Tragedy

Two and a half years ago when Crescent Hill folks were preparing for the first mission trip to El Estor, several people found on YouTube disturbing video of eviction of squatters (people living informally on others' property) off the land near the nickel mine (pictured above) that its Canadian owners were interested in operating again. This week Dennis Smith, Crescent Hill's guest speaker from last week, shared with us the very disturbing news that - apparently in a reprise of three years ago - national police and nickel mine company security guards - apparently - have shot and killed three people and wounded four others in a more violent eviction of squatters. It remains to be seen if Crescent Hill folks inquire about this with Estoreño partners, since - at least in 2007 - the vice president of the Estoreño presbytery had served as a paid consultant to the nickel mine company. When Smith was here, Smith opined that the nickel mine company was probably the most benign of the big three economic actors he saw in the Izabal area: drug traffickers, African palm and sugar cane planters, and the nickel mine company. Perhaps he has revised his opinion now.

P.S. From reading on the Web, it seems clear that this is part of an ongoing conflict between some organized Q'eqchi' communities - including one in La Union, where a Presbyterian mission church exists - and the Canadian nickel mine owner and some El Estor business interests, with the Guatemalan government leaning towards the nickel mine. As among Mayan indigenous folks around the country with other extractive, etc. operations, some Q'eqchi folks believe their lands were stolen some 40 years ago when the nickel mine company was awarded the land and the mine was constructed. Backing the Q'eqchi' are some human rights advocates and international treaties. Behind whoever owned the nickel mine - for years - was the Guatemalan military, which may or may not have operated the then dormant mine area as a torture site in the 1980s and 1990s, and - now - a paramilitary group representing mine-friendly El Estor business interests. On top of Dennis Smith's discussion of drug traffickers in the area, this paints the area in a somewhat different light.

P.P.S. The deaths and injuries reported Tuesday apparently resulted in part from a roadside ambush of a van carrying some communitiy leaders and community organizers. The nickel mine company - trying to develop the world's largest nickel mine, which could ultimately strip mine much of the area around El Estor - was recently bought by a larger Canadian company: Hudbay Minerals. Write the following Hudbay executives and ask that they suspend development of the mine until they have settled land claims of Q'eqchi' communities, that they reveal any ties to the paramilitary groups apparently behind some of the killings, and that they cooperate with any investigations: Peter R. Jones, Chief Executive Officer, or Michael D. Winship, President and Chief Operating Office, Hudbay Minerals, Dundee Place, Suite 25011 Adelaide Street. East Toronto, Ontario, M5C 2V9, CANADA.

-- Perry