AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

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Report on Science and Human Rights

Fall/Winter 2004 Vol XXIV, No. 2

The Chixoy Dam: A People's Struggle for Justice and Reparations in Guatemala

Stephen Hansen

In 1978 the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) agreed to fund the construction of Chixoy, a hydro-dam in Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. A Guatemalan governmental agency, the National Institute of Electrification (INDE), was charged with developing the project. Designs for this project were approved and construction begun without notifying the local population or addressing compensation and resettlement for the affected communities. In fact INDE gave only one year’s advance notice to the communities in the area that the dam would flood their homeland. In 1982, INDE revoked people’s titles to their lands, the only legal documentation that gave them the right to compensation. By the time it was operational in 1983, the Chixoy Dam had flooded 1,400 hectares of fertile agricultural land and 3,400 mostly Mayan residents had been forcibly displaced. The communities were left with little choice but to negotiate a resettlement package. Yet the infertile lands and poorly built and inadequate housing in the resettlement village offered by the government failed to meet basic human needs and many community members refused to accept this resettlement package.

Despite being informed in 1984 of the failed resettlement process and of the violence in the area, in 1985 the World Bank provided a second loan to Guatemala for the Chixoy project. It wasn’t until 1996, when pressured by human rights groups, that the World Bank undertook an internal investigation of the project. The investigation concluded that the dam affected communities were never adequately compensated and the World Bank urged Guatemalan authorities to provide them with more land. But at this time, INDE was undergoing privatization and claimed to have no money for additional land purchases. At that point, the World Bank obtained a commitment from Guatemala’s National Fund for Peace to purchase the land. The Bank then has publicly stated that “almost all relocated communities have reached the level they had in 1976 [when relocations began] or are about to reach it” and feels it has no remaining obligations.

To date, the people of Rio Negro have not been able to regain their previous standard of living. Housing remains substandard; inadequate access to land has produced widespread hunger; and the absence of a promised bridge has resulted in the loss of access to communal lands. In addition, INDE has been privatized and divided into new power companies that refuse to recognize INDE’s prior agreements. The one resettlement village created by the government has been threatened with the loss of electricity for failure to pay utility bills.

The Chixoy Dam-affected communities joined together and formed the organization “Coordinator of Communities Affected by the Chixoy Dam” (COCAICH) to document the various problems caused by the Chixoy Dam such as environmental degradation, loss of resources, poverty, and malnutrition. Working with the affected communities, a network of NGOs, and anthropologist Barbara Rose Johnston, COCAICH adopted a research plan, which included an audit of World Bank documents relating to the Chixoy project, participatory field research on community history, household surveys, and an assessment of the current needs of the affected communities.

On September 7, 2004, representatives of COCAIH peacefully protested the lack of compensation and reparation at the Chixoy dam site. They demanded immediate compliance with promises made by INDE since 1976 when construction of the Chixoy dam began. Their demands included the purchase fertile lands, building appropriate housing, implementing public services where communities live and the creation of a working group including representatives of the Government of Guatemala, the World Bank, the Inter American Development Bank, the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office, MINUGUA and representatives of the affected communities to discuss solutions to these problems.

The next day, the communities peacefully ended their protest, after signing an agreement with representatives of INDE, the State Electricity Institute, other government authorities and observers from the office of the Judge Advocate General for Human Rights (Procuraduría de los Derechos Humanos or PDH). All parties agreed to establish a “high level commission” and participate in a “discussion table” to assess all the damages and losses caused by the construction of the Chixoy dam.

But in less than a week after the signing of this agreement, on September 14 representatives of INDE formally presented a complaint to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Cobán against the leaders of COCAICH - the same leaders with whom they had just signed the agreement. Eight COCAICH members were charged with making threats, causing bodily harm, and threatening the internal security of the nation.

In an effort to address the social and economic problems caused by the Chixoy Dam, Barbara Rose Johnston convened an expert group to conduct a social impact assessment and make recommendations for reparations and resettlement. In November 2004, the group met in Santa Fe, New Mexico, constituting itself as the Santa Fe Group on Reparations and Development. CSFR committee member Ruth Krulfeld and Stephen Hansen (AAAS Science & Human Rights Program) participated in this meeting.

The group confirmed that significant violations of international law had occurred and World Bank institutional procedures and policies had been breached. It concluded that the financial institutions (World Bank and IDB) as well as Guatemalan government agencies and private contractors all share liability for the unmet obligations to the community. The group found that while legal agreements were inadequate to address successful resettlement, these agreements still obligated the Government of Guatemala, INDE, the IBD and the World Bank to legally acquire land and to replace housing and public services. The obligations that were written into these legal agreements have the status of international law and are therefore still binding on the government of Guatemala.

The Group released the “Santa Fe Group on Reparations and Development Statement on Chixoy,” with its findings which received the institutional endorsement of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA), and the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility (CSFR). The statement was translated and distributed to the dam-affected community leadership and their advocates in Guatemala. It was also included in press release packets distributed to the media. The statement was also distributed in the briefing documents sent to members of the “High Level Commission” - the group established as a result of the September 7, 2004 agreement consisting of members of the Guatemalan Congress, representatives of the Guatemalan Executive Branch, COPREDH - the human rights commission, representatives of the IDB and the World Bank, and representatives of INDE.

On Monday, November 29, 2004 the High Level Commission met and listened to arguments and petitions from the dam-affected community leadership and agreed that a Verification Commission would be established with the participation of one person from the executive branch of the Guatemalan Government, one representative from INDE; one representative from the World Bank, two representatives of the affected communities, and one international expert in dams who has had experience with Chixoy. A potential start date for this Verification Commission was to be just after Christmas in 2004, with an initial three month mandate.

Also, as a result of the September 7 agreement, a discussion table was established with representatives of the dam affected communities and representatives of INDE meeting in the town of Salama to address the emergency needs of the dam-affected communities. These included attention to complaints and requests for water, potable water, energy access, bridges, roads and other urgently needed infrastructure, and resettlement for the downstream village of Agua Blanca (harmed by dam operations, but also now facing eviction due to plans to restart nickel mining in the area).

Epilogue

On January 20 of this year, Don Carlos Chen Osorio, an indigenous Maya-Achí and a member of the negotiating committee COCAICH was detained on the charges filed against the eight representatives of COCAICH in September. He was taken to Coban and later that night given a conditional release, but the charges have not been dropped. Detention orders are still pending against 7 other leaders who signed the agreement and a second leader of COCAICH was arrested within two weeks. Also, to date, there has been no word from the Guatemalan government on convening the high level commission. ¨

To read more about the Chixoy Dam project or the Santa Fe Statement, please visit our website at: http://shr.aaas.org/water/

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