r i ght s i n a ct io n
Hidro Santa Cruz Terminates Dam Project in Barillas, Guatemala
The Q’anjob’al Maya community of Santa Cruz Barillas, has been voicing their opposition to a proposed hydroelectric dam on their sacred river for close to a decade. Photo by Danielle DeLuca.
Danielle DeLuca (CS STAFF)
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fter almost a decade of resistance, a cautious victory has been declared for a Maya community in Santa Cruz Barillas, Guatemala in their fight against a Spanish hydroelectric company attempting to install a dam on their sacred river. In December 2016, Hidro Santa Cruz, a subsidiary of Spanish infrastructure companies owned by brothers Luis and David Valdivia, announced it would be pulling out of its project in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, after years of consistent and powerful resistance from Q’anjob’al communities prevented them from constructing the dams. The company announced the termination of the project in a press release, saying that it no longer considers the project viable: “For various reasons, [the project] has not gained the acceptance of a significant part of the inhabitants of the territory in which it was planned for installation...The decision was adopted months earlier, after careful analysis that considered the fundamental social impact, as well as the petitions received from different non-governmental organizations. It has been officially communicated to the State of Guatemala.” The release does not mention that the company’s financial backers pulled their multi-million dollar investment in Hidro Santa Cruz in November of 2015 after complaints were filed to the World Bank. In July of 2015, representatives of the community in Santa Cruz Barillas, Guatemala, submitted an official complaint
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regarding a proposed hydroelectric dam on the Q’am B’alam River in their small town in the department of Huehuetenango. Cecilia Mérida, the partner of an environmental defender who was arrested, falsely charged, and imprisoned in Guatemala, testified at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. She spoke of the damage being inflicted by the Bank’s financing of the project and the strategies of criminalization being employed by the Guatemalan government and Hidro Santa Cruz in an attempt to silence local opposition, giving firsthand testimony about the impacts on families and communities when leaders are illegally detained and imprisoned for months, or even years, on end. Since 2009, Hidro Santa Cruz has been planning a series of dams on the Q’am B’alam river that surrounds the town of Santa Cruz Barillas. The river and its three waterfalls are considered sacred by the Q’anjob’al community, whose ancestors named the river “yellow tiger” in the Q’anjob’al language after the animal that was said to drink from its waters. The project was to be installed in an area used by the community for ceremonial, recreational, and agricultural purposes, and in an ecosystem that is of highest priority for conservation, according to the International Commission on Tropical Biology and Natural Resources. The community has twice held referenda and both times voted unequivocally to reject the exploitation of its natural resources by transnational corporations. Nevertheless, the government approved the Cambalam I Dam with neither the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the community, nor