“We’re always expecting eviction” - Forced Evictions in Guatemala
Evictions and threats of eviction against indigenous and campesino (rural peasant farmer) communities in Alta and Baja Verapaz have been a constant throughout 2024. In these two departments, PBI works with the Verapaz Union of Peasant Organizations (UVOC) and the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) – Verapaces Region. There are 68 eviction orders in this region.
PBI visits the community of Lajeb Kej
Context
Unequal land ownership is one of Guatemala’s structural problems and was a major cause of the internal armed conflict that the country endured for over 30 years. 92% of agricultural producers use only 21.9% of the arable land (the majority of which is the least suitable for agriculture) as opposed to the 2% of producers that use 65.4% (much of this land being the most suitable for agricultural production). For this reason, one of the goals of the Peace Accords, signed in December 1996, was to address this problem. Nonetheless, the problem remains and has even worsened since then, as the already existing, and ever-increasing, monoculture production of bananas, sugar, palm oil and coffee is now joined by the installation of extractive investment projects, including hydroelectric dams, mining, oil, and more. This has further increased the pressure on the land available to Guatemalan small farmers, the majority of whom are indigenous, triggering an increase in agrarian conflicts.
According to the Registry for Cadastral Information (RIC), “it is estimated that approximately 70% of the country’s territory is immersed in a tangle of confusing titles and overlapping boundaries.” In fact, there are more than a thousand agrarian conflicts in Guatemala, which mainly affect territories where indigenous peoples live. In the absence of legislation on indigenous peoples’ territories and a reliable and comprehensive cadastral land registry, and in the context of a co-opted justice system, experts note that the most common way to resolve these conflicts is for the strongest party, i.e. companies, landowners and agribusinesses, to impose their will on rural and indigenous communities.
During the evictions, the IACHR observed in its report, Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala, “the existence of a pattern of human rights violations when evictions are carried out, including violations of the right to consultation and a lack of prior notice. Evictions are usually carried out violently by members of the National Civilian Police, the Army and the National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP). They tend to be procedures that give the affected persons—who get no support from the State—very little time to gather their belongings. Further, evictions usually involve the burning and destruction of homes, food and animals, they are carried out with no dispositions for the evicted person’s return or relocation, and they offer no real chance of due process or access to justice. The IACHR also documented a discourse that criminalises those who have been evicted, accusing them of collaborating with drug gangs and of committing crimes including misappropriation. As a result of those evictions, many people have been forced to engage in internal displacement”.
PBI attends a media conference denouncing attacks and evictions of Maya Q’eqchi’ communities
Agrarian Agreement between campesino organisations and the new government
With the inauguration of the new government in January 2024, a window of hope opened up for the campesino and indigenous population who are calling for the creation of institutions and mechanisms for resolving conflicts peacefully through dialogue. The government’s goodwill was demonstrated by the signing of the Agrarian Agreement with four campesino organisations (members of the Campesino Council). The Agrarian Agreement covers five key issues: dealing with agrarian conflict, access to land, the campesino economy, territorial organisation and the creation of a political forum for permanent communication. The government body responsible for following up on this agreement is the Private Secretariat of the Presidency (SPP). Although regular opportunities for dialogue were established, in mid-2024, several campesino organisations criticised the increase in evictions, the failure to comply with international standards when carrying out evictions, and the threats of eviction that occurred in the first months of 2024. They also denounced violent acts by plantation owners, as well as the Public Prosecutor’s Office and judges linked to the “pact of the corrupt,” who target rural communities seeking peaceful and legal solutions to ensure their right to land and a dignified life. “In 2024 there have been at least 18 evictions, 12 communities are living on the streets; some 1,500 families, that is to say approximately 10,000 people are displaced.
A few days later, the Presidential Commission for Peace and Human Rights (COPADEH) emphasised the need to ensure alternative shelter before any eviction and to suspend evictions during the rainy season. According to UVOC coordinator Carlos Morales, during the second half of the year, there were only illegal evictions carried out by private actors.
PBI has observed a positive change in the attitude and reactions of government institutions, as compared to previous governments. However, the lack of immediate results highlights the difficulties faced by the current administration in responding to communities’ needs. These difficulties are closely related to the co-optation of the justice sector and the immense power wielded by plantation owners, all of which leaves the executive with very limited scope for action.
PBI accompanies UVOC at their assembly
The case of Lajeb Kej: assaults, eviction threats and eviction
Those who live in the Lajeb Kej community, located in the municipality of Tucurú, Alta Verapaz, live in conditions of extreme poverty and have suffered recurring threats of eviction for years. The legal status of the community’s land is uncertain because, despite the fact that their ancestors lived there, the community members do not have land titles. According to a 2021 FONTIERRAS study, the land is considered vacant, a fact that was confirmed by the RIC. However, soon after, a title to the disputed part of the plantation appeared in the hands of the owner of the adjacent plot. According to the community’s lawyers, this constitutes a major administrative error that they have been trying to resolve ever since. On top of this, there is the fear that this land owner intends to sell this piece of land, which would further complicate the legal situation and delay the ongoing dialogue processes, once again harming the families that make up the community, who find themselves in a permanent state of anxiety and physical, psychosocial and economic insecurity. Community members spoke to PBI, and this is what they told us: “On April 7, 2021, at 6 in the morning, a group of 25 men, teachers from the neighboring community, came to shoot at us and they tried to evict us. They wounded three of our comrades who were unable to see a doctor because they had an arrest warrant against them for usurpation and aggravated robbery. We filed a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office in the capital, but no investigation was carried out and the threats continue. The children still remember the shots and when they hear a firework, they get scared, they say the teachers are coming. We can’t make any plans to work or study for the children because we are always expecting to be evicted. What are we going to do? Where are we going to go with the children and the elderly?” In May 2023 there was another eviction notice, which was ultimately suspended after an Independent Delegation of International Lawyers to Guatemala (IDIL) familiar with the case published an urgent letter and UVOC’s lawyers filed an injunction.
“We are 29 families, 182 people between 6 months and 70 years old. We grow a little corn and beans, just a little, not much, because of the sun. Nothing to sell, just for ourselves. There is no income in the community because we can’t leave to work because of the arrest warrants. Quite a few people have migrated to earn something and provide for their families”, Voices from the Lajeb Kej Community
In the last quarter of 2024, the SPP brought the parties together to initiate a dialogue process to help clarify land ownership. Despite this process, which involved meetings every two weeks, there was an increase in the presence of people with large-caliber firearms around the community to the point where it became almost a daily occurrence, resulting in acts of aggression such as: shots fired into the air; intimidation, threats of eviction and threats to the personal safety of people in the community; destruction of crops; one person wounded by a firearm (October 5); a fence with the message “invader seen, invader dead” (October 9); destruction of the community’s ceremonial house; and attempts to block access to the community’s water source (October 25). Despite the fact that the community was under precautionary measures, in the form of regular visits from police officers, the police failed to stop the repeated attacks by non-state actors with links to the neighbouring plantation owner.
How does PBI support these communities?
PBI has been in regular communication with members of the community and UVOC, especially in the last four months of 2024, when we responded to the highest number of emergencies. We visited the community and accompanied its leaders to meetings between the parties to the conflict and the authorities. Due to the large number of emergencies, we decided to appeal to the state authorities and various international actors and institutions, given the high risk and lack of protection which the people of Lajeb Kej faced, asking them to guarantee the safety of the community’s inhabitants and care for their belongings. We repeatedly alerted the Ministry of the Interior and the national, departmental and local PNC, as well as the relevant offcials in the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office (PDH).
We also kept the diplomatic corps and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Guatemala informed. At the international level, our representative in Europe provided information to the United Nations special mechanisms on multiple occasions. In 2022, a report was sent out expressing concerns about agrarian conflict and evictions in preparation for the 42nd and 44th sessions of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). The Committee, in point 36 of its conclusions, reiterated this concern and recommended that the Guatemalan State “Establish an effective mechanism to protect the right of IIndigenous Peoples to possess, use, develop and control their lands, territories and resources in full security, including by strengthening the process for the regularisation, legal recognition and legal protection of territories in accordance with international standards,” as well as “Take effective measures against forced evictions in accordance with international human rights law, and ensure that victims have access to an effective remedy that allows the restitution of their property, return to their homes or land or a suitable alternative, and appropriate compensation.” Furthermore, together with members of the organisations we provide protective accompaniment to, we organised parallel events on the issue during sessions of the Human Rights Council and other United Nations events in Geneva. We have also regularly updated the Special Rapporteur on the right to decent housing about the situation, stressing the urgency of his visit, which has now been confirmed for July 2025.
A very useful tool in the defense against evictions has been the report “We are not trespassers: this is our land” Agrarian conflict and Indigenous peoples’ rights in Alta Verapaz”, written by IDIL after a visit to the region. This trip took place in 2023 at the request of the organisations UVOC and CCDA. The report’s recommendations include the need to recognise “the special ancestral link between Indigenous peoples and territory to be recognised as the starting point for their land-related rights,” as well as the application of “non-penal mechanisms for the resolution of disputes about land tenure in good faith.” UVOC and CCDA have used this report in their advocacy meetings with state authorities and in their complaint against the State of Guatemala in a thematic hearing before the IACHR.
Despite multiple efforts to halt the eviction of the Lajeb Kej community and ensure legal and cadastral land recognition of the community’s right to the land, on January 22, 2025, a local judge ordered the eviction, ignoring the existence of an injunction filed to stop the action. Some of the families have been taken in by relatives in other neighbouring communities; in the worst case, others are living on the road bordering the disputed land, in appalling conditions.
We can really only do this with your support. Together, we are so much stronger!
