On Tuesday, May 14th, activists with NISGUA (Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala) and Rights Action will conduct a call-in and write-in day to the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (“IDB”) to demand reparations and compensation for the survivors of the Chixoy Dam massacres.

“May 14, 1982”

Twenty years ago, on May 14, soldiers and civil patrollers entered Los Encuentros, now an archaeological site near the rural, Maya village of Rio Negro, where many Rio Negro community members had taken refuge (having survived two prior “Rio Negro massacres”). Seventy-nine villagers were murdered on the spot, and fifteen women were taken away alive in a helicopter – their whereabouts are still unknown.

The Los Encuentros massacre was the 3rd of four “Rio Negro/ Chixoy Dam massacres”, in which over 440 people were murdered. Rio Negro community members are currently seeking justice for the crimes committed against themselves and their families, and the wholesale loss and destruction of their homes, property and community, by participating in the genocide cases against ex-dictators Rios Montt and Lucas Garcia.

WORLD BANK, IDB and the CHIXOY DAM MASSACRES

Between 1975 and 1985, the World Bank and the IDB made loans to the US-backed military government of Guatemala in support of the Chixoy Dam Project. By channeling $350,000,000 to such a military regime, and by promoting and continuing with the project during the worst years of state terrorism and genocide, the World Bank and the IDB legitimized the repression.

Between February and September 1982, 440 villagers from Rio Negro were killed in a series of massacres, due to their resistance to being forcibly displaced to make way for the dam. Shortly after the final massacre, the land and now-destroyed community of the Maya-Achi community of Rio Negro was flooded! The survivors received little of the largely empty promises the government offered for resettlement. Most survivors live today in conditions of endemic poverty; many suffer on-going trauma related to the massacres and forced displacement.

Both the World Bank and the IDB have refused to acknowledge their contributory role in these crimes, initially claiming that the massacres were a result of guerilla activities in Rio Negro! The UN-sponsored Guatemalan Truth Commission (CEH) concluded that the Chixoy Dam Project was a causal factor of the Rio Negro massacres.

By conducting a call-in, concerned citizens and activists will be helping pressure the World Bank and the IDB to acknowledge their contribution to these crimes, and to make proper, and long overdue, compensation and reparations to the surviving family members of the Rio Negro community.