UNBC-Rights Action Experiential Learning Trip in Guatemala
May 9 – 23, 2023
We share this summary itinerary of the just completed 2023 UNBC-Rights Action education program offered by Professor Catherine Nolin of the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC). Grahame Russell (Rights Action) plans and leads the two week in-Guatemala portion of the course. Catherine and Grahame have offered this course 9 times since 2004.
We share this as an example of why and how we plan and carry out these types of learning/solidarity trips. The educational focus is aimed, ultimately, at furthering the understanding of U.S. and Canadian citizens (students, media, funders, NGOs and solidarity groups, students, community and religion-affiliated groups) about what are actually the interests, policies and actions of the U.S. and Canadian governments, and our banks, investors and companies in a place like Guatemala.
Throughout the trip, we emphasize we are not here to learn about “Guatemalan” problems (poverty and exploitation, repression and forced evictions, corruption, impunity and a fundamental lack of democracy), but rather to learn about how U.S. and Canadian government and private sectors policies and actions contribute to and benefit from “poverty and exploitation, repression and forced evictions, corruption, impunity and a fundamental lack of democracy” in Guatemala.
Participants
11 university students from 3 universities.
Trip Reminder
Trip is a traveling forum of learning, discussion and debate. All questions and comments welcome. No disrespectful disagreements or comments.
GENERAL THEMES
Victims-Survivors-Protagonists
Most people we meet with are victims and survivors of a range of violences, forced evictions and human rights violations, who are also leaders and protagonists in their own human rights and justice, land and environmental defense struggles.
Truth-Memory-Justice
We have meetings with people and organizations involved in work and struggle to tell the truth about systemic crimes against humanity (including the crimes of genocide) committed by U.S. and western-backed regimes in the 70s, 80s and early 90s; involved in work and struggle to see justice for the same.
Local-National-Global issues
Whether addressing the crimes against humanity of the recent past, or the violences and harms caused by different sectors of the global economy, these are not “Guatemalan problems” but rather “local-to-global problems”, historically and today.
Mother Earth (Environment)-Economic development model-Human rights
The environmental, economic and human rights issues we learn about are interconnected, are local to national to global, at the same time.
Exploitation and Repression, Impunity and Corruption
The issues of exploitation and repression we learn about are fully interconnected with the systemic corruption and impunity of the Guatemalan government, economic elites and military who operate in partnership with other governments, transnational companies and banks.
Local to global awareness and activism
Any work to address the local to global nature of the systemic problems must be based on proper local to global understanding of the issues, and on trusting work and activism relationships with the community-based protagonists.
ITINERARY
Tuesday May 9 – Arrival in Guatemala City
Coordinate participant pick-ups at airport, or arriving by land.
Lodging: Hotel Spring
Wednesday May 10 – Guatemala City
8:30am: Review of trip itinerary, logistics and safety issues; Introduction to Rights Action work and understanding of the issues.
11:00am: Walk to meeting in offices of FAMDEGUA (Family Members of the Disappeared in Guatemala). Since the 1980s, FAMDEGUA has been at the forefront of work and activism related to truth-memory-justice, trying to find out what happened to the more than 45,000 people forcibly disappeared by the U.S.-backed military regimes in the 70s, 80s and 90s. FAMDEGUA is at the forefront of numerous prosecutions working their painful ways through the corrupted legal system, seeking justice for some of the crimes against humanity (including genocide) committed against the mainly Mayan population.
3:30pm: Talk with a journalist with the Prensa Comunitaria media outlet that provides the most balanced daily news, even as independent and even main stream journalists and publishers are being criminalized and jailed on bogus charges.
Lodging: Hotel Spring
Thursday May 11 – Guatemala City
8:30am: Introductory comments: ‘why’ we visit with the FAFG (Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology team), and ‘what’ to expect when we get their laboratories.
10:00am: Meeting with the FAFG that since 1997 (continuing work done by the original “exhumation team”, EAFG, 1991-1996) has carried out exhumations across Guatemala, digging up remains of victims of the State terrorism and genocides, determining –when possible– cause of death and identity. Every exhumation initiates criminal proceedings to determine cause of death and who committed the crime. Many of the key prosecutions addressing the crimes against humanity committed by U.S.-backed regimes in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and working their painful way through Guatemalan courts, began with the exhumation process.
Afternoon: Drive 45 minutes to visit with "La Puya” communities of San Jose del Golfo & San Pedro Ayumpac, resisting mining interests of KCA (American) and [formerly] Radius Gold (Canadian).
(This is the first of four community defense struggles we will visit in resistance to mainly Canadian mining companies. These four struggles are documented in “TESTIMONIO – Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala”, 2021, edited by Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell.)
Lodging: Hotel Spring
Evening: Group reflection and questions.
Friday May 12 – Guatemala City to Rabinal
5 hour drive to Rabinal.
Talk en route: Recent history of Rabinal, millennial center of Mayan-Achi people. Summary of Rights Action’s work there since 1994 in support of numerous ‘truth-memory-justice’ projects and struggles. The Achí region is one of four Mayan regions where, according to the UN Truth Commission (1999), genocides were carried out in the late 70s, early 80s.
We learn more about the Chixoy Dam Reparations Campaign, still seeking and reparations for the illegal and brutally violent Chixoy hydro-electric dam investment project of World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank carried out (1975-1985) in partnership with the genocidal regimes of Generals Lucas Garcia and Efrain Rios along a huge stretch of the Chixoy river basin.
Afternoon: Talk with Jesus Tecu Osorio, @ Bufete Juridico Popular de Rabinal. Jesus is a survivor and eye-witness to the five Chixoy Dam/ Rio Negro massacres that killed over 450 Rio Negro villagers in 1982. The Chixoy Dam/Rio Negro massacres were planned and carried out so as to ‘relocate’ the Rio Negro villagers and enable the filling of the Chixoy Dam flood basin.
Lodging: Posada San Pablo
Saturday May 13 – Rabinal (Hiking day)
6:00am – 4:00pm. Spend the day with the ACPC (Association of Community Production Committees), a Maya Achi agro-ecology project working with coffee farming, agroforestry, and recuperation of ancestral crop varieties and practices, with communities in the watershed of the Xesiguan river.
Early drive 40 minutes to mountain top village of Plan de Sanchez. Meet in home of Juan Manuel Geronimo, survivor of the 1982 Plan de Sanchez massacres. Breakfast in home of Juan Manuel, and talk with him about his truth-memory-justice work, since the early 1990s.
4.5 hour hike down mountain side, with rest stops at various homes, to speak with campesino families participating in ACPC agro-ecology project.
Lunch in the ACPC center, on the land of one of the members, enjoying food grown there.
Lodging: Posada San Pablo
Sunday May 14 – Rabinal to Rio Negro
Drive 3 hours to the Chixoy dam wall, for overnight visit in remote village of Rio Negro, accompanied by Sebastian Iboy, a Rio Negro villager and survivor of the 1982 “Chixoy Dam/Rio Negro” massacres.
From the dam wall, 45-minute boat ride across the dam flood basin to “new” Rio Negro village. The original community, and others, are under the flood basin.
Afternoon and night in the Rio Negro Historic Memory Community Center -including a small museum-, with meals provide by Rio Negro community members.
Talks with Rio Negro villagers, survivors of the massacres.
Monday May 15 – Rio Chixoy to Rio Dulce/ El Estor (Hiking day)
5:00am wake up. 90-minute hike up mountain side to spot known as “Pacoxom”, where –March 13, 1982– 177 women and children were massacred by the regime. Rests at selected spots along the way, where Sebastian tells parts of the story of that horrific day and its aftermath. Finish hike in the spot of the atrocities, now converted into a sacred spot and memorial for the community.
Hike down, breakfast in the community, and boat ride back to dam wall.
Drive 5 hours down through the Polochic valley to Rio Dulce hotel.
Talk en route: Global economy in May Q’eqchi’ territories of the Polochic valley, including 60-year history of violences, evictions and corruption caused by mainly Canadian nickel mining companies centered in the El Estor region. Discussion of landmark lawsuits in Canadian courts addressing some of the mining related violences.
Lodging: Tortugal River Lodge
Tuesday May 16 – Rio Dulce / El Estor
Drive 45 minutes back to El Estor for day of meetings (and lunch together) with Q’eqchi’ land, rights and environmental defenders, sharing testimonies about harms and violations linked to companies such as Skye Resources, Hudbay Minerals and Solway Investment Group, … and about another Canadian company -Central America Nickel- that is allegedly about to take over the mine from Solway.
Afternoon: Slow stop at the Finca Paraiso natural hot springs, on drive back from El Estor to Rio Dulce.
Slow afternoon at Tortugal River Lodge
Evening: Group reflection and discussion.
Wednesday May 17 – Rio Dulce to Mataquescuintla
No meetings this day. Slow morning.
Drive 5 hours to Mataquescuintla
Lodging: Hotel Bernas
Thursday May 18 – Mataquescuintla to Antigua
Breakfast meeting with land, environment, and rights defenders resisting health and environmental harms, and human rights violations, linked to mining operation owned by Pan American Silver, previously by Tahoe Resources, a company that was spun off from Goldcorp Inc.
Drive to visit two resistance encampments -Mataquescuintla and Casillas- operated by community members to monitor any illegal movement of mining vehicles in and out of suspended mining operation.
Drive to Antigua
Lodging: AirBnB in Antigua
Slow evening.
Friday May 19 – Antigua to Huehuetenango
Slow morning.
Drive 5 hours to Huehuetenango
Lodging: Hotel Zaculeu
Saturday May 20 – Huehuetenango / San Miguel Ixtahuacan
Drive 90 minutes into Maya Mam communities harmed by Goldcorp Inc. mining operation 2004-2017. Stops by the mine site and speak with a leading land and rights defender from the region.
Then a lunch and meeting in San Miguel Ixtahuacan with 15-20 land and rights defenders invited to reflect on the legacy of violences and harms left by Goldcorp’s mining operation.
Drive 90 minutes to Huehuetenango
Hotel: Hotel Zaculeu
Sunday May 21 – Huehuetenango to Antigua
Drive 5 hours to Antigua.
Lodging: AirBnb
Monday May 22 – Antigua
Slow morning.
Final trip wrap-up talk by Leocadio Juracan, director of CCDA (Campesino Committee of the Highlands), campesino-Indigenous led organization, and former member of Congress.
Final group reflection and discussion.
Lodging: AirBnb
Tuesday May 23 – Antigua
Departures.
Today is the first day of the rest of your lives …
Rights Action will soon publish a trip follow-up photo-essay.
For more information:
Catherine Nolin: nolin@unbc.ca
Grahame Russell: info@rightsaction.org
