Indigenous peoples

By Hazel Marsh Over the last four months, hardly a day has gone by without news coverage of the political and economic crisis in...

After years of protests by indigenous communities, the Spanish company Ecoener-Hidralia has finally abandoned the project to build a hydroelectric dam on the Cambalan indigenous river, in Guatemala. The company has informed this decision through a statement published in the media of the Central American country. The company had already paralyzed the work it was doing on the San Juan de Barillas indigenous territory months ago, and had dropped charges against leaders of the community that had been denounced and imprisoned for rejecting the project and protesting against it.

“I feel that the Chilean State is committing a disguised genocide, it’s a Terrorist State and this genocide is like the one perpetrated 500 years ago, but is now being disguised, mass media hides it and society in general is not aware of what’s happening”. These are the worlds of Barbara Villalba, teacher and member of the Coordination for the Defense of the Mapuche people.