead to an increase in the number of deaths.
14 Oxfam Intermon website and its annual report (2013–2014), “Cambiamos Vidas que Cambian Vidas”: https://oxfamintermon.s3.amazonaws.com/sites/default/files/documentos/files/memoriaOxfamIntermon2014cas_0.pdf. Facebook CUC: https://www.facebook.com/Comité-de-Unidad-Campesina-CUC
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Sara Mingorría
Sara Mingorría is a Post-Doc fellow at the Environmental Science and Technology Institute of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). She is a member of the EnvJustice team (www.envjustice.org) and the Laboratory for the Analysis of Socio-Ecological Systems in a Global World (LASEG).