Finalist for “Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes” →

TESTIMONIO
Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala


What does TESTIMONIO provoke?
By Grahame Russell, July 19, 2022

I am pleased that TESTIMONIO (publisher: Between The Lines) is included as a finalist for the “Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes” that is awarded annually “to the author(s) and/or illustrators of an original work of published writing that challenges or provokes the ideas and forces that shape what society can become.” (https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/categories-and-criteria/jim-deva-prize-for-writing-that-provokes/)

TESTIMONIO - that I co-wrote and co-edited with Professor Catherine Nolin (UNBC) - is based on over 16 years of Rights Action funding and support for mainly Indigenous communities in Guatemala directly harmed by mainly Canadian mining company operations. And it is based on years of leading film-makers, journalists and Canadian/U.S. citizens on educational fact-finding trips to visit the mining harmed communities in Guatemala, including co-leading nine ‘field courses’ offered by Catherine at UNBC, starting in 2004 and continuing today.

What is it that reading TESTIMONIO might provoke?

Truthful reporting
Were the mainstream media and Canadian and U.S. governments to report honestly about the harms and violence that North American global companies – such as the Canadian dominated mining industry in Guatemala – cause in many countries around the world, a book like TESTIMONIO might not be necessary.

Yet, TESTIMONIO should not be understood as a ‘provocative’ book about Canadian mining operations in Guatemala. It should be read as fact-based reporting about the same, with Catherine and myself providing very sensible analysis and conclusions about what is going on.

But given the lack of consistent and proper reporting on these issues, and given the complicit role of the Canadian and U.S. governments in working constantly to promote the expansion of Canadian and U.S. business interests, TESTIMONIO might provoke strong reactions in readers as to what is actually happening in and around four different (mainly Canadian) mining operations in Guatemala.

“The media has a huge responsibility because they’re the ones who inform Canadians on an ongoing basis about these things and if they don’t do their job people won’t know. […] The Canadian government is not doing anything about this. What is needed in Canada is for more people to become indignant about what’s going on here, then unify forces so we can work together to address them.”
(Angelica Choc, wife of assassinated land defender Adolfo Ich,
one of 13 plaintiffs in the landmark Hudbay Minerals lawsuits)


Mining in the aftermath of genocides
Though this is the part of the book title, it has received almost no media attention. (Find here some of the media reporting and book reviews: https://www.testimoniothebook.org/in-the-media)

I regularly find it astounding - though sadly not surprising - how the so-called “international community” openly pushed for the global market liberalization of Guatemala’s economy (including predominantly the extractive industry sector) in the immediate aftermath of the U.S.-backed genocides and State repression of the 1970s and 80s. (Think “Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” by Naomi Klein)

By “international community”, I refer generally – in the case of Guatemala - to the governments of U.S., Canada and European Community, the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and IMF, and a host of global companies and investors, including the Canadian-dominated mining industry.

From there, with no qualms or concerns whatsoever, the Canadian and U.S. governments and our mining companies have - from the early 1990s forward - maintained fully beneficial political and economic relations with Guatemalan politicians, economic elites and ex-military who had been directly involved in the decades of State repression and the genocides.

“American funding, training, support, and facilitation is now a well-documented reality of the genocide of the early 1980s. Here with this edited work, we are shining a light on the Canadians’ willingness to cash in on the aftermath. The predatory actions of Canadian, and other, mining companies are the children of genocide.”
(Nolin and Russell, book introduction)


Human rights violations and environmental harms, corruption and impunity are a way of doing business
As Guatemala is ruled and dominated today by the same economic, political and military elites responsible for the genocides and repression of the 1970s and 80s, it is again, I believe, a fact-based conclusion that “[i]n Guatemala, it is not possible to operate a large-scale mine... without participating in and benefiting from human rights violations and repression, corruption, and impunity.” (Nolin and Russell, book introduction)

“Canadian problems”
One thing that should provoke serious consideration is that TESTIMONIO reframes the focus of attention on how the mining harms and violence, corruption and impunity are not narrowly or simply “Guatemalan problems”.

TESTIMONIO documents what are predominantly “Canadian” harms and violence, “Canadian” environmental damages, “Canadian” corruption and impunity taking place in Guatemala, where the minerals are located, under other people’s lands and communities, that our companies and investors, and international consumers covet.

“That the harms, evictions and violence caused by Canadian companies are occurring in Guatemala and elsewhere does not make these issues any less ‘Canadian’. Once defined as significantly ‘Canadian’ problems, it becomes clearer what needs to be done, and where.”
(Nolin and Russell, book introduction)


Local-to-global problems
Similar to what is occurring across Earth, our one and only planet, as related to environmental devastation and climate crisis, war and military interventions, exploitation and poverty, TESTIMONIO reframes these Canadian mining-related issues in Guatemala as local-to-global problems, not as “national” problems.

“There will be no end to mining-linked repression, environmental destruction, and human rights violations in Guatemala until there are serious changes in how Guatemala and Canada operate as countries, and how the unjust global economic, political, and military order operates.”
(Nolin and Russell, book introduction)

***


The work that Rights Action does is to provide funding and support to our partner groups in Guatemala (and Honduras) so that they may resist the harms and violence, corruption and impunity they are suffering in their homes and communities at the hands of global mining companies (let alone most sectors of the global economy), and our work is to educate in the U.S. and Canada (via books like TESTIMONIO), and advocate to bring about the serious political and legal accountability, reforms and changes needed as to how our governmental policies and private sector businesses and investments impact negatively on people and the environment in countries like Guatemala and Honduras.

Testimonio: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala
(Between the Lines, 2021)