|
They are standing on their lands, high on the Sierra Santa Cruz along the north shore of Lake Izabal in eastern Guatemala. Due to the violent evictions and wholescale destruction they suffered in 2007 (during which they were gang-raped, that are addressed in the recently concluded landmark Hudbay lawsuits), they have never been to move back to their home community of Lote Ocho.
Accompanying the photo, Joan Kuyek writes:
“TESTIMONIO is a significant contribution to the growing literature about the impacts of predatory Canadian mining policies and companies on communities in Latin America. Nolin and Russell’s edited volume tells the horrific story of Canadian mining in Guatemala through the voices of some of the people most affected, and through a chronological and detailed history that is unrelenting in its courage and force. In the face of our government’s continuous refusal to regulate the behaviour of companies abroad, it is a compelling case study. No wonder there were attempts (by forces unknown) to prevent its publication.”
(Joan Kuyek, author of “Unearthing Justice: How to Protect Your Community from the Mining Industry”)
Chapter 4
Q’eqchi’ People Fight Back against Hudbay Minerals, in Their Own Words
This chapter of TESTIMONIO deals with the violence, destruction and harms caused by the Fenix mine, owned and operated from the 1960s through to 2011 by Canadian companies INCO (International Nickel Company), Skye Resources and Hudbay Minerals. The chapter includes powerful and moving testimonios by:
- Angelica Choc, widow of the slain community defender Adolfo Ich. Angelica is one of 13 plaintiffs in the Hudbay lawsuits and is a victim/ co-prosecutor in the overlapping, interconnected Mynor Padilla criminal trial in Guatemala.
- María Cuc Choc, sister of Angelica Choc, who worked with Rights Action as our community liason from 2006-2011.
- José Ich, eyewitness to the murder of his father Adolfo Ich, and witness, along with his mother, in the Hudbay lawsuits and Padilla trial.
The chapter includes also the closing remarks of German Chub at the trial of Mynor Padilla. German was a plaintiff in the Hudbay lawsuits and a victim-witness (together with Angelica) in the Padilla trial.
For more information / to purchase
TESTIMONIO–Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala
Edited by Catherine Nolin & Grahame Russell (Between The Lines, 2021)
https://www.testimoniothebook.org/
In this Rights Action archive (https://rightsaction.org/hudbay-minerals-archives), find information about decades of forced evictions and destruction of homes; killings, rapes, shootings; criminalization of community defenders; corruption and impunity that characterize the actions of the companies and governments that support them. Find extensive information, from 2010-2024, about the landmark Hudbay Minerals lawsuits and deeply interconnected Mynor Padilla criminal trial.
The “quiet period” is over
Now that the “quiet period” is over, following the resolution of the lawsuits, Rights Action will be involved in work to tell the full story of the Hudbay lawsuits and Padilla trial as we lived them, including serious obstacles and challenges we confronted and unresolved issues related to the lawsuits and trial.
This work will focus attention again on the complicit roles and responsibilities of the Canadian government, investment sector and mining industry, in terms of mining-related violence, harms and corruption occurring regularly around the world.
|
