Transnational Companies Driving Deadly Conflict in Guatemalan Indigenous Territory
Transnational Companies Driving Deadly Conflict in Guatemalan Indigenous Territory
Wednesday, 15 April 2015 00:00
By Jeff Abbott, Truthout | Report
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Residents of Santa Eulalia express their support for their community radio station, which has been censored by the Municipal Mayor for their reporting on the social movement against the hydro projects in northern Huehuetenango. (Photo: Jeff Abbott)Residents of Santa Eulalia express their support for their community radio station, which has been censored by the Municipal Mayor for their reporting on the social movement against the hydro projects in northern Huehuetenango. (Photo: Jeff Abbott)
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Hydro energy may represent a form of clean, renewable energy, but the expansion of hydro in Guatemala has driven social conflict between the government, multinationals and the indigenous populations. In the process, it has reawakened old memories of the darkest days of the internal armed conflict, which tore Guatemala apart between 1960 and 1996.
Since 2007, northern Huehuetenango, Guatemala, has been the site of aggressive hydroelectric power projects as transnational companies look to transform natural resources into privatized accumulation. These projects are part of a World Bank-supported campaign, known as Plan Mesoamerica, to create a common energy market that interconnects the infrastructures of all Central American countries.
These hydroelectric projects would allegedly lower the cost of electricity and combat Guatemala's "energy poverty." This plan, however, completely dismisses the voices and rights of local indigenous communities that would be most impacted by the intrusive expansion into their ancestral land.
Currently there are 15 projects in various stages of construction in the department of Huehuetenango, with four specifically along the Q'am'balam River, home to the Q'anjab'al, Choj and Akateko Mayan groups: Hidro Santa Cruz de Hidralia Natural, owned by a Spanish Firm in Santa Cruz Barillas; Hydro San Luis, owned by the company CM5, in Santa Eulalia; and Hydro Ixquisis, owned by the firm Promoción y Desarrollos Hídricos S.A. in San Mateo Ixtatán. Each project is being constructed as part of the Northern Development Zone, which creates the northern arch of electrical projects in Guatemala. The region also includes up to 22 permits for mining to Mexican mining firms.
The development of these projects has generated opposition from local indigenous communities, which in turn has triggered government-backed militarization of the area.
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(Photo: Jeff Abbott)
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More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30176-transnational-companies-driving-conflict-in-guatemala-indigenous-territory
Hoping for freedom for the Guatemalan people who have suffered, grieved, in agony at the hands of monsters for 60 years, when Eisenhower sent in troops to overthrow a progressive President Arbenz who was trying to bring help to them, relieve them from the unbearable burden forced upon them by internationals like United Fruit, etc.