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September 8, 2025


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** Sexual Violence and Rape as Tools of Repression
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** Seeking justice, 40 years later, for Maya Achi Genocide carried out by U.S. and Western-backed Guatemalan regimes, 1970s-1980s

By Grahame Russell, Rights Action
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[link removed]

The New York Times Magazine recently published a moving photo-essay ([link removed]) about the struggle for truth and justice of 36 Maya-Achi women. Together with the Asociación Bufete Jurídico Popular-ABJP ([link removed]) (Rabinal Community Legal Clinic), they brought their rape and sexual violence case to Guatemalan courts and won historic convictions against the ‘material author’ perpetrators ([link removed]) of these crimes against humanity.

Funds needed
See below to donate funds for the work of the ABJP seeking justice for and building monuments to the victims of the Maya Achi Genocide

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Connecting the Dots
Sexual violence and rape as tools of repression

There is a direct overlap between this courageous justice struggle related to sexual crimes and rapes committed during the worst years of U.S. and Western-backed repression and genocides in Guatemala and the recently concluded Hudbay Minerals lawsuits ([link removed]) in Canada.

Resolved in October 2024, after a 15-year legal battle in Ontario courts, thirteen Maya Q’eqchi’ plaintiffs achieved a measure of justice and reparations. Eleven of the plaintiffs are campesina women from the remote village of Lote Ocho who, on January 17, 2007, were gang-raped by Guatemalan soldiers and police together with mining company security guards during the wholescale destruction of their community. There are indications the rapes that day were planned beforehand, as part of the effort to eradicate Lote Ocho and terrorize the villagers into not coming back to their lands.

During the recently concluded Maya Achi women’s trial (profiled in the NYT Magazine), evidence was provided that rape and sexual violence were used as tools of repression and terrorization of the Mayan population during the worst years of the genocides.

Read more about “Sexual Violence as a Weapon during the Guatemalan Genocide” (by Victoria Sanford, Sofia Duyos Alvarez-Arenas and Kathleen Dill) in Women and Genocide: Survivors, Victims, Perpetrators ([link removed]) .

Connecting the Dots
Genocide as foreign policy

The sexual crimes and rapes committed against the Maya Achi women took place during the worst years (1970s and 1980s) of Guatemala’s war against its own predominantly Mayan population. In four Mayan regions of the country, the U.S. and Western-backed repression amounted to the crimes of genocide, as Guatemalan regimes intentionally targeted anyone (infants, children, elderly, women and men), labelling them all as “internal enemies”.

The Maya Achi municipality of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, where the 36 women are from, was one of the four regions targeted. Not surprisingly, no justice has been done against the ‘intellectual authors’ of these crimes, the military chain of command and political leaders that planned and ordered the crimes against humanity perpetrated at this time, all in the name of “fighting communism”.

Chixoy Hydro-Electric Dam
Genocidal project of the World Bank/ IDB

At the same time the regimes were carrying out genocides in four Mayan regions, using rape and sexual violence as tools of repression, the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) saw a good investment climate. From 1975-1985, these “development” banks invested close to 1 billion USD in the construction of the Chixoy hydro-electric dam in direct partnership with the military regions of genocidal Generals Lucas Garcia and Rios Montt.

In lead up to this year’s commemoration of four large-scaled massacres in 1982 that killed over 450 infants, children and elderly, men and women, during the erasure of the Maya Achi village of Rio Negro, I wrote of this: 43rd anniversary of complete World Bank and IDB impunity for Chixoy Dam-Rio Negro massacres in Guatemala ([link removed]) .

Funds Needed

As the U.S., Canada and Western Europe again support and legitimize genocide as foreign policy, this time in Palestine, Rights Action highlights the courageous work and struggle of the ABJP and Achi people to tell the truth about and seek justice for the genocide planned and carried out in the Rabinal region of Guatemala.

Please consider donating via a GoFundMe campaign or Rights Action.
* The Support the Survivors of Mayan Genocide Go Fund Me campaign ([link removed]) was established by Kathy Dill, long-time friend of Right Action, and friend and supporter of Maya Achi genocide survivors since 1994
* Since 1994, Rights Action ([link removed]) has worked in and supported community-based projects in Rabinal for truth, memory and justice, including the work of the ABJP

Foundations/Larger donors? On request, Rights Action can share full proposals for the work of the ABJP.

Grahame Russell
[email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

More information

Asociación Bufete Jurídico Popular: [link removed]

Further reading
* “Generating terror: Role of international financial institutions in sustaining Guatemala’s genocidal regimes” ([link removed]) , 2012 report by Jubilee Debt Campaign
* “The Genocidal Chixoy Dam Project”, by Nathan Einbinder, found in TESTIMONIO-Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala ([link removed])
* “Chixoy Dam: No Reparations, No Justice, No Peace” ([link removed]) , 15 minute film (2013) by Lazar Konforti
* Rights Action archive: Chixoy Dam/Rio Negro Massacres & Reparations Campaign ([link removed])

Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)

To support land and environmental defenders, and human rights, justice and democracy defense struggles in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
* U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
* Canada: Box 82858, RPO Cabbagetown Toronto, ON, M5A 3Y2

Credit-Card Donations: [link removed]
Direct deposits, write to: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
Donations of securities, write to: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

Resolution of landmark Hudbay Minerals lawsuits ([link removed])

TESTIMONIO–Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala ([link removed])
Edited by Catherine Nolin & Grahame Russell (Between The Lines, 2021)

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