THE MASSACRE OF RÍO NEGRO
The Chixoy Dam was built on the lands of Guatemala’s indigenous Maya Achí people in the midst of the country’s brutal civil war. When community members opposed relocation and sought better compensation, they were massacred, tortured and kidnapped. The army and paramilitary forces murdered around 444 people, the majority of them women and children.
Financed by the World Bank and Inter–American Development Bank, and built by Italian, German and US companies, the dam forcibly displaced more than 3,500 people. An additional 6,000 families also suffered loss of land and livelihoods. Since the dam was completed in the mid-1980s, the displaced communities have lived in extreme poverty on poor quality lands in inadequate housing without electricity or running water.
Over the past decade the communities have worked with international human rights and environmental organizations to pressure the Guatemalan government and the dam’s funders to provide reparations for the damages they have suffered.
