Guatemala: the forgotten women
February 28, 2018
Land and Environmental Defenders
Many indigenous and traditional farming (or campesino) communities are struggling to protect the land on which their livelihoods depend. Often living in conditions of extreme poverty, they rely on their land for food, shelter, and cultural identity. In some cases, pollution from mining threatens to seep into the land and water. In others, communities have been forced from their land for development projects or monoculture plantations, condemning them to internal displacement and landlessness. Others campaign for sustainable land use, seeking to halt patterns of destruction for the benefit of future generations.
Defenders of land rights, culture, and natural resources can find themselves facing powerful interests and brutal opposition. Some have approached PBI for protection after they have been attacked or their colleagues assassinated. Many others have been subjected to criminal prosecutions based on spurious charges.
"The 2005 massacre was not the end, it was just the beginning"
February 23, 2018
In her own words: Rosalinda Dionicio, United Peoples’ Network of the Ocotlán Valley, Mexico
Rosalinda Dionicio is a leader of the United Peoples’ Network of the Ocotlán Valley in Defense of Territory. Since 2009, the organization has been demanding the closure of the San José mine, owned by a subsidiary of the Canadian company Fortuna Silver Mines, which they say has caused environmental destruction and water shortages in their communities. Rosalinda is a survivor of a 2012 attack by gunmen in which her colleague Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez was assassinated--one of many serious human rights violations suffered by the organization.
Guatemala Project updates: attacks on indigenous leaders, corruption
February 15, 2018
Land, Culture and Conflict
January 26, 2018
See the report from PBI Colómbia here: Land, culture and conflict
Mexico: The struggle of the Me’Phaa against mining
January 25, 2018
An indigenous community from the region of La Montaña (state of Guerrero) have been waging a legal battle since 2011 to prevent their lands from being conceded to mining companies. The indigenous Me’phaa community lives in San Miguel del Progreso, or Júba Wajiín in their indigenous language. In the last seven years, they have obtained two legal protection mechanisms that have rendered a mining project practically null and void.
Honduras: Land of corn and hydroelectric dams
Martín Gómez is a small, slim man. He walks with confidence and you can see that he has planted corn and grain all his life. He lives in the middle of green mountains in Santa Elena, southern Honduras. Martín is part of the MILPAH indigenous movement, created in 2010 to defend land and the Lenca indigenous community, a predominant indigenous people in Honduras. A year after the organization was founded, the Honduran government approved a concession for the construction of the Los Encinos S.A. hydroelectric dam in Santa Elena on the Chinacla river.
In her own words: Aurelia Arzú, Fraternal Black Organisation of Honduras (OFRANEH), Honduras
Aurelia Arzú is a human rights defender from the Garifuna community in Honduras and vice coordinator of the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH). OFRANEH work to safeguard the economic, social, and cultural rights of the unique Garifuna ethnic community.
Atiriri Bururi ma Chuka: The struggle to reclaim ancestral lands
January 18, 2018
Dam Opponents Suffer Killings and Mass Arrests in La Concepión
January 12, 2018
On January 7, 2018, in the village of La Concepción in Guerrero in southern Mexico, extrajudicial executions, acts of torture, and arbitrary detentions were carried out against members of a community group (CECOP, Communities Opposing the Dam La Parota) and against community police (Regional Coordination of Community Authorities – Community Police, or CRAC-PC, a community self-defense initiative). The community groups are targeted for their opposition to a dam on the Papagayo River.