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(in Spanish)
Si yo fuera un oligarca. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=83533
La Teología de la Liberación se propaga http://alainet.org/active/29664&lang=es
¿Vivir mejor o «el buen vivir»? http://alainet.org/active/29839
Guatemala. Uranio en la mira.http://www.inforpressca.com/notas_libres/libre_1792.php
¿Será que no sabe? http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2009/abril/24/307829.html
¿Pais Minero? http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2009/mayo/01/309569.html
April News
Spanish
Jóvenes contra mineria
http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2009/abril/21/309097.html
Músic = Struggle
San Marcos music group "Cotzic" presented its CD "The people had already decided" on Thursday April 2nd 4:00pm in San Pedro´s Central Park. The disc has well known songs among Latin-Americans as well as original songs (lyrics and music) that invite us to resist, struggle and defend our territory. Leaders from different communities talked and shared their struggle and resistance experiences.
Day after day, step by step the resistance is increasing in the San Marcos department; men, women, children, youth and elderly, everyone is joining the struggle for life! The marquense dignity shows up again, this time through music.
By Grahame Russell (info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org), Guatemala, January 2009
I first met Emeterio Perez in May 2008. 70 years old, this Mayan Mam man lives with his wife and extended family in a little home, on a tiny plot of land, in San Miguel Ixtahuacan, Guatemala, on the edge of Goldcorp Inc’s “Marlin” mine. He has lived in the village of San Jose Ixcanique his whole life, like his parents before.
On January 28, 2009, I met him again. He aged much more than 8 months since May. Now, he passes the day in a chair, in pain, too weak to get up and walk alone.
With a group of Canadian students from the University of Northern British Colombia, I came here in May 2008. They were on a fact-finding visit to speak with people whose lives and rights were being harmed and violated by Goldcorp’s open-pit, cyanide leaching gold mine. The mine is still expanding.
In the last weeks the new proposal on the mining law has been debated in the public media. That’s why on February 24th the Western People’s Council presented its position to the president of National Congress and to Alvaro Colom, president of Guatemala.
The Western People’s Council (Consejo de los Pueblos del Occidente, CPO) carry the voice, ideas and actions of more than 500,000 women and men of 33 municipalities who participated in community consultations in defense of their territory. The CPO includes different social base groups like the Huehuetenango department assembly for the defense of natural resources, San Marcos People`s Council, El Quiche People’s Council, social organizations from Quetzaltenango, Totonicapan and Solola as well as the Mayan National Convergence Waq`ib Kej.
Concepción Tutuapa: two years of resistance and struggle
It was February 13th 2007. Concepcion Tutuapa, following the example of Comitancillo y Sipacapa, was getting ready to live one of the most important days of its recent history: to decide whether or not allowing mining exploration in its territory. Two years later, the community consultation is commemorated.
Citizens from 64 communities, with more than 11,000 votes, voted against a “development” that would destroy the way of life and millenary traditions of the people.
This decision did not stay in the municipality. An environmental commission was created to follow up on these issues and they also carried their decision to the National Congress in Guatemala City.
In 2005 a Community Consultation was held in Sipacapa, expressing their absolute opposition to the land strip mining with chemicals, as an alternative development for the people. From that struggle a Civic Committee was formed, and it won the mayoralty in Sipacapa for the 2008-2012 period. Different organizations in the municipality in collaboration with the Catholic Church prepared an alternative development proposal: coffee.
The idea is to improve the quality of life through sustainable alternative projects, as well as provide a work alternative to the mine. This is because the mine instead of development brings many negative social, economic, political, cultural, religious and environmental impacts.
By Efrén Diego Domingo
Pastoral Social Ixcan, El Quiche
On March 5th 1996, trough the Decree Number 9-96, after the consultative opinion of the Constitutional Court given on May 18th 1995, the National Congress gave its approval to the 169 treaty from the International Labor Organization (ILO) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Populations on Independent countries.
From the moment of the ratification of the treaty, Guatemala committed judicially to observe each one of the dispositions in it, in which the subjects of law are the people that (such as Jorge Gonzales Galvan, expert from the IIJ/UNAM says):
The level of arsenic found in the rivers around the Marlin mine is alarming. That’s what Ing. Fausto Valiente from the technical team of COPAE affirms, after the water monitoring in February 2009.
On Monday 23rd of February this year, the technical team of COPAE found a very high level of arsenic in the stream down the water dike of the Marlin mine, located in the municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacán, department of San Marcos.
The level found was of 70 ppb(parts per billion) or 0.07 mg/L. While the international standards, such as the ones of the World Bank for land strip mining, establish the maximum limit is 0.1 mg/L, the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency of the U.S.A. establish the maximum limit in 0.01 mg/L.
The stream down the mine flows to the stream Quivichil that unites the Cuilco river, the one that forms the river basin of the Cuilco river, one of the 33 most important basins of the country, which flows to Mexico.
Much has been said about the so-called energetic crisis that Guatemala is experiencing. However, Guatemala produces more electric energy than it consumes during the time of the highest demand (El Periódico, 14/05/08; Electric Sector Statistics Report 2001-2006 Energy and Mine Ministry). According to these sources, there’s an excess of 100 Megawatts.
Nevertheless, the Guatemalan government with the national oligarchy and transnational companies have the intention to build several hydroelectric damns in the republic, leaving tens of thousands Guatemalans without water. Because these rivers have a very low water level, they are planning to transfer them.
The sentence of the TPP (Permanent Court of the People by its initials in Spanish) was dictaded during the III Americas Social Forum that was held from Oct 7th to the 12th in San Carlos University of Guatemala (USAC) with the objective to analize different topics of popular and social movements as well as the indigenous population of the continent, in order to search for alternatives to the capitalism.
In the sentence the TPP remarks that “it is impossible to hide the responsibility that different States of the region have letting multinationals work violating the rights of the workers of the entire continent, acting above the law, which at the end only reinforces impunity.”
On the newspaper.
Read the translation of the Diario Colatino October 13th 2008
Affected communities by the mining activity, get to a consensus to form a common front against projects that threaten their territory.
On Friday 3rd 2008, Teunis Kamper, Dutch Ambassador made a visit to he Municipio of Sipakapa, San Marcos. In the Cultural Centre of Sipakapa, the major Delfino Tema and the municipal council presented their Alternative Development Program for the People of San Marcos.
On October 1st there was held a press conference to present the Annual Report of Water Analysis and Monitoring, which the San Marcos Diocese and COPAE carried in the rivers and water sources around the Marlin Mine. This presentation was held in the Guatemalan Episcopal Conference (CEG by its initials in Spanish) in presence of Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini and the Environment Ministry Luis Ferrate.
With this report it was demonstrated that this water has presence of heavy metals above the national levels (very lax) and international measures (more strict) Therefore this water is not good for human consumption.
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