Voices from the Resistance
Since 2011, Xinka and campesino communities in southeastern Guatemala have organized to peacefully oppose the Escobal silver mine — imposed without their consent. Their powerful direct action, paired with an order from Guatemala’s top court, has successfully suspended operations since mid-2017.
In January 2019, Pan American Silver acquired the project, and with it, a legacy of repression and discrimination. But communities continue to organize to protect their farmlands, water, cultures, and lives from mining.
“We aren’t against development. In fact, here we have lived as peoples for generations with our own kind of development. The company is coming in to destroy the economic activities which have sustained our families for decades.”
“Does it really matter if the community gets 40, 50, 60% of the royalties of the mine, if at the end of the day, their livelihoods, their water, their environment have been destroyed by it? We know responsible mining is a myth, and that what determines the outcomes is profit. That is why we say no mine, under no conditions.”
“We have high quality coffee and we make a humble living from that. Imagine what would happen if the mine was to restart, our water, our livelihoods would be ruined.”
