The normalcy of “eternal emergencies” in Guatemala and Honduras  

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December 2020 Newsletter


** The Normalcy of “Eternal Emergencies” in Guatemala and Honduras

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"We live in a country of eternal emergencies. We have no time for anything else. U.S. and Canadian supported coup d’etats. Pandemics. Hurricanes and tropical storms. Rapacious, murderous and corrupt governments backed by the U.S., Canada and transnational companies. We need to construct another society and State."
- Miriam Miranda

Miriam Miranda is a courageous Garifuna land, rights and environmental defender and Coordinator of OFRANEH in Honduras. Miriam’s comment can equally be said about Guatemala.

There is no sugar-coating 2020. It has been a hard and sad year - quite depressing at times. As COVID-19 spread across the planet, its impact has been particularly hard on humans living in conditions of pre-existing vulnerabilities: systemic exploitation and poverty; discriminations; systemic human rights violations, repression and violent dispossessions.

It has been a very hard year in Honduras and Guatemala for our Indigenous and non-Indigenous partner groups whose land, human rights and environmental defense struggles Rights Action has supported and been involved with for many years.

Remembering & honoring Elena Choc Quib Caal
In the midst of added suffering caused by COVID-19, we remember and honor Elena Choc Quib Caal who died of preventable cervical cancer on October 18, 2020.

Elena (blue shirt) meeting with her Canadian lawyers Murray Klippenstein and Cory Wanless, along with other plaintiffs (L-R: Amalia Cac & baby, Carmela Caal, Angelica Choc) before beginning a week of depositions (examinations for discovery) by Hudbay Mineral’s lawyers,
In Toronto, November 2017. Photo: Grahame Russell.

In 2007, Elena –and 10 other Maya Q’eqchi’ women– were gang raped by mining company security guards and Guatemalan soldiers and police carrying out the illegal, violent eviction and destruction of their home village of Lote 8. The evictions were carried out to advance the mining interests of Canadian company Skye Resources (later amalgamated with Hudbay Minerals).

Since 2011, Elena participated courageously as one of 13 Mayan Q’eqchi’ plaintiffs in the landmark Hudbay Minerals lawsuits. It is possible Elena’s cervical cancer resulted from the rapes she suffered in 2007. Due to Guatemala’s endemic racism and impoverishment of its majority population, Elena never received medical attention for the rapes she and other women suffered in 2007, let along for her cancer years later, until it was too late.
Rights Action spent most of 2020 sending emergency funds to our partner groups struggling to survive the ravages and shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, then followed by the destruction and further shortages caused by back-to-back hurricanes ETA and IOTA in November 2020.

We continued also to support their human rights, land and environmental defense struggles resisting the “eternal emergencies” of violent and corrupt incursions of government and military-backed companies and investors operating in many sectors of the global economy: mining and dams; for-export consumables (African plan, sugar cane, bananas, coffee, cattle); tourism; sweatshop garment factories.
Rights Action spent most of 2020 sending emergency funds to our partner groups struggling to survive the ravages and shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, then followed by the destruction and further shortages caused by back-to-back hurricanes ETA and IOTA in November 2020.

We continued also to support their human rights, land and environmental defense struggles resisting the “eternal emergencies” of violent and corrupt incursions of government and military-backed companies and investors operating in many sectors of the global economy: mining and dams; for-export consumables (African plan, sugar cane, bananas, coffee, cattle); tourism; sweatshop garment factories.

“The police knee that killed Floyd is the same that
oppresses Indigenous peoples, African descendants and Latinos for centuries.”



The majority populations of Honduras and Guatemala continue to live and subsist under the systemic oppression, violence and exploitation of their own military and economic elites, and governments, in partnership with the U.S. and Canadian governments and transnational companies and investors.

“Constructing other societies and States” in the U.S. and Canada
As our partner groups struggle “to construct another society and State” in Honduras and Guatemala, Rights Action continued education, political and legal activism work in Canada and the U.S. aimed at “constructing other societies and States” here at home. It remains our urgent challenge and responsibility to transform the U.S. and Canada into countries that don’t economically exploit, and politically and militarily dominate weaker ‘global south’ countries - like Honduras and Guatemala.

Thank you to many folks and organizations who continue to support our work. Your comments and questions are welcome.

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


** Your Funds at Work
2020 Funding Summary
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Most community groups and people Rights Action supports are involved in courageous human rights, environmental, territorial defense struggles, confronting the wealth and (oftentimes) violent power of companies and investors in the unequal, unjust global economy in the unjust, unequal Nation State system.

When the COVID-19 pandemic spread through Central America, and when hurricanes ETA and IOTA devastated many regions of Honduras and Guatemala in November 2020, Rights Action sent emergency response funds to these same people and community groups.
“On the people will help save the people”
As is true with most emergency situations and catastrophes, local community groups and people are always in the best position to receive support and provide the most effective hands-on emergency relief.

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COVID-19: $75,000
Since mid-March, Rights Action sent $75,000 in small grants ($250-$2000) to partner groups in Honduras and Guatemala responding to Covid19. Funds were used primarily for:
* Buying basic foods and securing water for the most needy community members
* Covid19 education and prevention measures
* Planting community and family gardens, with focus on medicinal plants and local foods
* On-going land and human rights defense struggles. In the midst of the full-on Covid19 crisis, wealthy actors –national and international– continued using corruption and violence (including evictions and killings) to advance their economic interests

Hurricanes ETA and IOTA: $50,000
Over the first two weeks of November 2020, Rights Action sent $50,000 in small grants ($250-$2000) to partner groups in north and central Honduras and eastern Guatemala responding to the devastation of hurricanes ETA and IOTA, that worsened ever more so the widespread homelessness, hunger and desperation. Community groups used funds primarily for food and potable water, clothing and shelter, and medical support for victims of the hurricanes … before the inevitable re-building work began, once again.

We are NOT all in this together
We should NOT be working to “get back to normal”

Rights Action is deeply concerned by the now-even-more precarious conditions of a majority of the populations of Honduras and Guatemala whose military-backed governments maintain full relations with the U.S. and Canadian governments, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and IMF, and global companies and investors operating mines and hydro-electric dams, ‘sweatshop’ factories and tourism businesses, and producing ‘for-export’ coffee, sugarcane, African palm, bananas and pineapples.

During the worst ravages of COVID-19 and hurricanes ETA and IOTA, it was mostly ‘business-as-usual’ for these sectors of the global economy that continued to export their goods to wealthy consuming societies, primarily in the U.S., Canada and western Europe.

While fully supporting the ‘for-export’ sectors of the global economy, the corrupt, military-backed governments in power – deceitfully referred to as “democratic allies” by the U.S. and Canada - do next to nothing to invest in and support their majority populations in times of the “normal” pandemics of impoverishment and racism, land dispossession, human rights violations and repression, let alone when further devastated by Covid19, and climate disasters like hurricanes ETA and IOTA.

Land, human rights and environmental defense struggles: $150,000
In 2020, our community defender partner groups not only struggled to survive COVID-19 and hurricanes ETA and IOTA, but were forced to continue with land, human rights and environmental struggles in resistance to rapacious, violent economic actors. In 2020, Rights Action was able to send $150,000 to Indigenous and non-Indigenous community defenders for a range of their land, human rights and environmental defense struggles.

GUATEMALA
* CODIDENA. Resisting harmful, illegal mining operation of Pan American Silver (formerly Tahoe Resource)
* Union of Maya Q’eqchi’ fisher people. Resisting harmful, illegal mining operation of Solway Investment Group
* Criminal trial against Mynor Padilla, former Hudbay Minerals/Skye Resources head of security
* Landmark Hudbay Minerals lawsuits in Canada
* Legal defense work: Support for land and human rights defenders, now political prisoners and victims of trumped up ‘criminalizations’
* Right Action accompaniment, education, activism trips
* Angelica Choc. Widow of Hudbay-linked murder victim, leader in justice struggles in Guatemala and Canada
* Aniceto Lopez. Health support, community defender against previous Goldcorp mining harms
* Carlitos Chen. Child of Maya Achi genocide survivor, mental health support
* Carlos Ernesto Choc. Support for journalist targeted for reporting on mining harms linked to Solway Investment Group
* German Chub. Health support, paralysis victim of Hudbay-linked shooting
* Jesus Tecu. Health support, surviving victim of Maya Achi genocide
* Ramiro Choc. Health support, Maya Q’eqchi’ land defender, former political prisoner
* Ramiro, Angelica and Maria Choc. Support during ‘state of siege’ crackdown on Q’eqchi’ land defenders

Education
* El Estor. Scholarships, children of Maya Q’eqchi’ community defenders
* Rio Negro/Pacux refugee community. Education funding, children of Maya Achi genocide victims
* San Miguel Ixtahuacan. Law studies, Maya Mam community defender

Truth, Memory, Justice
* Commemoration. Feb.2, 1982, World Bank/IDB’s Chixoy dam Xococ massacre
* Commemoration. Mar.13, 1982, World Bank/IDB’s Chixoy dam Rio Negro massacre
* Commemoration. Jan.8, 1982, Chichupac massacre
* Commemoration. Mar.31, 2018, murder of Hector Choc, nephew of Angelica Choc
* Commemoration. Sept.27, 2009 assassination of Adolfo Ich, husband of Angelica Choc
* FAFG (Guatemalan Foundation of Forensic Anthropology), mass grave exhumations, search for the ‘disappeared’

Community development
* Transitions. Wheelchair building, personal health management support for paralysis victims

HONDURAS
* Azacualpa Environmental Committee. Resisting illegal cemetery and community destruction by Aura Minerals
* Berta Caceres family. Security and justice for Berta’s assassination
* Commemoration. March 2, 2016, assassination of Berta Caceres
* CIPPH. Indigenous community defense struggle
* Repression victims and political prisoners. Support for family members, activists, lawyers
* OFRANEH (Garifuna & Afro-descendant people’s organization). Resisting harms and violations caused by global tourism operators, African palm producers
* Refugee support. Victims of repression, granted asylum in Canada
* Right Action accompaniment, education and activism trips


OTHER COUNTRIES
* Chiapas, Mexico. Health support, Gustavo Castro, victim of attempted killing during assassination of Berta Caceres
* Chiapas, Mexico. Human rights award, commemorating assassination of Mariano Abarca
* El Salvador. Human rights assembly commemorating Oct.27, 1987 assassination of Herbert Anaya Sanabria

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* Canada: (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8

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