Your email will begin with the following message:
Mr. Emilio Alvarez-Icaza
Executive Secretary
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
1889 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
RE: Petition of the Maya Q’eqchi’ Indigenous Community of Agua Caliente, Guatemala
Distinguished Secretary Alvarez-Icaza,
I am writing to request that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expedite the review of the petition filed by the Maya Q’eqchi’ Indigenous Community of Agua Caliente and the Indian Law Resource Center (P-1118-11). The community is located in the municipality of El Estor, in the Izabal department of Guatemala. This case is important as it addresses issues relevant to the physical and cultural survival not only of the Maya Nation but of other indigenous peoples and nations in Guatemala. We urgently need mining on indigenous lands to be studied from a human rights point of view, and this petition calls for the Commission to undertake such an analysis.
Continued delays will prevent this petition from realizing its full effect. I have been informed that the petition was filed in August, 2011. Two and a half years have passed without the petition being processed, it is urgent that the issues presented be studied by the Commission – our brothers, sisters and representatives of the Agua Caliente Community need your immediate attention. As is common in our indigenous communities, more than 50% of the members of the Agua Caliente Community are children, and there are a considerable number of elders. In addition, community members are exposed to a permanent and grave situation because their legitimate concerns remain unresolved; this is why the Commission granted precautionary measures to protect the President of the Community, their attorney and respective families (MC-388-10).
We need the Commission to conduct an in-depth study of this petition. Our collective rights as indigenous peoples, such as self-determination and collective ownership rights over our lands, territories and resources, are at play. This petition seeks structural changes to achieve the full enjoyment of these rights in times of democracy. Today, many indigenous communities in Guatemala, like the Agua Caliente Community, are addressed as mere “peasant communities” and their lands continue to be given away, without any consultations, to mining corporations for the exploration and exploitation of natural resources located within their lands. Our collective human rights are not considered in the approval processes for environmental impact assessments and mining permits. The Commission must study this situation.
We continue to await structural changes in Guatemalan law and policies. This petition seeks such changes, and with these changes our relationship with the State and other actors will improve. I know that this petition seeks the adoption of laws that do not yet exist in Guatemala, laws that will recognize indigenous peoples as distinct legal, social and political entities. In Guatemala there are no laws that recognize and regulate the exercise of our rights of self-government and collective ownership over our lands, territories and resources. We need these laws to be created and existing mining and environmental assessment laws to be reformed to ensure that our human rights are respected within these respective procedures. We need our lands to be demarcated, titled and registered. We need collective ownership titles over our lands, not individual ones. Concurrently, we need our rights over resources that lie within our land to be recognized by law. Our communities must be able to control and manage our resources, not a third party.
I will be monitoring the Commission’s progress in reviewing this petition. Please expedite the review process and conduct an in depth study of the fundamental issues addressed therein.