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Notes from the Field:
Guatemalan Community Struggles with Chixoy Dam Legacy of Violence, Forced Resettlement
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.
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| 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. ¨
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