Mining Company and Government Thugs Attack Guatemalan Mine Resisters

On Sep­tem­ber 17 and 18, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers from Mataque­s­cuint­la, Jala­pa and San Rafael Las Flo­res, San­ta Rosa, Guatemala protest­ed against the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of a min­ing project in their com­mu­ni­ties. In response to the first of these protests, provo­ca­teurs attacked both police and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers with stones. In response to a peace­ful block­ade out­side the min­ing site, pro­test­ers were “attacked with­out warn­ing by mem­bers of the mine’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty agency, the Nation­al Civ­il Police and the army, using tear gas can­nons, firearms and rub­ber bul­let guns. Secu­ri­ty agents attacked from inside the mine, with trained attack dogs. The Police cor­nered the unarmed pro­tes­tors, and the army sur­round­ed them, crouched and at the ready. The dis­play of repres­sive force had all the char­ac­ter­is­tics of mil­i­tary counter-insur­gency tac­tics that we had thought belonged to the past, includ­ing the bad inten­tions, bru­tal­i­ty and cow­ardice that so char­ac­ter­ize the tac­tics of the Nation­al Army.”

Fol­low­ing the attack, mil­i­tary heli­copters began fly­ing over the resist­ing com­mu­ni­ties, “like in the old days of the armed con­flict.”