Welcome to Guatemala: gold mine protester beaten and burnt alive
Welcome to Guatemala: gold mine protester beaten and burnt alive
Indigenous people speak out against the Marlin mine run by Canadian company Goldcorp
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The Marlin mine in western Guatemala owned by Canadian firm Goldcorp.
Photograph: David Hill [/font]
“They took him and poured gasoline all over him. Then they struck a match and lit him.”
Doña A – not her real name, for security reasons – was standing up, arms crossed, lightly leaning against a ladder, and speaking in her language, Maya Mam, while a friend, a relation by marriage, translated into Spanish. There were 20 or so Mams in the room – mostly women, some children, one elderly man – and we were in an adobe-brick house in the highlands of far western Guatemala, not far from the border with Mexico, and just around the corner from an open sky and underground gold- and silver-mine called Marlin.
The Mams had gathered there – at some personal risk – to speak about the mine and how it impacts them. “Her husband was killed by workers of the company,” someone had said suddenly, meaning Doña A, “but she doesn’t speak much Spanish”, although it was quickly suggested she could talk in Mam and a friend would translate for her.
“We heard the screams and the yellings but we didn’t know what was happening,” she continued.
Her husband’s two brothers were with him: they had to run away or would be burnt alive too.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2014/aug/12/guatemala-gold-mine-protester-beaten-burnt-alive
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