44th anniversary of genocidal World Bank & IDB Chixoy dam project Massacring over 450 Maya Achi villagers in Rio Negro, Guatemala
By Grahame Russell, Rights Action
March 13 marks the 44th anniversary of the massacre of 177 women, children and infants in the Maya Achi village of Rio Negro, carried out with extreme savagery by Guatemalan soldiers and civil defense patrollers. This was one of four largescale massacres carried out in 1982 (February 13, March 13, May 14, September 14) that left 450 Rio Negro villagers dead, their bodies dumped in mass graves, buried deep under the mud and silt of the flood basin of the Chixoy hydro-electric dam, or strewn in the surrounding mountain sides.
A number of the women and children were kidnapped during one of the massacres (at Los Encuentros, on May 14) and forcibly taken away by soldiers in a helicopter. It was not until 2012, that their remains, with signs of torture, were exhumed (dug up) from a series of mass graves on the former Zone 21/ CREOMPAZ military base near Coban.
The massacres were planned and carried out by the U.S. and Western-backed genocidal military government headed by General Efrain Rios Montt that had a full economic partnership with the World Bank (WB) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in building the Chixoy hydro-electric dam from 1975-1985.
“A prayer for the Rio Negro victims”.
Drawing by survivors, used in popular education in Achi region of Guatemala
Chixoy dam wall constructed along the Chixoy river (a.k.a. Rio Negro), that flooded out 25 millenial Maya Achi villages up-river, and dried up 7 more villages down-river
Massacres = Relocation!
The four Chixoy dam-Rio Negro massacres were the “relocation” of the Rio Negro villagers that had been promised by the WB and IDB, to make way for the completion of the dam wall in 1982 and the slow filling of the flood basin up river soon after.
Depiction of Chixoy Dam/Rio Negro massacres
Chixoy Dam Reparations Campaign
Rights Action has again this year sent grassroots funding to massacre survivors and their families to remember and commemorate the lives of their loved ones killed in each of the four massacres.
From 1993 to 2014, Rights Action was very involved in documenting and denouncing the Chixoy Dam-Rio Negro massacres and eradication of the village, helping establish the Chixoy dam reparations campaign that would, through to today, be spear-headed by COCAHICH (Coordinating Committee of Communities Affected by the Construction of the Chixoy Dam). During this time, we channeled as much funds as we could to survivors of the massacres and forced evictions who were leading work and struggle for truth, memory and justice, and for reparations and rebuilding projects.
Impunity and corruption at the highest global levels
To this day, neither the WB nor the IDB have ever acknowledged any responsibility whatsoever. Neither “development” bank has released their internal documents about the project. The banks had full-time staff hired and working on-the-ground, on-site, reporting on the project over the 10 years+ it took to build.
Beyond the fulltime presence of police and military, the project had their own team of private security guards who are also accused of direct participation in the massacres and violence related to the project.
Neither bank ever paid one penny of reparations for the death, destruction and massive theft and loss of property and land caused by the Chixoy dam.
Both banks profited financially from their “investments” in this genocidal project.
Release the documents!
The World Bank and IDB must release all internal documents about the Chixoy dam project, acknowledge the full truth about their roles and responsibilities, and the banks must be held fully accountable.
Whistle-blowers
Where are the former and current employees of the banks when you need someone to start to do the honorable thing?
Inter-generational harms and suffering
It is impossible to document or describe the extent of suffering, destruction and harm caused by the Chixoy Dam/Rio Negro massacres. To this day, many survivors of the massacres (their children and grand-children) live in worse conditions than before 1982. Some of their children and grandchildren are amongst the countless thousands of people forced to flee Guatemala and seek any kind of life they can create for themselves in Mexico or the U.S.
To the best of our ability, Rights Action will continue to support massacre survivor-led efforts to achieve a full and proper reparations from the WB and IDB, and –separately- to pressure the Guatemalan government to comply fully with the sentence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and pay reparations specifically to the surviving family members of the four largescale Rio Negro massacres.
Today and all night into tomorrow, there will be a Mayan and then Christian ceremony at a site known as Pacoxom, high above the remains of the village of Rio Negro, deep in the mountains of Baja Verapaz. It is here where the 177 women and children were savagely slaughtered, 44 years ago, and dumped in a crevice of the mountain side, where their remains were cared for, as best the survivors could manage, until their exhumation in 1993.
Photo @ Grahame Russell. Pacoxom sacred site, all-night ceremony, March 13, 2017
We salute and honor the survivors, their families and communities, of this most horrific genocidal investment project of the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.
Further reading
Chixoy Dam Legacies: The Struggle to Secure Reparation and the Right to Remedy in Guatemala, Barbara Rose Johnston, Center for Political Ecology
The Genocidal Chixoy Dam Project, by Nathan Einbinder, found in TESTIMONIO-Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala
Chixoy Dam: No Reparations, No Justice, No Peace”, 15 min. film (2013) by Lazar Konforti
Rights Action archives: Chixoy Dam/Rio Negro Massacres & Reparations Campaign