Xinka Parliament representative, Amilvar Urías Sanchez will be joining the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network for a tour of the Maritimes taking place October 18-23, 2024. He will discuss the Xinka Parliament's ongoing resistance to the Escobal mine in Guatemala, owned by Canadian mining company, Pan American Silver. [...]
Indigenous and campesino communities across Guatemala continue to face the threat of violent evictions, criminalization, and attacks. In just the past few weeks, the CCDA has documented a worrying series of human rights violations affecting its leaders and members. BTS expresses its solidarity with the CCDA as they continue to [...]
Women and the agrarian resistance in Guatemala By: Mélisande Séguin, Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) Cooperant CCDA women activists, planning and organizing. Land dispossession as a historical root of the latest wave of evictions Guatemala has one of the most unequal land distribution and titling systems in [...]
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 [...]
Over the past decade in Guatemala, criminalization has increasingly served as a strategy to stifle public participation in civic life. In most cases, Guatemalan authorities have collaborated with both business and military interests to criminalize those who seek justice and fight against impunity. Unending criminalization of Indigenous land defenders Early [...]
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 [...]
By Raphael Freston Water is ubiquitous this time of year in San Lucas Tolimán. Streets become streams; fields become swamps. The sky, the silvery sky, feels ever closer and heavier. Fog creeps into every corner, burying San Lucas in one vast cloud. You can see no more than an arm’s [...]
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 [...]
