Indigenous People's Struggles Against Transnational Mining Companies in Guatemala: The Sipakapa People vs GoldCorp Mining Company

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Notes

An earlier version of this article appeared (in Spanish) in Revista OSAL (Observatorio Social Latinoamericano), vol. 9, no. 25 (April 2009). The present text is revised from a draft-translation prepared by Teo Ballvé.

1. [Ed. note: Between the late 1960s and 1996 Guatemala experienced a bloody armed conflict in which 450 Mayan villages were destroyed, more than one million people lost their homes, and thousands – mostly Indians – were tortured, disappeared and summarily executed.]

2. S. V. Yagenova, La protesta social en Guatemala: Una aproximación a los actores, demandas, formas, despliegue territorial, limites y alcances (Guatemala: FLACSO, 2007), 12.

3. Thirty-five community referenda have been held in the country against mining, hydroelectric, and oil projects. These referenda are based on Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and on municipal law. In all these consultations the “No” vote has won with wide margins.

4. See “Comunicado Público, Declaración del Consejo de Pueblos de Occidente, Coordinación y Convergencia Nacional Maya Waquib'Kej,” February 14, 2009.

5. Criminalization includes: a. Legal persecution; b. Office searches; c. Covert assassinations; d. State of militarization-prevention; e. Character assassination and propaganda; f. Intimidation, threats; g. Arbitrary firings, etc.

6. K'iche' (or Quiche) and Sipakapense come from the common Eastern linguistic branch. They split some 1500 years ago. Decree 65-60 of Guatemala's Academy of Maya Languages recognizes Maya Sipakapense, which is only spoken in the municipality of Sipakapa despite being surrounded by Maya-Mam, as having maintained its linguistic purity. The alphabet for writing the language is legally recognized through Government Agreement 1046-87. This all means that besides being a municipality, Sipakapa is also a linguistic community. The current location of the Sipakapa population is an enigma of sorts because it is surrounded by Mam-speaking municipalities and is isolated from other K'iche'-related communities. This would indicate that settlement of the Sipakapense-speakers is relatively recent.

7. Irma Otzoy, Sipakapa y el límite de la democracia (www.istor.cide.edu/archivos/num_24/dossier2.pdf), 31.

8. According to Goldcorp, the company has 17 active projects in Canada, United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Argentina, employing a total of 9,000 workers.

9. The mining license for San Miguel Ixtahuacán and Sipakapa (comprising 25 square km) was awarded to Montana Exploradora, a subsidiary of Glamis Gold (today, GoldCorp) in 2003. The extraction is open-pit and subterranean, endangering both surface and ground water.

10. 2564 people participated in the consultation: 2448 voted “no” to mining and 35 voted yes, while there were five null votes, one blank vote and 35 voters who preferred not to express their opinion.

11. The first four months of 2005 was a period of intense mobilizations against local ratification of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States (DR-CAFTA). The height of this conflict was March 14, 2005, when a general strike was held and severely repressed by government authorities. The repression left several wounded and killed. For more information on these events see: Simona V. Yagenova, “La Guatemala de la Resistencia y la Esperanza,” Revista OSAL, No. 16 (2005) (www.clacso.org.ar).

12. For more on the conference's resolutions, see: “Memorial de la I Conferencia Regional de Autoridades Indígenas del Altiplano Occidental sobre: LA MINERIA Y EL PATRIMONIO DE LOS PUEBLOS INDIGENAS,” April 1, 2005.

13. This includes international appeals to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, denunciations to GoldCorp's shareholders, which led to a 2008 delegation from Sipakapa to the company's shareholders' meeting as well as protests, and the forging of alliances with similarly affected communities in other countries, such as Honduras.

14. Comisión Pastoral Paz y Ecología (COPAE), Boletin, February 28, 2008.

15. Photo essay by James Rodriguez, independent photojournalist, “Minería en San Miguel Ixtahuacan: conflictividad y criminalización”, November 2007 (http://mimundo-jamesrodriguez-esp.blogspot.com/noviembre2007).

16. Fernando Bermúdez, “Resistencia y Alternativas a la Explotación Minera en Guatemala.” Presentation at the III Encuentro de la Red de Alternativas a la Impunidad y a la Globalización del Mercado, in Oviedo, Spain, June 21–24, 2007. Bermúdez is Human Rights Coordinator of the Archdiocese of San Marcos (Guatemala) and a member of the coordinating team of the Pastoral Social of the San Marcos Diocese.

17. Bermúdez, “Resistencia y Alternativas.”

18. “Informe Anual del Monitoreo y análisis de la calidad de las Aguas, Situación actual del agua alrededor de la Mina Marlin, ubicada en los municipios de San Miguel Ixtahuacán y Sipakapa, Departamento de San Marcos, Guatemala,” COPAE (note 14), Diocese of San Marcos, August 2008.

19. Document presented at the Permanent People's Tribunal at the Social Forum of the Americas, Guatemala October 7–12, 2008.

20. The whereabouts of Byron Bámaca Perez and Marco Tulio Rodríguez – the disappeared – are still unknown. Punishment is sought for the security agent of the Marlin Mine who gunned down Álvaro Benigno Sánchez in front of several witnesses; for the murder of Raúl Castro Bocel perpetrated by the state's security forces; and finally for the brutal murder of senior citizen Pedro Miguel Cinto.