This Saturday, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina will formally launch a reparation program for communities affected by the repression and violence surrounding the construction of the Chixoy Dam in the 1980s, according to the Asociación para el Desarrollo Integral de las Víctimas de la Violencia en las Verapaces Maya Achí (Association for the Integral Development of the Victims of Violence in the Verapaces, Maya Achi—ADIVIMA).
The Chixoy hydroelectric dam was built in the early 1980s with money from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Opposition to its construction by members of the communities facing displacement was met with a fierce military crackdown. In 1982, more than 400 people were killed in a series of massacres. Many more were displaced or otherwise victimized.
Facing pressure by victims’ families and the international community, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina signed an agreement on October 14 with the Coordinadora de Comunidades Afectadas por la Construcción de la Hidroeléctrica Chixoy (Coordinator of Communities Affected by the Construction of the Chixoy Hidroelectic Dam—COCACICH), and approved a reparation policy. That agreement was officially published on Thursday, and will benefit 33 Indigenous communities who will receive an investment of 1.2 billion quetzales (about $153 million) between 2015 and 2029.
The agreement is the latest development in affected communities’ struggle for recognition of and reparations for the atrocities of 1982. Earlier this year, U.S. President Barack Obama signed an appropriations bill that effectively instructed the U.S. directors of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development bank, which co-financed construction of the dam, to take steps to implement an earlier reparation plan. The bill also suspended U.S. military aid to Guatemala until “the Secretary of State certifies that the Government of Guatemala is taking credible steps to implement the Reparations Plan.”
