AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

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Report on Science and Human Rights

Fall/Winter 2003 Vol XXIII, No. 3

Barbara Rose Johnston, Senior Research Fellow,
Center for Political Ecology, Santa Cruz, California

In July 2003, I served as the AAAS representative at Chixoy Dam Legacy Issues meetings in Guatemala City and Rabinal, Baja Vera Paz. I traveled at the invitation of Rio Negro massacre survivors and other dam-affected communities as part of an ad-hoc coalition of environment and human rights groups supporting community efforts to seek reparations for the consequential damages of Chixoy Dam development. This report summarizes the findings from the July 2003 meetings and subsequent efforts to explore the details of this case.

A Mayan priest holds a cross with the ages of his family members killed in a 1980s Rio Negro massacre in Guatemala. Over the past few years Rio Negro massacre survivors have become central actors in efforts to document human rights crimes and seek meaningful remedy. Photo by Jonathan Moller.

The Chixoy Dam development represents a case where an energy initiative was conceived and built in a country in the midst of a civil war characterized by the state-sponsored genocide of Mayan peoples. In 1975, Guatemala’s National Institute for Electrification (INDE) announced approval for the Chixoy Hydroelectric Project and began building access roads in the previously inaccessible region. The feasibility study stated that the area was largely unpopulated, no notice of the project was given to the people living in project area, and no effort was made to assess socioeconomic impacts or identify the costs of a resettlement plan. The 1976 earthquake put an 18-month halt on construction, and a World Bank-funded Earthquake Reconstruction survey produced a new assessment of the area identifying a Maya Achi population of some 463 families (about 1500 people) living in five separate communities, describing archaeological sites and socioeconomic conditions, and mapping where people lived in relation to the planned reservoir. With a revised assessment, INDE was able to secure a $105 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank with the condition that a resettlement plan be developed and archaeological sites salvaged. INDE then informed the people of Rio Negro and other villages along the river that a dam would be built, their villages flooded, and they must move. INDE promised replacement farmlands, homes, and compensation for lost resources. However, those who accepted relocation offers found that resettlement programs failed to meet basic human needs or adequately compensate for the value of lost property. For those who attempted to negotiate the terms of resettlement, removal from the project area was finally completed through a series of threats—accept relocation offers or be killed.

The Chixoy Dam experience of resettlement at gunpoint reflected Guatemalan government policies that (1) viewed Mayan communal culture as a form of communism and a natural threat to the state; (2) forced at gunpoint enrollment and service in a civilian militia to monitor and patrol Mayan communities against guerilla incursions; and (3) characterized Mayan resistance to civil patrol service, dam development and other state-sponsored initiatives as evidence of support for the guerrilla armies. Beginning in 1978, state-sponsored violence directed towards the Mayan communities in the Chixoy Dam project area escalated. While many incidents reflected the Guatemalan government’s war against perceived Mayan militants, in a number of instances violence was directly connected to resettlement issues. For example, in July 1980 Rio Negro leaders Everisto Osorio and Valeriano Osoio Chen traveled to INDE offices at their request carrying their community’s Libro de Actos (Book of Legislation containing land titles, a registry of affected families, and the community documentation on INDE’s resettlement promises). They disappeared in route, their mutilated bodies were found a week later, and the Libro de Actos was never recovered.

By September 1982 over half the population of Rio Negro (447 residents) had been murdered in various incidents and in four massacres. INDE began to fill the reservoir in 1982 and those still in Rio Negro abandoned their homes and fled to the mountains. In 1983, four farms were purchased by INDE near Rabinal and used to build the “model village” of Pacux to house displaced villagers in a cluster of homes with a single access road guarded by a military base. Arguing that the loss of Rio Negro’s Libro de Actos required a new resettlement plan to be enacted, INDE conducted a new census of Pacux and ruled that only 106 families from Rio Negro were eligible for compensation. This effectively disenfranchised a total of 44 families. Some were not present in Pacux as they had fled to the mountains to escape massacres. Others were present in Pacux, having survived massacres, but with the death of the male head of household could not hold legal title as women or minors, and were according to INDE ineligible for compensation.

In 1983, the Chixoy Dam produced electricity for four months before a crack in the dam forced its closure. In 1985 the World Bank approved a second loan for $44.6 million to cover repairs and cost overruns, and Chixoy reopened shortly thereafter. In 1996, a United Nations- sponsored study examined the details of the Rio Negro massacres and concluded that the Guatemala government’s policy of targeting the Mayan civilian population in an effort to wipe out potential support for guerilla armies represented an example of state-sponsored genocide. Also in 1996, the World Bank (in response to the UN study and a Witness for Peace report entitled “A People Dammed” outlining the relationships between dam construction and Rio Negro massacres) sent a mission to Guatemala to investigate the situation. This mission concluded that World Bank obligations stipulated in loan contracts had been met, but local people had not been adequately compensated, and recommended follow up actions to encourage INDE to purchase more agricultural land, facilitate the entitlement process for existing housing lots and land, and fulfill resettlement commitments by the end of 1997.

INDE responded with compensation offers of $50 for each family’s loss of crops and began efforts to purchase additional farmland. However, by 1997 INDE was on the verge of bankruptcy and apparently lacked adequate funds to acquire new land. The World Bank intervened and negotiated with FONAPAZ (National Fund for Peace) a plan to fund INDE’s commitments for land. FONAPAZ acquired a portion of promised lands, a 330-acre farm, and in 1998 finished titling lands. Meanwhile, INDE was privatized in a process facilitated by World Bank, IMF, and USAID with proceeds placed in a “Rural Electrification Trust Fund” to subsidize the costs of rural hookups and encourage the expansion of a privately-owned energy sector.

Today, despite the many efforts of community members to tell their story, secure assistance in excavating massacre sites, and testify in cases seeking justice for massacre victims, the dam-affected communities have been unable to secure substantive remedy for the many problems resulting from dam construction, violence, and involuntary displacement. Resettlement housing is crumbling. Inadequate replacement of land has produced widespread hunger and high malnutrition rates. Down-stream villages are flooded by dam releases occurring with no warning and resulting in loss of life, crops, and livestock. The reservoir and lack of a bridge or reliable boats has resulted in the loss of access to communal lands. Outspoken members of the displaced communities continue to receive threats and experience violence as a result of their efforts to document massacres and seek meaningful remedy for their losses. And the institution responsible for implementing resettlement and other compensatory agreements–INDE–has been privatized and the new power companies refuse to recognize prior agreements. Thus, the resettlement villages have lost their electricity for failure to pay utility bills and, with the loss of power have also lost potable water.

Given this context—where serious grievances associated with Chixoy Dam construction remain but no institutional entity exists for the community to present complaints and seek redress—the community has decided to document their history and conditions and present their complaints to those who financed the development process, assessed conditions and identified compensation obligations, and then advised and encouraged the privatization of INDE. During the July 2003 Chixoy Dam Legacy Issues meetings displaced community representatives endorsed a plan calling for an independent audit of development project documents and participatory field research documenting community history, socioeconomic conditions, and the relative strengths and needs of dam affected communities. In the fall of 2003, two representatives from each of the fifteen dam-affected communities completed a series of capacity building/community needs assessment workshops. Archival research and review of development reports and legal documents is now underway, and assuming continued foundation support for this endeavor, a consequential damage/community needs assessment should be completed by July 2004. The community hopes that this report can be used to structure a negotiated settlement with responsible parties.

References, resources and additional information on the effort to document the consequential damages of Chixoy Dam Development can be obtained by contacting the Barbara Rose Johnston at bjohnston@igc.org. ¨