Recent killings linked to Canadian-owned nickel mine in Guatemala

[subsuelo]

Two Qeqchi leaders were shot and killed and over a dozen wounded this week near the site of a shuttered nickel mine in Guatemala.

The first shooting took place on Sunday, September 27 on land claimed by the community of Las Nubes, which Compañia Guatemalteca de Niquel (CGN), a subsidiary of Manitoba’s HudBay Minerals, also claims to own.

Early reports indicated CGN’s private security guards opened fire while attempting to remove families from their land. Adolfo Ichi Chamán, a teacher and community leader, was killed by gunshot, at least eight more wounded by bullets fired from an AK-47.

Prensa Libre, Guatemala’s leading newspaper, reported that during Chamán’s funeral service yesterday, thousands of people marched through the streets of El Estor, demanding that the company and the local police chief withdraw from the area within 24 hours.

HudBay released a lengthy statement yesterday claiming that there were no evictions, but instead that “protestors” went on a rampage, attacking government vehicles, a local police station (where they allegedly stole automatic weapons), destroying a hospital built by a coalition of US NGOs, and wounding five employees.

Hudbay goes on to make the absurd claim that the protesters proceeded to open fire on each other.

http://intercontinentalcry.org/recent-killings-linked-to-canadian-owned-nickel-mine-in-guatemala/">read more

[Peace Patriot]

1. Typical corpo/fascist behavior--blame the victims!

I'm reminded of recent events in Peru, where the hugely corrupt "free trade" government of Alan Garcia open-fired from a gunship helicopter and with assault rifles on very poor, indigenous tribesmen who were trying to protect the Amazon from rapacious mining and logging with peaceful protest. Dozens of people were shot, many killed or wounded. Then the military claimed that the indians attacked them. Photos of the indians later revealed poor, thin tribesmen made up with warrior paint and carrying hand-made spears--and the accounts from the protestors told the opposite story, that they were trying to STOP the slaughter of innocent people. Hand-made spears against a gunboat helicopter!

Yep, it's the fault of them injuns that they get killed!

We hear the same crap from the Junta in Honduras: It's Zelaya's fault, it's the protestors' fault--the Junta just can't help using live ammunition on protestors, and beating people up, and torturing people, and jailing thousands of political prisoners, and suspending all civil rights in Honduras. The peaceful protests make them do these things! They're "terrorists"! (That's what they called Radio Globo as they destroyed all of their broadcast equipment.) Got to rid the world of these "terrorists"!

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Thanks for this post! Please post the source.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Somehow, some way these people and those like them MUST be stopped.

More from your article:

Liezel Hill of Mining Weekly went on to parrot the company’s version of events, as did the Canadian Press and Reuters.

One day after the murder of Chamán, men armed with machine guns opened fire on a mini-bus carrying Indigenous educators and leaders from the El Estor region to Cobán. One man, Martin Choc, was killed, and at least nine more wounded.

These killings are a flare up in a tense area, where the track record of Canadian mining companies includes forced displacement over multiple generations, co-operation with the army, and the burning of homes belonging to Indigenous people.

Shortly after a series of violent evictions that took place on nearby lands in 2007, Skye Resources (later acquired by Hudbay) representatives went on the record and lied through their teeth to defend their actions.

The English-language corporate media has repeatedly turned a blind eye to recent and past events unfolding in El Estor. This kind of reporting facilitates corporate lies and deceit, plain and simple.

Lies and deceit are just what HudBay needs, not only to avoid an international outcry over the recent killings, but also to spin a mining project that is not likely to produce any nickel at all.

http://intercontinentalcry.org/recent-killings-linked-to-canadian-owned-nickel-mine-in-guatemala/

Sad news, and we need to know about it, and spread the word. Thank you, subsuelo.

[Downwinder]

3. Rights Action also has a report on this; correction, same report.

http://www.rightsaction.org/articles/Guatetmala_mining_Hudbay_092809.html