A former exile in Canada returns to speak on Mayan resistance as Guatemala takes to the streets for democracy

Formerly exiled in Canada because of his activism in Guatemala, Leocadio Juracán took his 2023 speaking tour in Fredericton before heading to Québec City to attend CUPE’s National Convention.

Juracán is a Maya Kaqchikel activist and coffee grower who has endured threats on his life for his work on land reform. After an assassination attempt, he exiled in Canada from 2009 to 2010. In 2015, he was elected to the Guatemalan Congress.

Today, Juracán is the Agrarian Reform Coordinator for the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA), an organization founded in 1982, only days before a military coup installed Efraín Ríos Montt as president.

Ríos Montt, who died in 2018 at the age of 91, served as president from 1982 to 1983. During his short presidency, he oversaw the mass murder of Guatemala’s Maya peoples. Before his death, a Guatemalan court convicted Ríos Montt of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Like in the 1980s, the Maya are struggling as anti-democratic forces attempt to counter the country’s recent election results. The CCDA decided to let Juracán leave for Canada to share the reality of what’s going on on the ground, to counter misinformation, and to raise awareness about the situation of possible human right violations in Guatemala.

“I’m sorry I have to ask for more help,” said Juracán, referring to the solidarity work that many of those in attendance at the Fredericton public talk had done for Guatemala in the past. He spoke on October 19 in Fredericton.

The CCDA is an organization that was put in place to promote the development of rural populations with gender equity through social, cultural, economic, and political actions. These engagements aim to improve the quality of life for Indigenous and peasant Guatemalans, while respecting the different cultures of the country.

Only after 16 years was CCDA able to get its first piece of land called El Paraíso (The Paradise). Now the organization has 79 farms covering approximately 70,000 hectares in 3,600 communities in 20 of Guatemala’s 22 administrative departments. They want to be able to have a sustainable system which allows for food sovereignty and the end of dependence on the large landowners.

The CCDA have developed a sustainable varied local food system around three main areas, milpa (grains, vegetables), patio (poultry, vegetables, fertilizers), and “mixto” (near rivers, fruit, plants and fish). During the pandemic, they were able to quickly counter the government proposal to import food for the country because they already had a working system in place. However, the government refused to fund their proposal with the required budget.

The CCDA farms have lots of different crops (coffee, cacao, macadamia nuts, etc..) but Juracán says: “we live with the crops,” whatever they are. They export and commercialize some crops to supplement the organization’s finances and pay for educational programs.

Despite, and because of, these advances, in the countryside, Indigenous and campesino population has suffered renewed repression, especially from paramilitary groups.

Since 2015, when the CCDA signed an agreement with the government, 12 of their 13 leaders have been murdered. Juracán is the only one still alive. Many other activists have been imprisoned or gravely injured; 1,056 members of the CCDA have received arrest warrants.

There have been forced evictions of people from their lands, both legal and illegal. There have been five illegal forced evictions in the CCDA region, just in 2022. The CCDA set up emergency shelters for these people but not all of the evicted people have been as lucky.

Many people have had to flee into the mountains, replicating the living conditions that were present during the 36-year armed conflict in Guatemala. By fear of the political situation, numerous activists are migrating to the US, even knowing the difficulty and dangers of migrating illegally through Mexico.

Almost 60 per cent of Guatemalan children are suffering malnutrition, according to Juracán. The rural context has become impossible for Guatemalans, much like it was in the past. Juracán predicted: “we are returning to this very serious situation.”

The agricultural situation is difficult. Many evictions are taking place because of the need for water and lands for the various extractive industries and large-scale plantations of crops in the countryside, such as palm oil.

People from the rural areas are going to work in far-off locales and being payed less than minimum wage, often for long hours of work.

The country’s elites, who make sure to keep the conservative and corrupt governments in power, don’t want any change in order to keep the existing system in place. The activists are being persecuted and criminalized because they are fighting for the rights of workers and peasants.

Since 2020, in Guatemala, there has been continuous closing or underfunding of public institutions that were working for progressive change in the country.

Juracán proudly explained, “we are responsible,” because the CCDA is supporting the use of scientific, legal, and technical studies in all of its actions. Those organizations that were closed were being held responsible by the Guatemalan oligarchs for “helping” the CCDA in all its defensible cases.

The CCDA has been a leader in taking legal cases forward to the illegal evictions and has had much success. They hope to be able to take the government of Guatemala to the United Nations to prove a pattern of ignoring the human rights of people in the country. The CCDA is able to fund this important legal work with the profits of the sales of coffee.

They recently founded La Universidad popular de los pueblos [The Popular University of the People], a research lab. It will house anthropologists, sociologists, lawyers and civil engineers, for example, to uncover the information needed to go forward with legal cases.

Currently, there is an incredible political crisis in Guatemala because of the corruption and abandonment of the state. People are calling for the resignation of the so-called leaders. Before coming to Canada, Juracán was protesting for two weeks in the national capital.

The run-off election in August 2023 was between the SEMILLA (left of centre) and the UNE (right of centre) parties; SEMILLA won despite the corruption. However, the country’s oligarchy is not pleased and they have made every effort to annul the election, including trying to discredit SEMILLA and not releasing the ballot boxes with the results.

Juracán stated: “not letting the president elect take power is a coup d’état.” That action has driven union, student and activist groups from all over Guatemala to try to defend democracy in the country. Their peaceful protests have been infiltrated and vandalism has been blamed on the protesters. The OAS was asked to come mitigate the situation, intriguingly at the time the vandalism started.

“It is the people who came out because they are tired of it all,” Juracán stated. President-elect Bernardo Arévalo is not summoning the protests, but is being blamed for them. The situation is very heated on the ground and there have been tragic deaths.

Juracán reiterated that Canadians need to continue to help Guatemalan activists denounce what is happening in the country and protect Guatemala’s fragile democracy.

“Why should Canadians care about democracy in Guatemala? Every Canadian should read Jamie Swift’s The Big Nickel, mourn the Guatemala that could have been, and organize alongside the Maya who never stop resisting their erasure. The book details how Inco, a Canadian nickel mining multinational, enjoyed the support of the world’s most powerful men, including the US’s Dulles brothers. It wasn’t just the United Fruit Company interfering with Guatemala’s Democratic Spring,” said Tracy Glynn, a member of the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network. Glynn has studied Inco’s track record in Indonesia and Guatemala.

Glynn notes: “Brave activists, including students and Congressman Adolfo Mijangos López, who criticized the country’s new mining law, written by an engineer employed by Inco, were assassinated during the presidency of General Arana Osorio in the early 1970s. Their murders are documented in the UN-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification report. In May of 1978, in what historian Greg Grandin calls the last colonial massacre, at least 53 Maya Q’eqchi’ people lost their lives protesting Inco taking their lands to mine nickel.”

In recent years, the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network has focused on supporting communities affected by mining by Canadian companies, including in a historic case being brought forward by the Maya Q’eqchi against Canadian company, HudBay, in a Canadian court for murder and rape.

Angelica Choc, one of the claimants, has visited Fredericton twice to share her community’s struggle and offer solidarity to Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqey land defenders.

Today, Juracán is in Canada once again, just as Guatemalans are in the streets once again, keeping the dream of democracy alive.

Juracán’s cross-country tour is being hosted by the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network, the CUPE Global Justice Fund, BC CASA-Café Justicia, PSAC Social Justice Fund, and Education in Action.

Sophie M. Lavoie is a member of the NB Media Co-op’s editorial board.