Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA

Organizations Denounce Evictions and Intimidation in Alta Verapaz
Sources: UVOC, CNOC, CDHG
February 15, 2006

On the night of January 31, various sources began reporting preparations for a large-scale eviction on the San José Moca and Cabañas fincas (plantations) in the municipalities of Tinta and Senahú, Alta Verapaz. According to UVOC, both fincas are owned by brothers of German origin, William and Howard Hempstead Smith. On the morning of February 1, approximately 600 heavily armed police officers arrived, accompanied by approximately 100 soldiers. They began a dialogue with the campesino families in the communities of San José Moca and Cabañas. The National Coordinating Committee of Campesino Organizations (CNOC) reported that the families in the Cabañas finca opted to cooperate with the authorities, while families on the Moca finca resisted and the police responded with violence. According to CNOC, those resisting the eviction were met with physical violence and threats from police carrying arms, rods, and tear gas. UVOC reported that at 10:00 A.M., the police violently proceeded with the eviction, burning the families’ homes, food, and clothing and removing the barricades the families had set up on the highway to impede the advance of the police.

On February 2, the families again occupied the land, as they had nowhere else to go. At approximately 2:00 P.M., two people who identified themselves as employees of the National Commission for the Resolution of Land Conflicts in Guatemala (CONTIERRA) entered the community in a taunting and intimidating way. The disagreement escalated when the employees started taking photos of the campesinos. Knowing that this is not the function of CONTIERRA, the angered campesinos held one of the alleged employees, Elmer Pa, for more than six hours, until representatives of the local Human Rights Procurator’s Office (PDH) negotiated his release. When the same alleged employees from CONTIERRA retuned on February 3, a phone call was made to the agrarian secretary of the presidency requesting that CONTIERRA personnel stay away.

On February 4, the landowners’ private security agents reportedly attacked four campesinos while they were getting water. UVOC reported that Manuel Federico Cu Bol, Gerardo Bol, Domingo Caal Cac, and Matías Toz Che sustained serious injuries and were hospitalized. The Comisión de Derechos Humanos de Guatemala (CDHG) reported that Manuel Federico Cu Bol was transferred to Cobán for surgery to remove a bullet that pierced his stomach. In addition to the four men, CDHG reported that Rosaria Chub was also harassed, followed, and beaten.

In their communiqué, UVOC denounced the tactics of the state and large landholders, in particular the use of public security forces to carry out evictions, destroying homes, crops, food, and clothing in the process. According to UVOC, the state and powerful landowners use terror, intimidation, and extreme violence in campesino communities. To UVOC members, the evictions, the destruction of food and property, and the detention of local leaders reflect an attempt to destroy the campesino organizing base and, in this way, undermine the strength campesino organizations draw from their base and their struggles. In addition to direct violence, the landowners and the state have also tried to discredit campesino leaders through the cooptation of national and regional media sources. UVOC compared the eviction strategy to the scorched earth policy of the 1980s, suggesting that it too was an attempt to create a newly displaced population.

UVOC asked the government to uphold the rule of law and provide an immediate solution to the agrarian problem in the Verapaces and throughout Guatemala. The organization also asked that the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Defense, and the Attorney General stop exclusively serving the landowners while persecuting the civilian population, and that they carry out their duties as defined in the constitution.

UVOC asked for solidarity from popular organizations, human rights organizations, and the international community in the struggle for justice, asking these groups to intervene to halt the persecution of campesinos in Guatemala.

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