Ten months after forced eviction, the Nueva Jerusalén Wiscoyol community is still landless By Mélisande Séguin, CCDA Cooperant On August 9, 2023, police and private security forces attacked the Xinka community of Nueva Jerusalén Wiscoyol and ruthlessly burnt people’s homes and possessions under the supervision of state authorities. Ten months [...]
Criminalization Continues to Threaten the Agrarian Movement The CCDA speaks out against the criminalization of General Coordinator Neydi Juracán and the campesino movement. Photo credit: CCDA By Mélisande Séguin, CCDA Cooperant Criminalization is the malicious use of the criminal justice system to paralyze and repress movements for social [...]
"La Puya Lives Because It Resists" reads a mural, Photo credit: Romi Fischer-Schmidt Organizations and individuals from around the world, including BTS, came together to offer words of admiration and solidarity with the La Puya Peaceful Resistance. For 12 years, the communities of San José del Golfo and [...]
Nueva Jerusalen homes burned in violent eviction, photo credit: CCDA On the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples - Wednesday, August 9th - police and private security forces attacked the Xinka community of Nueva Jerusalen and ruthlessly burnt people's homes and possessions. Located in Escuintla, the sugar-cane [...]
The Xinka Parliament accepts the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation's Human Rights Award, photo credit: Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation On June 6, the Xinka Parliament was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation's annual Human Rights Award. The award honors human rights defenders who face oppression [...]
Members of the CCDA and BTS travel to Macho Creek to learn community members' ties to the land. Photo credit: Raphael Freston By: Raphael Freston, a cooperant with the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) Shifting Seasons Come April, fireflies flit through San Lucas Tolimán at dawn. Community [...]
By Jim Hodgson After a drenching ride along Guatemala’s Atlantic coast from the city of Livingston, our boat approached Macho Creek. It’s a small, mangrove-lined river that leads inland to the Indigenous Q’eqchi’ community also known as Macho Creek. This day, March 21, the river was overflowing its banks [...]
By Jim Hodgson An Indigenous Xinca community on the Pacific coast, south of the Guatemalan capital, has the support of a Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking The Silence Network (BTS) partner in its effort to remain on their land. The 53 families of Nueva Jerusalén (New Jerusalem) have the backing of the Comité [...]
Third in a series by Jim HodgsonRead the second post here Many supporters of Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking The Silence Network (BTS) and other solidarity groups across Canada know Leocadio Juracán and the organization he has been part of since 1989: the Comité Campesino del Altiplano – CCDA (Highlands Committee of Small [...]
Seven lay catechists and three priests murdered four decades ago in Quiché were beatified by the Roman Catholic Church on April 21, 2021. Among them was Fr. Juan Alonso (right), a Spanish missionary priest who served the parish in Lancetillo. Second in a series by Jim Hodgson Read [...]
