The Independent reports on Friday that hundreds of families of Mayan Indians are occupying part of a large nickel mine in Guatemala owned by the Vancouver-based Skye Resources company. The Mayans have demanded they be given land for subsistence farms. Approximately 2,000 Q'echi Indians moved on to three different areas of the mining site and then began setting up make-shift camps. The Indians then moved to the inactive mine site near Lake Izabal in northeast Guatemala that is owned by Skye Resources. Skye purchased the mine site from another Canadian mining company, Candadian International Nickel Co., which began mine operations in the 1960s that continued until 1981. Campaigners say that the Truth Commission--a UN-sponsored program launched as part of a 1996 peace agreement that ended Guatemala's 36-year long civil war, asserts that indigenous communities with historical land claims have the right to determine how the land is to be used. Father Dan Vogt, a catholic priest who also coordinates a community development group, said the Mayans had long been campaigning for the Canadian company to provide them with farmland. A recent Oxfam report about the El Estor Mayan community reads:
"Rigorous strip mining has already degraded the fragile ecosystem, eroding the thin topsoil in mountain passes inhabited by Mayan communities. The mountainsides have been deforested, causing landslides and a litany of environmental hazards. In addition to the environmental threat, there is a long history of political violence between the mining companies and the indigenous communities who resist."
Regarding the current Mayan occupation, Skye Resources chief executive officer Ian Austin stated: "Our approach has been to try and talk with the community and the people in the area and to develop a win-win situation. Groups are opposed to mining and that is a fact of life in our industry."
Link to the story below. -TW
Mayans occupy Canadian-owned mine in campaign for farming land (The Independent)
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