Publikation

In 1983, Peace Brigades International (PBI) opened a project in Guatemala, establishing a stable team of volunteers after receiving petitions for international accompaniment from Guatemalan human rights organizations. PBI would continue in Guatemala for 16 years. Over these 16 years, PBI provided accompaniment to human rights organizations, unions, indigenous, peasant, refugee and church groups. In 1999, PBI closed the project after an exhaustive evaluation determined that the country had made advances in opening a space in human rights organizations could work. Nevertheless, PBI continued to closely monitor events in the country through a Security Committee. Starting in mid-2000, we began to receive international accompaniment petit ions from Guatemala again. We conducted a preliminary investigation that showed a deterioration of the situation and, in some cases, a closing of the space in which human rights defenders were working. After several exploratory missions, PBI decided to reopen the project in 2002 to carry out accompan iment and observat ion work in collabora t ion with other inte rn at ional accompaniment NGOs.

In April 2003, a new PBI office was opened in Guatemala City. At the end of 2003, the issue of metal mining came to a head on the national level. At the same time, harassment of environmentalists and grass-roots leaders working on this issue increased, which led to petitions for PBI to accompany various organizations and individuals receiving threats. Since then, PBI has been investigating the mining issue more extensively by gathering information in Guatemala. The report we present to you here is the fruit of the PBI-Guatemala team’s work over these past few years. No research report can cover all aspects of this complex and problematic issue. Therefore, we tried to explain the general aspects of the mining industry to provide an understanding how mining companies set up and operate in Guatemala, and the consequences. We decided to use the Marlin mine as an example because we have been maintaining a presence in that area with internat ional accompaniment and observation. We think this case illustrates the problem very well and it has been at the center of national debate since Glamis Gold Ltd. arrived in Guatemala.