Subject to a new law: historicizing rights and resistance in Maya anti-mining activism

ABSTRACT

Since 2004, the Marlin Mine, located in North-west Guatemala, has produced conflict between Goldcorp, the Guatemalan state and the primarily indigenous Mayan communities affected by the mine. This conflict has generated local anti-mining movements that organized community consultations which, grounded in indigenous rights law and Mayan decision-making practices, allow affected communities to decide whether or not to permit mining in the region. While communities resoundingly rejected open-pit mining, and while this decision received international support, the Marlin Mine continues operations. Drawing on field research and new developments in philosophies of rights, this paper makes two related arguments. First, Mayan anti-mining resistance must be situated within a broader colonial history defined by exploitation and primitive accumulation. Second, Mayan activism challenges current conceptions of the relationship between rights, cultural identity and political agency; most significantly, Mayans do not only claim rights on the basis of identity, they enact and politicize the form in which these rights potentially take place.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous Maya
• cultural rights
• human rights
• Guatemala
• resource extraction/mining
• consultation of Indigenous peoples

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) called for Goldcorp to suspend mining of the Marlin I project (2010). In March 2010, the International Labour Organization (ILO), of which Guatemala is a signatory, also called for the suspension of the mine, followed by the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination, UN Special Rapporteur James S. Anaya and a long list of independent NGOs.

2. Approximately 15% of the mine is located in Sipacapa and 85% in San Miguel Ixtahuacan.

3. Documents used include several articles from the Guatemalan Constitution and the Municipal Code (such as Article 65), and international declarations, such as ILO 169, which guarantees prior consultation and participation of indigenous groups in resources management.

4. The clearest example of resettlement strategies is the creation of ‘development poles’. Communities displaced by the military’s scorch and burn tactics were forced to resettle in villages designed for surveillance and control. For an account of the transition from Lucas Garcia to Ríos Montt, see Schirmer (1998).

5. This logic is explicitly promoted by the World Bank; under the heading ‘Social Capital and Ethnicity’, its website states: ‘Ethnicity can be a powerful tool in the creation of human and social capital, but, if politicized, ethnicity can destroy capital … Social cohesion is less of a challenge when the populace shares similar heritage and belief systems … Ethnic diversity is dysfunctional when it generates conflict’ (italics added).

6. These included Legislative Decree 46–97, which reduced mining royalties from 6% to the current 1% and lifted the ban against mining operations fully owned by foreign companies (See Urkidi 2011).

7. The passive voice, employed throughout the report, is surely the grammatical construction par excellence of neo-liberalism; it claims objectivity while disavowing responsibility and naturalizing processes and outcomes.

8. For example, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and U. Michigan researchers (2010) found elevated levels of heavy metal toxins in water supplies, and in blood and urine samples of residents living downstream from the mine.

9. On a broader level, this rejection of negotiation is evident in the open letter ‘La mineria y el patrimonio de los pueblos indigenas’ signed by indigenous authorities from the Western Highlands which denounces: ‘The racist strategy impelled by the President of the Republic to manipulate indigenous peoples by offering direct dialogue with the indigenous peoples’ while implementing ‘activities to delegitimize and criminalize the just demands of indigenous peoples’.

10. Rasch (2012) makes a similar point: ‘What lies at stake in these broader debates [about mining] is not a technical solution to problems of water solution or royalty rates, but a core problem of neo-liberal democracy that extends far beyond mining itself’.

11. I use the term ‘prescription’ as developed by Peter Hallward. See: ‘The politics of prescription’ (2005).