On the morning of September 28, 2013, a military helicopter hovered over the Q’anjobal community of Santa Cruz Barillas, Huehuetenango. Mynor Lopez, a community leader in the resistance against the Hidro Santa Cruz hydroelectric project was captured and taken into custody by the police.
On the September 8, 2013 Cultural Survival's Community Radio team, along with a radio volunteer from Radio Ixchel, traveled across the country to visit the municipality of El Estor, Izabal, to discuss the possibility of opening a community radio. In the entire municipality of El Estor, where 85 percent of the population are Maya Q’eqchi’, there are no community radio stations. A large portion of the population only speak Q’eqchi’, and while many are bilingual, the majority of daily interactions in the region take place in Q’eqchi’.
On Wednesday, September 11, the Commission for Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala held a meeting in Congress to discuss the question of community radio in Guatemala. Congressman Carlos Mejia presided over the events. Cultural Survival’s Guatemalan team attended and participated in the meeting, along with traditional community leaders, or alcaldes, and other organizations that support Indigenous communities in Guatemala.
A surprise decision was made by courts in Guatemala on September 11, 2013 as two former employees of the Spanish dam company Hydro Santa Cruz were declared innocent of the assassination of Q’anjobal community leader Andres Fransisco Miguel who was killed on the night of May 1, 2012.
Eleven people were shot and killed on Saturday night, September 7th in San José Nacahuil, a small Kaqchikel community of San Pedro Ayampuc, just outside of Guatemala City, Guatemala.
During the last week of August 2013, Cultural Survival's team traveled to Belize for the implementation of one of our newest community radio projects. This new project is aimed at improving integration for Indigenous communities in Central America through community radio. As a result of this project, we are expanding our Guatemalan community radio network to include a radio station in Belize and a radio station in El Salvador.
On August 21 – 23, leaders and representatives of twenty Maya Q'anjob'al communities in northern Huehuetenango and Chiapas, Mexico, gathered in San Juan Ixcoy, Huehuetenango to discuss the ongoing imposition of large-scale development projects on their territory and to continue generating strategies for unified resistance moving forward.
On August 18-19, 2013, our team at Cultural Survival started our second round of 12 exchanges between community radio stations in Guatemala. Our exchange program provides the opportunity for horizontal learning between community radio stations. They are able to share stories, experiences, strengths and weaknesses in order to help each other improve the technical, thematic and relational aspects of their radio stations.
August 9 was the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. In Guatemala, Indigenous groups and organizations around the country commemorated this event by shutting down all the major highways in the country with organized demonstrations. The demonstrations took place to demand that the rights of Indigenous communities be respected. Indigenous organizations around the country coordinated efforts so that the demands listed at each protest were the same.
On August 11, 2013, Radio Ixchel, one of the most successful community radio stations in our Guatemalan community radio network, is celebrating 10 years on the air. Radio Ixchel is located in Sumpango, Sacatepéquez, a quaint municipality located about 45 minutes from the nation’s capital, Guatemala City. The station is located at one of the highest points in this hilly village, allowing it to broadcast to the entire 45,000 inhabitants of Sumpango.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
