CCDA leadership reads a statement denouncing corrupt actors threatening communities with eviction.

After receiving information indicating that even more forced evictions may be carried out in the next few days, the CCDA shared the following:

Statement from the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA)

Greetings to the people of Guatemala, campesinos, workers, students, women, Indigenous and campesino rural youth, Indigenous authorities, academics, professionals, politicians and progressive Christians, communities in resistance struggling to defend and recuperate their territories and life. To all the Guatemalan people who continue to bravely struggle to defend our burgeoning democracy against systematic corruption, looting, and plundering, despite the repression, persecution and criminalization [they face].

We lift our voices high to deplore and condemn, with courage and strength, from our communities, municipalities and territories, from the 20 departments organized in our historical organization CCDA, to reject discrimination, historical neglect, racism, exclusion and persecution of our families, leaders, communities and our peoples.

The current Attorney General’s attitude is unacceptable and reprehensible, as is the complicity of district attorneys and judges who perversely use forced evictions to damage the agreement signed between the current president of the Republic and the campesino movement, trying to make us believe that these evictions are being carried out by the executive branch.

They are all too obvious. The criminal alliance, the mafias, and the corrupt are trying to keep making money off of our misfortune, as campesinos and Indigenous peoples who are struggling to defend our territories and natural resources to achieve comprehensive rural development.

It is an attempt to provoke a confrontation between the new government of Guatemala and the campesino movement in order to oust the current president. For this reason, we demand investigations, charges, and a trial for sedition since [the pact of the corrupt] continues to seek a possible coup, through

  • imprisonment of campesino leaders
  • arrest warrants against community leaders
  • legal and extralegal evictions
  • criminalization and persecution by the university council of the University of San Carlos

In Guatemala, hope is growing and getting stronger.

You can watch the CCDA’s press conference here: https://fb.watch/suNU5eob16/