Guatemala: Hundreds forcibly evicted from farming land

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Amnesty International

Guatemala: Hundreds forcibly evicted from farming land
Posted: 23 March 2011

Amnesty International has called on the authorities in Guatemala to put a stop to the forced evictions of indigenous farming communities which have so far left 2,500 people homeless and has resulted in the death of one man.

Security forces reportedly used tear gas as the 12 Q'eqchi' farming communities were forced from disputed land in Valle del Polochic between 15 and 18 March.

Antonio Beb Ac, a farm worker, was killed during the evictions and two people allegedly suffered from health complications caused by the tear gas. Another two communities numbering some 300 people are said to be at risk of forced evictions.

~snip~
A judge issued the eviction order for the 14 communities on 7 February 2011. This followed a dispute over ownership of the land between a local company who claims ownership of the land and the Q'eqchi' people who say they have been living and working on the land for 30 years.


Read more: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19342vg

[Judi Lynn]

1. US Bio Fuel Subsidies Trigger Land Grab, Slaughter in Guatemala

US Bio Fuel Subsidies Trigger Land Grab, Slaughter in Guatemala

In the Municipality of Panzós, located in the Polochic Valley of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, the military, police, anti-riot police are in the process of violently evicting 13 communities of Q’eqchi’ Maya subsistence farmers from the lands they have planted for generations. Carlos Widmann, one of the owners of the Chabil Utzaj sugar company (Ingenio Guadalupe), and Ricardo Díaz, the manager of the company, are directing the evictions, accompanied by hundreds of workers they have hired to act as paramilitary forces to rob and destroy the Q’eqchi’s’crops and homes. The evictions began on March 15, when these men violently removed the communities of Miralvalle and Aguacaliente from their lands, leaving 35-year-old Antonio Beb Ac dead and several more wounded. On March 16, they evicted communities from El Quinich.

On March 17 the armed men evicted the communities of Bella Flor, 8 de Agosto, Rio Frío, San Pablo, Santa Rosa, and Los Recuerdos. On March 18, they removed Q’eqchi’ familes from Tinajas and Paraná.

Chabil Utzaj filed a complaint in the First Instance Criminal Court of Cobán (the state capital) requesting that the communities be evicted from traditional Q’eqchi’ lands the company purchased for sugar cane production in 2006. The eviction orders were issued on February 7, but none of the communities were notified, in spite of the fact that all parties have been in formal negotiations for months over these lands at the highest level of government with the Permanent National System of Dialogue. The communities, represented by the Comité de Unidad Campesina (CUC), have been negotiating to purchase the lands on which they live and plant in meetings with the owners and management of Chabil Utzaj, the Secretariat of Agrarian Affairs, the National Land Registry (RIC), the national Land Fund (Fondo de Tierras), the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office, and the Presidential Commission for Human Rights (COPREDEH). They have also been in dialogue with the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (BCIE), which is trying to collect the more than Q30 million it loaned to the Widmann family to establish Chabil Utzaj in Panzós in 2006. Owner Carlos Widmann is the brother of former First Lady Wendy Widmann de Berger, whose husband, Oscar Berger, was president of Guatemala (2004-2008) at the time of the loan. Carlos Widmann personally has been directing the evictions.

Q'eqchi' communities have been farming these lands for centuries (much prior Chabil Utzaj’s arrival five years ago), and because the entire Polochic Valley and Sierra de las Minas is being given over to large-scale production of African palm, mining, and other “megaprojects,” the Q’eqchi’ have nowhere left to go to plant crops to feed themselves. With these evictions, President Colom and the owners of Chabil Utzaj have reversed the progress made toward peaceful resolution of this longstanding ongoing conflict and returned to the same tactics of war used by landowners, the government, and the military during Guatemala’s thirty-six year Internal Armed Conflict (1960-1996) and prior phases of economic “development” in the Valley.

More:
http://agonist.org/nat_wilson_turner/20110323/us_bio_fuel_subsidies_trigger_land_grab_slaughter_in_guatemala

[Bacchus39]

2. what is the US connection??? I see none. n/t

s

[L. Coyote]

3. K & REC