Police attempt to evict the Tierra Nueva community. Photo credit: CCDA.

On March 24th, a large contingent of police arrived at the Maya Q’eqchi’ community of Tierra Nueva, located in the Alta Verapaz department. The police presented an eviction document, signed by judge Mildred Karina Juárez Alvarado, which required the community members to exit the premises effective immediately, abandoning their lands and homes. However, according to CCDA leadership, the community members successfully staved off the eviction for at least another 14 days. 

This eviction notice came as a surprise to community members. The residents of Tierra Nueva had been given the land they currently reside on by the Instituto Nacional de Transformación Agraria (National Institute of Agrarian Transformation, INTA) in 1995. At the time, INTA granted the land to five community leaders, who represent the community as the rightful owners of the land. Yet approximately six months in early 1996, after their acquisition of these lands, the cooperative known as la Federación de Cooperativas de Alta Verapaz (Federation of Cooperatives of Alta Verapaz, FEDECOVERA) took advantage of the community leaders, lied to them and tricked them into handing over ownership of the land to FEDECOVERA cooperative. This meant they essentially lost legal ownership of the land, with FEDECOVERA adding in a stipulation that the community could own the land if they bought it from them. 

As a result, the community of Tierra Blanca has been in a constant cycle of debt to FEDECOVERA, which is now using that same debt as justification to evict the residents from their land. An important detail that the CCDA shared with us is that the community has planted large expanses of pine with a significant potential for economic profit. According to the CCDA, this is the main economic incentive for the cooperative wanting to usurp these lands, given that the community planted these pine trees 25-30 years ago. Now, they are reaching their full maturity and will yield immense economic benefit. The CCDA explained that the community does have a plan to profit from these pine plantations, but with a long-term vision of sustainability for the land, whereas the cooperative wants to take advantage of these pine resources for immediate economic benefit. 

It is important to note that according to the CCDA, FEDECOVERA took advantage of the five community leaders to manipulate the legal claim that the community had to the land. Because of a history of social exclusion, lack of funding and governmental negligence, Q’eqchi’ communities in Alta Verapaz have had little access to formal education and Spanish language access. FEDECOVERA took advantage of the fact that these five community leaders were not proficient in Spanish and did not know how to read or write to manipulate the stipulations of the land contract such that they could take legal ownership of the land. Today, 28 years after FEDECOVERA manipulated and lied to the community of Tierra Nueva, community members are facing the consequences of these unequal power dynamics. 

Now, the community of Tierra Blanca is in an uphill legal battle to gain recognition for their land, even though it was rightfully granted to them by INTA in 1995. In the meantime, the CCDA is organizing to stop this eviction, despite the legal challenges presented before the community.