María Caal Xol was born 36 years ago in the municipality of Santa María de Cahabón, in the department of Alta Verapaz, in Guatemala, and continues the family legacy of struggle and resistance against the Guatemalan State and the extractive companies that operate in the territories inhabited by native communities. Specifically, her struggle focuses on the hydroelectric projects that, in Alta Verapaz, affect the Oxec and Cahabón rivers.
“As indigenous peoples, our ancestors fought to defend the territory and the natural environment. Currently, the department of Alta Verapaz has been invaded by foreigners and extractive companies, and that is why we have come together to defend our natural environment,” explains María Caal Xol, who is part of the collective ‘La Resistencia’, The Resistance, which is a community organization that runs awareness campaigns and defends the natural environment from extractive activities.
María Caal Xol was born, grew up and, in fact, still lives there, in the Alta Verapaz region, where paved roads and health centers are precarious, and where drinking water and electricity do not reach the most remote areas. Most of the inhabitants of this area are dedicated to cultivating corn and beans mainly. The community fishes in the Cahabón River and its tributaries, which are now endangered as a result of hydroelectric activity.
Most of the inhabitants of the area belong to the Mayan Q’eqchi community. According to their worldview, the river is not just a resource to be exploited, but a living being with which we must coexist. “For us, the river is a living being that gives life to plants, animals and people. That is why we think that companies are killing it,” laments the defender. María has participated in the documentary ‘Dos ríos’, Two Rivers, and has been awarded the ‘Brote al Activismo Ambiental’ prize, Sprout of Environmental Activism, which was awarded to her by the Canary Islands International Environmental Film Festival, for her defense of the Cahabón River ecosystem.
“Every time we in La Resistencia take a walk to protest, we women put an empty jug on our heads. With this we want to represent that water is a very scarce good and that one day we will not have any,” explains the former bilingual school teacher who is currently studying the second year of her degree in Legal Sciences. The jugs have made us known in other departments of Guatemala. We chose them because they were where our grandparents used to carry water, when there was no drinking water,” adds María and asks herself: “What will happen in 20 or 30 years if the rivers continue to be channeled?”
Renace or Oxec, the hydroelectric plants that the communities oppose
After the 1996 peace agreement, which ended decades of civil war, a liberal extractivist model was imposed in Guatemala that has allowed companies exploiting natural resources to act with total freedom and impunity. For this reason, as is the case in the department of Alta Verapaz, social conflicts also occur in the 21st century.
In 1991 and 1994, the State granted the necessary permits for the Renace hydroelectric project to build five hydroelectric power plants with a major impact on the Cahabón River, and which would have the epicenter of its activity in an area of 21 square kilometers, near the town of San Pedro de Carchá, in the department of Alta Verapaz. Owned by two of the richest families in Guatemala, the Bosch-Gutiérrez and the Gutiérrez-Mayorga, among the group of companies involved in the project is Cobra, which is owned by ACS, a company run by Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, and which is responsible for building the tunnels that connect the system of cascades of the hydroelectric power plants.
Starting in 2013, when Renace began construction of the second and third power plants and obtained final authorization for the fourth and fifth, the largest demonstrations of popular resistance against the project began. Resentment grew because, in parallel, the company Energy Resources Capital Corp obtained the green light to build three new power plants on the Oxec River, a tributary of the Cahabón. Thus, the fronts of the social struggle expanded to other points in the department of Alta Verapaz.
In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled and ruled in favor of the native communities, who had filed a lawsuit to try to stop the hydroelectric power plants, alleging that ILO Convention 169, which requires consultation with native communities, had not been implemented. However, the projects continued, and in 2019, construction of the Renace IV power plant was completed. After more than a decade of struggle, the dispute now centers on the license granted to the third power plant on the Oxec River.
In retaliation, and as a warning to those who dare to speak out, the Guatemalan justice system has launched a campaign of criminalization against activists and defenders. In 2018, a legal farce was orchestrated in which María Caal Xol’s brother, Bernardo, who was then the spokesperson for her community, was sentenced to seven years in prison. Since 2022, according to the Guatemalan Human Rights Defenders Protection Unit, 91 people have been forced into exile due to legal persecution and threats they faced, including 26 human rights defenders. In addition, this institution adds that between March 2023 and August 2024 18 defenders have been murdered.
In its annual report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) collects this data and regrets that the main power groups are not held accountable in Guatemala and that “the lack of judicial independence continues to be a critical cause, undermining the rule of law and threatening the protection of human rights”. It also highlights the decisions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which has shown its concern for “the lack of mechanisms for the recognition and titling of ancestral lands, allowing the advancement of hydroelectric, mining and oil companies, and monoculture projects without prior free consultation”. In fact, the IACHR considered in December that Guatemala has violated on multiple occasions the rights of the Mayan Q’eqchi community in the municipality of Estor, in Izabal, by failing to titling territories and prior consultation regarding mining activities. Cases that are repeated throughout Guatemala and that recall the open dispute with hydroelectric companies in the department of Alta Verapaz.
Tell me about the collective ‘La Resistencia’. What kind of activities do they carry out in Alta Verapaz?
With documentation, we explain to the communities who are the people who sell our territory to companies. Every four years, with the electoral campaigns, [politicians and businessmen] end up deceiving people. They are the ones who are largely responsible for this. Then, we carry out awareness campaigns so that people do not exchange dignity for prerogatives, because we feed ourselves from Mother Earth and not from what they offer every four years. And the communities have become aware of the situation: every so often there are areas of Alta Verapaz where there is a water shortage.
In Guatemala, decades of conflict left more than 200,000 victims, the majority caused by state military forces. You were born in 1988 and the peace agreements date back to 1996. Since then, how has your region changed?
I never got to know my father because he died when I was three years old. My grandparents on my mother’s side told me about the internal armed conflict. They told me that there were massacres, murders of family members and friends. Today, massacres are still happening, although the tactics have changed: there are not as many murders anymore, but they imprison, persecute and criminalize people who defend the land. For example, my brother Bernardo was sentenced to more than seven years in prison and was imprisoned for more than four. Why? Because he made it seem like our rights were violated: the extractive companies and the State did not respect article 169 of the ILO, which establishes the right to consultation. Therefore, tensions continue to exist, as they did during the armed conflict.
What is the problem with the hydroelectric power plants on the Cahabón and Oxec rivers?
The Cahabón River runs through most of Alta Verapaz. More than six electricity companies were installed there. Oxec I and Oxec II are operating in the land of Santa María de Cahabón. In addition, there is already a license for Oxec III to begin operating. What have we been doing since 2015? We organize with the communities to investigate what is happening along the Cahabón River. The hydroelectric companies violated our rights, the Constitutional Court agreed with us and said that a consultation was necessary. Later, a community consultation was carried out in which 26,536 people said ‘no’ to the hydroelectric companies in Cahabón. But the companies do not respect this consultation and continue to operate there.
How did these companies obtain the land and convince the local population?
The people who accepted it were deceived and sold their land. And then, the rest of the land is communal. The companies came to steal: the hydroelectric companies came to our house without asking for permission and settled there. Obviously, they did so with the support of the government, that of Otto Pérez Molina.
Are the native communities of Cahabón still demanding the expulsion of the hydroelectric companies?
Most of us continue to resist. The communities have realized that we were telling the truth about the natural devastation. The rivers have been diverted, because they have channeled more than 50 kilometers, and only sand remains on the banks where the Oxec and Cahabón rivers used to flow.
Given the lack of well-paid work, is there division in the native communities due to the presence of hydroelectric companies?
There are communities in the area of influence that have become enemies with us. They say that we misinform people, that companies mean development and work. There are eleven communities that are in favor of hydroelectric plants. Then, every four years there are changes in the Government and they try to buy the will of the people. There is a lot of poverty in Cahabón, and each government takes advantage of this, with its prerogatives, by giving a few groceries so that the people are against us. Companies and authorities have done everything possible to make us look bad in front of the communities.
The country is now governed by the progressive Bernardo Arévalo. Given the opacity surrounding these companies, could he cancel the licenses for the projects?
Last year, as part of ‘La Resistencia’, we requested a visit with Mr. Arévalo. We went to demand that he cancel the Oxec III license and that the consultation be respected. We also let Patty Orantes, who is the Minister for the Ecological Transition, know that we do not want them to grant any more licenses and that, if possible, they cancel the ones that already exist.
I understand that what has been done will continue and that the objective is for the authorities not to issue new licenses.
It is not that what has been done will continue. We demand that the people who have violated our rights be imprisoned, because they are invading communal lands and have stripped us of more than 15 hectares of natural forest. In one community, the grandparents were going to perform Mayan ceremonies in a place that has been taken from them. We also demand that an environmental impact study be carried out. But they are not doing it. In addition, there is a lot of persecution, and justice does not work and we have no one to turn to. In the end, we were left alone fighting. Luckily, we are left with the men, women and children of ‘La Resistencia’ in Cahabón.
