Unofficial translation by NISGUA
Comunicado original en español
Comunicado original en español
¡In Defense of Life, Territory, Mother
Earth and the collective Rights of our Peoples!
“WE
ARE ALL BARILLAS”
No to the submission of the Guatemalan state to
multinational companies. Yes to
life.
To:
Our indigenous brothers and sisters around the world
And the national and international public
Our people have a long history of ongoing struggle to defend
Mother Earth in the face of multinational companies that operate with the
support of the Guatemalan state apparatus. This situation in the country worsened on May 1 with the continuation
of a plan of repression against community resistance.
Nine days have passed since the cowardly assassination of
community leader Andrés Francisco Miguel and the attack on Pablo Antonio Pablo
and Esteban Bernabé Gaspar, two others leaders who were injured. Security personnel from Hidro Santa Cruz
Anonymous Society, in charge of the Cambalam I project, caused the attack. Once again, institutions in charge of investigations
to identify and prosecute the material and intellectual authors of this crime
have failed to act quickly to comply with the Rule of Law.
This catalyzing incident led the government to decree a
State of Siege and to reposition the Army and the National Civil Police Force
to protect company interests as part of a pre-established plan. Over the course of the past nine days, government
forces have once again installed a state of terror, displacement and pillage in
Q'anjob'al territory, as well as other communities and adjoining indigenous
territories. Communities have
suffered numerous types of abuses.
Fundamental human rights, both individual and collective, have been
curtailed and violated.
The establishment of a State of Siege only demonstrates the
incapacity of state institutions to promote the participation of the [nation's]
most marginalized communities in integral processes to guarantee their own well-being
and uphold their basic rights.
We hold the military government of Otto Pérez Molina
responsible for acting in complicity with the Hidro Santa Cruz, S.A., a company
that has, in numerous ways, disrupted the harmony, peace and ways of community
life. The State of Siege, with
raids, arrests and the sacking of family belongings, has once again forced [the
population] to emigrate from their communities looking for refuge in other
departments and in Mexico. The
brutal actions carried out recently exceed those employed during the armed
conflict, while at the same time confirming their continuity. Leaders have been detained despite the
lack of evidence to incriminate them.
The Public Prosecutor's Office and the judges should release [these
individuals] immediately, as two of our sisters have already been released.
The re-militarization of our indigenous territories constitutes
a gross violation of international humanitarian laws ratified by the Guatemalan
state and of the Peace Accords, which the president himself signed.
We, as indigenous peoples, along with broader social
movements, have contributed to a proposed alternative model founded in the
appropriate, equitable and responsible use of natural resources. The proposal has continuously been
refused in order to prioritize the voracity of the neoliberal model violently imposed upon us.
As the Western Peoples' Council:
1. We stand in solidarity with our brother
ANDRÉS FRANCISCO MIGUEL and we demand that the state and the company compensate
his family. The blood he shed in Poza
Verde will not remain in impunity.
His story feeds and strengthens our fight for the construction of a new
dawn for our peoples.
2. We stand in solidarity with our wounded
brothers Pablo Antonio Pablo, Esteban Bernabé Gaspar, the 15 people arbitrarily
detained and the families who have had to flee and seek refuge locally and
internationally.
3. We call upon our brothers and sisters of the
municipality of Barillas to maintain their unity and conviction in the struggle
for the defense of our territories as a legacy of our grandfathers and
grandmothers.
4. We demand respect for life, an end to the pillaging
of our Mother Earth, the cancellation of the State of Siege, and an official
declaration that the mining law is unconstitutional.
5. We denounce the deputies of the Congress of
the Republic who ratified the State of Siege as accomplices in the violation of
constitutional order.
6. We request that the Constitutional Court
reestablish sua sponte the constitutional
order in Santa Cruz Barillas that was violated by the State of Siege.
7. We call for unity and the permanent defense
of our territories, because history has demonstrated that what happens today in
Barillas, will happen tomorrow across the nation.
ANDRES FRANCISCO MIGUEL
Hero and martyr in our peoples' struggle in
defense of Mother Earth.
Chnab’jul, Huehuetenango, May 9, 2012
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