James Blake and Xiomara Rivas

On August 10, a French NGO worker, Benoit Maria, the director of the agriculture and animal health NGO Agronomes et Veterinaires Sans Frontieres, was shot dead in Antonio Ilotenango, 160 kilometres northwest of Guatemala City. Subsequent reporting indicates that there were eleven shots in the back of his vehicle, but his belongings remained untouched. An official investigation continues, but there are strong suspicions that his death was a political assassination.

According to one well-placed local source, who asked to remain anonymous because of fear of retribution, the death of the humanitarian worker is significant for local community resilience efforts. He had been supporting the Ixel community, a Maya people indigenous to Guatemala, and was working with both community leaders and local mayors to reclaim lost land. The same source said that he believed the NGO worker’s “assassination was meant to send a message to the local communities” about forming alliances against the government.

Benoit Maria’s death is part of a pattern of increasingly targeted killings and retribution against human rights defenders in Guatemala. Unlike most incidents which occur against locals and are underreported in the international media, this story made it into mainstream outlets. 

Benoit Maria’s death is part of a pattern of increasingly targeted killings and retribution against human rights defenders in Guatemala.

According to a report from the Unit for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders of Guatemala (Udefegua), there has been "continuous aggression against human rights" in the Central American country in the last 16 months. The report states that in 2019, 494 attacks were recorded against people, communities and organisations that defend human rights - the third highest number since they started keeping records in 2000. The same report indicates that there were more than 150 attacks linked to those defending human rights in the first quarter of 2020, which include attacks against journalists, Indigenous political leaders and women. According to Jorge Santos, the general director of the human rights organisation Protection Unit for Human Rights Defenders Guatemala, there have been 14 killings and 2 disappearances of human rights defenders during 2020.

Across the country, there has been a rise in network centres, which are believed to conduct targeted disinformation campaigns. Aguilar-Støen, an associate professor at the University of Oslo, and an expert on the conflict between social movements and the elite in Guatemala described for The Intercept in 2018 a rise in online smear campaigns against Mayan activists. 

As further evidence of this, on September 22, Anastasia Mejía Tiriquiz, director of the radio station Xol Abaj Radio and Xol Abaj TV, was arrested in the municipality of Joyabaj, Quiché. Her arrest followed live coverage of a demonstration against the municipal mayor for a perceived failure to distribute aid judiciously around COVID-19, instead favouring certain groups. 

A human rights crisis across the country

"Guatemala is on the verge of a major human rights catastrophe," says Jo-Marie Burt, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. The statistics support Professor Burt’s statement of a year ago. Santos, the director at Protection Unit for Human Rights Defenders Guatemala, claims there have been 14 killings and 2 disappearances of human rights defenders during 2020.

In January 2019, the country’s then-President Jimmy Morales ended the 13-year agreement with the UN’s International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG, from the Spanish), which held a powerful mandate to investigate corruption and support judicial prosecution, and was backed by many countries, including the US. The investigation had significant successes. The field-based think tank International Crisis Group collected data that showed that the proportion of homicides that was solved increased four-fold, from just 7% in 2006 to 28% in 2013. During that same period, homicide rates fell at a faster pace in Guatemala than in its neighbouring countries.

Within Guatemala, the cartels – which include MS-13 and Barrio 18– were primarily active at the borders, jungle, and coastal areas such as Zacapa, Baja Verapaz, Chiquimula, and Petén. But following the ending of CICG, there are already indications that organised criminal gangs are extending their operations. A community leader who asked to remain anonymous because of the likelihood of repercussions against him told us in late August that “Petén has always been controlled by Narco (cartel) activity, but now this phenomenon has spread towards other departments, such as Izabal.”

Cartels empowered, human rights defenders at increased risk

An article in InSight Crime, a Latin-America focused news outlet, reported that Guatemalan criminal groups are among the most sophisticated across Central America and are boosted because of their connections to senior government and intelligence officials. 

Our interviews point to criminal gangs having expanded their presence since the ending of CICIG. Based on past studies of how organised criminal groups have worked in Guatemala, it seems probable that some officials are gaining revenues from cartels or benefiting from new land and exports.

With a lack of effective police, local communities in some rural areas have formed local protection groups. Randy Barrios, a student leader in Guatemala, described in an interview in late August that in Petén, people have come to rely on local Indigenous leaders for their protection, amid an increase in cartel activity and trafficking of people and drugs.

The student leader said, “there is a complicity between the state and these paramilitary groups, I call them paramilitary because they have a military ideology and military weapons and equipment.”

it seems probable that some officials are gaining revenues from cartels or benefiting from new land and exports.

As the cartels extend their access and reach into new parts of rural Guatemala, the communities are faced with difficult dilemmas. The community leader who wished to remain anonymous told us that they have formed a ‘Community Security Committee’ (these have been formed in several locations across the country) following threats to leaders in rural Guatemala. But then face difficult decisions as to whether they can seek a partnership with the local police or if the police and mayors are working with the cartels.

These community groups are linked to a political effort to create a multicultural state governed by an Indigenous authority, which would be similar to that in Bolivia. Indigenous communities across Guatemala have their own authorities and elect their elder leaders separately from the central government (similar to Indigenous reserves in the US). These systems are recognised by the government, which gives free rein to the groups over their security and legal systems. 

Seemingly empowered by the ending of the UN-investigation, the Izabal ‘Community Security Committee’ was formed recently because of a new rise in cartel activity and a concern about the collaboration between the local police and municipal authorities with organised criminal groups. But human rights defenders are increasingly at risk, as they face a lack of legal tools to defend themselves as they work to protect local communities’ grievances and exploitation.