Palo Gordo does not want trash from San Marcos, Guatemala

Neigh­bours of Pajopom Vil­lage from Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do don´t want trash from San Mar­cos any­more. From June 15th 2009 they have pre­vent the dis­charge of garbage in an ille­gal garbage dump in their com­mu­ni­ty by hav­ing a pacif­ic protest in front of the com­mu­ni­ty saloon. Adults, young peo­ple and even chil­dren had been rotat­ing since ear­ly in the morn­ing until the sun­set, in order to fight for their lives and a safe envi­ron­ment.

illegal dumpNeigh­bours of Pajopom Vil­lage from Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do don´t want trash from San Mar­cos any­more. From June 15th 2009 they have pre­vent the dis­charge of garbage in an ille­gal garbage dump in their com­mu­ni­ty by hav­ing a pacif­ic protest in front of the com­mu­ni­ty saloon. Adults, young peo­ple and even chil­dren had been rotat­ing since ear­ly in the morn­ing until the sun­set, in order to fight for their lives and a safe envi­ron­ment.

In the after­noon on Fri­day, June 5, a group of neigh­bours rep­re­sent­ing Pojopom Vil­lage from Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do filed a com­plaint against the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ments of San Mar­cos and Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do, because of the ille­gal dump in their com­mu­ni­ty, in the assis­tance office of the Pub­lic Min­istry in the munic­i­pal head, San Mar­cos.
The neigh­bours decid­ed to use said means alter hav­ing exhaust­ed three years of dia­logu­ing with the may­or of San Mar­cos, Mr. Car­los Enrique Bar­rios Sach­er and the may­or of Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do, Mr. Fran­cis­co Roge­lio San­doval. The talks, since Decem­ber 2008, were medi­at­ed by the San Mar­cos’ Human Rights Ombuds­man office. Thanks to the medi­a­tion process an agree­ment had been reached, but which was not act­ed upon by the may­ors, even though they were giv­en an exten­sion.

The com­mu­ni­ty spokesman declared, “We are not in agree­ment that the trash of anoth­er munic­i­pal­i­ty con­tin­ues con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing our land. We will defend the earth that belongs to every­one. We do not want to be accom­plices in the irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of our igno­rant, lying and neg­li­gent offi­cials, who are paid with our tax mon­ey.”
Gra­cias al pron­to actu­ar de los fun­cionar­ios del Min­is­te­rio Pub­li­co se ele­vo la denun­cia a la Fis­calía de Deli­tos con­tra el Ambi­ente en la ciu­dad de Guatemala.

The offi­cials of the Pub­lic Min­istry brought the com­plaint to the Dis­trict Attor­ney of Crimes against the Envi­ron­ment in Guatemala City. An ocu­lar inspec­tion was request­ed to the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al resources, on Mon­day June 15th.
On Tues­day June 23 mem­bers of the Nation­al Civ­il Police, specif­i­cal­ly the Divi­sion for Envi­ron­ment Pro­tec­tion got to the place to inves­ti­gate about dam­aged hous­es, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed rivers and bad odours in the place, caused by the ille­gal dump.

Mean­while, the neigh­bors from Palo Gor­do had been pre­vent­ing more trash dis­charges in the men­tioned area.