#champey

On 5 July 2016, the Guatemalan National Police (PNC) raided the Semuc Champey national park and evicted indigenous Q’eqchi’ communities that had been running the site since December 2015. 

Located in the Alta Verapaz department in northern Guatemala, Semuc Champey’s pristine pools have become a major draw for wealthier Guatemalans and a must-see pit stop on the backpacker circuit. Semuc Champey also happens to be a sacred site for the local Q’eqchi’ people. Traditionally, the four nearest communities maintained the site. In 2000, they received legal title to their lands in what should have been the final chapter in a long struggle to gain access to farmland and assert control over their ancestral territories. However, the Guatemalan government unilaterally, i.e. without consulting the communities, decided to develop Semuc Champey for tourism. In 2005, Congress declared the area a national park and gave jurisdiction to the National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP). Locals were told they would not lose access to the site, would be given jobs, and would receive 30% of revenues for a community fund. 

All three promises turned out to be empty. In September 2015, over a thousand people held a protest at the Semuc Champey site, temprarily occupying it, in order to demand what’s been promised. With no government response forthcoming, a group of about 300 locals permanently occupied the site in December 2015, expelling both police and CONAP agents and administrators. Ever since, Semuc Champey has been administered by local community members who organise site maintenance, security, and charge the entry fee. Semuc Champey became a great example of communities organising effectively to recuperate ancestral lands, stand up to a government that has historically dispossessed, massacred, and marginalised indigenous people, and take their own “development” into their own hands. 

This Tuesday, 5 July 2016, the story came to an abrupt end as about 300 police officers took over the site and expelled the local Q’eqchi’s. According to some reports, the police dismantled homes that had been built on the site and followed the expelled community members back to their villages. Nine community members have been reported injured. Social organisations have denounced the evictions. Meanwhile Guetemala’s actor turned military-stoog president, Jimmy Morales, went to Twitter to congratulate the police forces on a job well done. The Guatemalan state’s dispossession and marginalisation of indigenous people continues...

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News report about the evictions from mainstream media and from alternative media

Semuc Champey, Guatemala

Semuc Champey, Guatemala