Guatemala’s Indigenous Peoples Endure Poverty and Contested Land Rights | Land Portal

By: The Editors

Date: August 17th 2016

Source: World Politics Review


The recent arrest of an indigenous leader in Guatemala sparked outrage among the country’s indigenous communities, which claim the government is systematically discriminating against them. In an email interview, Jennifer N. Costanza, an independent scholar who focuses on indigenous rights and the politics of resource extraction in Latin America, discussed indigenous rights in Guatemala.

WPR: What is the legal status of Guatemala’s indigenous peoples, what legal struggles have they fought in recent years, and what gains have they made?


Jennifer Costanza: Individuals who self-identify as indigenous—about half the population—are recognized as full citizens, even though they may face many types of de facto discrimination. As collective “peoples,” they do not have special status. However, they do hold some collective rights, such as the right to collective land tenure; the right to alter some forms of local governance according to indigenous customs; and the right to free, prior, informed consultation, known as FPIC, over legislative initiatives and development projects that could impact them. Many indigenous organizations and activists claim that indigenous peoples have a right to control the territory on which they live, but this is quite contested in Guatemala. In fact, most collective rights are perennially under attack.


In recent years, the right to FPIC and collective control of territory are arguably the greatest legal struggles that indigenous peoples have faced. Thousands of indigenous communities have protested the construction of large natural resource development projects like open-pit mines and hydroelectric dams on or near where they live. In some places these projects have been slowed or postponed, but rarely has a project been completely halted. Recently it was announced that the most contentious mining project in Guatemala, Goldcorp’s Marlin Mine, will close. But this is only after years of operations that have damaged the environment, public health and social fabric of the surrounding communities. Further, indigenous individuals who lead the movements against projects like the Marlin Mine have been targeted in assassination attempts and sometimes imprisoned under questionable legal grounds. The latter cases have forced the activists left behind to divert energy and funds toward the legal defense of these individuals. 

WPR: What are the key issues facing Guatemala’s indigenous communities, and what role does outside pressure and advocacy play in improving the situation of indigenous communities in Guatemala?


Costanza: At first glance, the key issues facing Guatemala’s indigenous communities appear to be the ones mentioned above: conflicts over natural resource development and the criminalization of social protest. In most such conflicts, foreign actors such as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and a host of smaller rights advocacy groups, have pressured Guatemalan officials to respond to violations of indigenous rights. They also use traditional and social media to keep sympathetic North American and European activist communities informed of rights struggles in Guatemala. Finally, these organizations provide financial and in-kind support to indigenous organizations in Guatemala so that they can continue their struggle.


But if you were to ask most indigenous people, including movement leaders, what the key issues facing their communities are, they will likely point to the myriad challenges that one can find throughout the developing world. These include lack of access to potable water, lack of quality schools for their children, lack of adequate health care, lack of access to justice, food insecurity, and extreme poverty. Guatemala is a poor country: It ranked 128th out of 188 countries on the U.N. Development Programme’s Human Development Index in 2014, but indigenous people fare worse than non-indigenous people on nearly all the indicators mentioned above. For example, according to the UNDP, almost three-quarters of indigenous people live in poverty, compared to 35 percent of non-indigenous people. 

WPR: What is public opinion toward Guatemala’s indigenous peoples, and how big of an issue are indigenous rights politically?


Costanza: Indigenous rights are and have been a big political issue in Guatemala for many years, though the exact understanding of what constitutes indigenous rights, and even who is considered indigenous, may change over time. For over 30 years, Guatemala endured a civil war that was marked by acts of state-sponsored genocide against indigenous people. The Peace Accords that were signed to conclude the conflict in 1996 aimed to recognize numerous de jure and de facto rights that indigenous people lacked, from access to justice in one’s language, to access to land. However, the potential impact of the Peace Accords was diluted in 1999 when, in a national referendum, the Guatemalan public declined to award the accords constitutional legitimacy. 


Now, 20 years after the signing of the accords, indigenous peoples surely have made some gains in terms of the legitimacy of their rights claims. But these gains are limited. One anthropologist, Charles Hale, has written about what he calls the “indio permitido,” or the “allowed” indigenous person, in Guatemala. He argues that non-indigenous people in Guatemala tend to support indigenous rights as long as their claims do not go too far. So while most non-indigenous people would support the idea that indigenous people should be able to live free from poverty, for example, they tend not to support calls to redistribute land in order to alleviate poverty, nor do they support the public protests that indigenous movements hold to advance their claims or the individuals who lead those protests.


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