“Indigenous rights defenders in Guatemala challenge logging, Canadian mining on their territory”, 11^th February 2019

The…K'iche' People's Council in Defense of Life, Mother Nature, Land and Territory, or the CPK…was formed in 2008 by Maya K'iche' Indigenous peoples of northern Guatemala. The CPK coordinates collective action against violations of their right to free, prior, and informed consent and works to stop the damage done by mining, logging, hydroelectric dams and agribusiness to their people and ancestral territory. The organization is led by Aura Lolita Chávez Ixcaquic, a Maya K'iche human rights defender based in the city of Santa Cruz in the region of El Quiché, which is predominantly Mayan. Chávez says that the CPK defends "a way of life that is completely different to that of the neoliberal model imposed primarily by transnational companies [that] are illicitly profiting from the water, the land, and the natural resources" on their territory…[T]he Montreal Gazette reported, "Chávez has been branded a threat to national security and a terrorist for speaking out against the development of Canadian-owned mines against the people's will."…Chávez states, "Canadian companies are the main protagonists in this invasion that brings only death and destruction. And when we say we don't want it, they say we are ignorant, or brutes, or we don't understand the benefits. But we have a right to say no."…