A Voice For the Voiceless
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The International Campaign
The tenacious campaign by the survivors of the Rio Negro massacres could not have achieved so much without allies at home and abroad.
The Guatemalan church was an early supporter of the drive for exhumations and the prosecution of war criminals. The prominent human rights group GAM (Group of Mutual Support) has also taken a leading role in the fight against impunity. CALDH, the Center for Legal Action for Human Rights, is another prominent human rights group that has worked intensively in the Rabinal area, helping the Rio Negro survivors, transmitting information to the authorities, seeking redress for victims, and lobbying with courts.
The Rio Negro campaign began to acquire international prominence in 1996, when Jesus Tecu received the prestigious Reebok Award for human rights activism. This drew further attention to the Rio Negro, and produced $25,000 of prize money for ADIVIMA.
The same year, 1996, the US-based Witness for Peace visited the region and conducted a thorough investigation of the Chixoy dam. Its report criticized the World Bank for ignoring its own safeguards and financing the dam even as the Rio Negro was being destroyed.
The Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN)
The United Nations Truth Commission in Guatemala concluded its 18 month investigation with a finding of massive violations of human rights by the government of Guatemala. The three decade long counterinsurgency campaign in Guatemala took the lives of 200,000 people. Of the more than 42,000 human rights violations examined by the Truth Commission, more than 90 percent were committed by the U.S.-backed government or its paramilitary supporters. The remainder were the work of guerrillas or the authors were unknown.
The report found that while many acts of violence were perpetrated throughout the war, during the period from 1981 to 1983 these acts descended to the level of genocide directed against elements of the country's indigenous Mayan population. During that period, entire indigenous villages were burned and their inhabitants were slaughtered. The report condemned the "aggressive, racist and extremely cruel nature of violations that resulted in the massive extermination of defenseless Mayan communities."
The Bank responded quickly and sent a high-level mission down to Guatemala to investigate. The mission concluded that World Bank officials had not known of the massacres and could not be held responsible. But the Bank was also aware that an international campaign was gathering momentum, and it pressed the Guatemalan authorities to improve its package of compensation for the Rio Negro survivors.
A long and drawn-out search for new land then ensued until in March of 1999, the governmental Foundation for Peace (FONAPAZ) purchased 350 hectares of land for the Rio Negro survivors on a farm that lies about five hours drive from Pacux. This was not enough to meet their demands, but it still represented a significant achievement by the Rio Negro campaigners. And it would not have been possible without international advocacy.
Towards the end of the 1990s, the campaign drew encouragement and legitimacy from two prestigious reports in Guatemala. On April 24, 1998, the Catholic Church's truth commission (the Recovery of Historical Memory-REMHI) released a report that attributed over 90 percent of the human rights violations to the Guatemalan army and other government forces. (Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi, a leading human rights advocate and coordinator of the REMHI, was murdered two days later.)
In February 1999, the UN-supported Truth Commission released its own massive report, which included a case study on Rabinal. Going a step further than the Catholic Church report, the UN Truth Commission concluded that the state repression of the late 1970s and 1980s had in some areas amounted to genocide. One of those regions was Baja Verapaz, where the Chixoy dam was situated.
Throughout the last five years, the Rio Negro survivors have received support from Rights Action, which has funded a wide range of projects including exhumations and the establishment of ADIVIMA's legal aid center in Rabinal. Rights Action used its base in Washington and an office in Guatemala City, to support ADIVIMA in Rabinal and bring activists on speaking tours abroad. Rights Action brought Carlos Chen to Washington in April 2000 for the spring meeting of the World Bank. Its representatives raised the case of Rio Negro again at the fall 2000 meeting of the Bank in Prague.
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