URGENT: Government Repression of the Mayan Ixil People of Nebaj, Guatemala

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May 2, 2013 –  Tobias Roberts, an MCC service worker in Nebaj, is accompanying this community in this tense situation. The community is asking for international attention to ensure that the situation is resolved without violence, and that their rights are respected.

In the next 24 hours, hundreds of police and military forces will occupy on the small town of Nebaj nestled in the mountains of northern Guatemala.

The military and police forces are being sent to forcefully reinstate ex-mayor Virgilio Bernal of the governing party who lost the 2011 municipal elections by more than 3,000 votes.  Due to a confusing legal battle regarding anomalies in the 2011 election ballot, the Guatemalan electoral authorities determined that the elections would be repeated and the Bernal, as ex-mayor, should immediately resume office.

Behind this strange turn of events, many Ixil leaders, including the ancestral authorities that MCC supports, believe that there are other forces at work.

The current trial against former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide against the Ixil people during the Civil War of the 1980´s has polarized the nation.  The president of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina, was an army major that was stationed in Nebaj during the worst atrocities of the Civil War, and during the genocide trial proceedings, was identified by witnesses as participating in the massacres and extrajudicial assassinations of the Ixil people.  Ex-mayor Bernal has recently gained support from the current government by denying that genocide took place during the Civil War in the Ixil region.

Many of the ancestral authorities of the Ixil region believe that the current militarization of Nebaj and the strange decision by the Guatemalan electoral authorities to reinstate ex-mayor Bernal are part of a strategy to adversely influence the current trial for genocide against former dictator Ríos Montt.

Furthermore, the democratically elected mayor of Nebaj, Pedro Raymundo Cobo, during a recent visit of President Pérez to the Ixil region, demanded the cancellation of recent licenses for mega-hydroelectric development signed by the current government.  The Guatemalan government has stated its belief that multinational foreign investment in rural areas, especially for mining and hydroelectric development, is the key to developing the rural areas of Guatemala.

In the Ixil region of Guatemala, there are currently two mega-dams that have built, three others with licenses to begin construction, and eight others with exploratory licenses.  All of these projects have been signed into existence without the proper consultation of the Ixil people as stipulated by national and international law.  Furthermore, these projects leave no benefit to local communities, many of whom live without access to electricity and are the ones who suffer the environmental damage provoked by these mega-dams and the social conflict that they create.

Again, the ancestral leaders of the Ixil people believe that the current handling of the electoral situation in Nebaj is a strategy by the national government to impose a local leader (ex-mayor Bernal) who has demonstrated his openness to follow the government´s “development” strategy despite much opposition from the Ixil people.

It is possible that the TSE’s unjust ruling, made in the midst of a historical juncture for Guatemala, is a strategic move on the part of the Perez-Molina government to divide and exhaust the Ixil people, distracting them from the genocide trial and the conflicts over land and development. This also destabilizes the region in order to justify a new militarization to protect transnational and national corporate interests against local opposition.

We ask for the support of the international community to be conscientious of the dangerous situation of the re-militarization of the community of Nebaj.

Photo source and further information: http://www.prensalibre.com/quiche/Juzgado-Quiche-repeticion-comicios-Nebaj_0_911909084.html