Guatemalan communities affected by the Chixoy dam project are demanding the government finalize the Reparations Plan signed last year. Take action today to show your support for justice and the full implementation of the Reparations Plan.

The Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam, built at the confluence of the Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz and Quiche departments of Guatemala, dates back to 1974. A succession of military regimes, with funding from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, carried out the planning and construction of the dam with a manifest disregard for the rights, needs, and livelihood of the Mayan-Achi families living in the area. Nearly 3,500 residents were forcibly evicted from their homes and thousands of other families suffered terrible losses as a result of the dam’s construction and the subsequent flooding of the dam basin. Community protests against the project were met with brutal repression by government forces, culminating in the Río Negro Massacres in 1982.

For more than twenty years, 33 indigenous communities have demanded reparations for the loss of life and land, the loss of cultural and sacred sites, and the loss of trade and social ties with neighboring villages. But their pleas for fair and just reparations went unheard.

Finally, a six-year dialogue process between the Guatemalan Government and COCAICH (the Coordinating Committee of Communities Affected by the Chixoy Dam) culminated in the signing of a comprehensive Reparations Plan in March of 2010. The agreement provides Q200 million for a wide array of development projects for the affected communities.

Despite this apparent breakthrough, though, little has changed for the men, women and children of these long-suffering communities. Bureaucratic inertia and an apparent lack of political resolve within different government agencies have prevented the Reparations Plan from being implemented.

The administration of President Alvaro Colom has committed to signing an Acuerdo Gubernativo (Executive Order) that would that codify the Chixoy Reparations Plan within Guatemalan law. Until this agreement is signed the Reparations Plan runs the risk of remaining nothing more than promises on paper.

Good intentions are not enough. The Guatemalan State has a historic debt to these communities that the Reparation Plan begins to address. It must be immediately and fully implemented. The time for justice is now.

Today, March 17th, Guatemalans are taking to the streets in peaceful protest to demand that President Colom follow through with his agreement. Join with GHRC in expressing your solidarity with COCAICH, and all of the communities affected by the Chixoy Dam, as they call for justice and reparations.

Please voice your support today by sending a letter to President Colom and the US Embassy in Guatemala.

 

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