Profile: Trópico Verde

Attacks on Guatemalan human rights defenders have increased dramatically in recent years.  Circumstances surrounding many of these attacks strongly suggest they represent a deliberate attempt to intimidate human rights defenders.  In a recent, serious example of this trend, on January 10, 2007, four unidentified gunmen opened fire on environmental rights activists Carlos Albacete and Piedad Espinosa, directors of the Guatemalan organization, Trópico Verde.  Carlos and Piedad were returning home from the Guatemala City airport in a taxi at the time of the attack.  The assailants, who wore bullet proof vests, were dressed in black clothing similar to Guatemalan police uniforms, but without any identifying insignia.   The taxi driver managed to speed away as the attackers continued to fire on the car. Astonishingly, Carlos, Piedad and the taxi driver escaped with only minor injuries sustained when the windshield was shattered by bullets.

Although it may seem difficult to understand why activists defending the right to a healthy environment would be targeted for such a brutal attack, Carlos and Piedad’s work to defend the rights of indigenous and rural villages who oppose environmentally and socially destructive development projects on or next to their land directly challenges the interests of powerful people who benefit financially from these projects.  Some seem to be willing to resort to violent threats and intimidation to silence their critics.  For example, when Trópico Verde successfully pressed the Guatemalan government to establish a moratorium on oil exploration near indigenous and rural communities in the rainforest of the Petén region, Carlos and Piedad received death threats. 

The local communities supported by Trópico Verde face a number of threats to their rights.  In a poor, rural country like Guatemala, most indigenous and rural people provide for their families’ basic needs by working the land.  When farmers are forcibly displaced from their land, or the natural resources on which they depend are depleted, they become unable to provide food for their families. In Guatemala’s jungle region of the Petén, the government is planning a series of development mega-projects – dams, highways, and powerplants – that threaten to destroy the fragile ecosystems and natural resources on which poor families depend for their livelihoods.  Indigenous and rural communities lack information about how these infrastructure development projects would affect them, and are often excluded from participating in making decisions about the future of their rural homes.

Founded in 2000, Trópico Verde collaborates with community partners to gather information about possible on-the-ground effects of development mega-projects and to supply the communities with current information on these proposed projects through workshops and popular education materials.  Trópico Verde has conducted extensive research on how development plans would affect the local population, and shares this analysis with affected communities to use in local and national campaigns.  Carlos and Piedad also educate decision-makers at the national level and have successfully elevated the concerns of local grassroots organizations in local and national media. 

In the Petén, Trópico Verde has documented and exposed how local government officials have illegally allowed alleged drug traffickers to enter the protected rainforest of the Maya Biosphere Reserve and cut it down to make way for cattle ranches. The resulting open spaces also serve as landing strips for the drug traffickers’ small planes. 

Guatemalan human rights groups suspect that the recent violent attack was in response to Carlos and Piedad’s public statements on the links between suspected drug trafficking activity and the destruction of natural resources in the Petén.  This was not the first time Carlos and Piedad have received serious threats. A series of threats forced Trópico Verde to close its Petén office for part of 2005 before re-opening in a more secure location in the center of town. 

The Fund for Global Human Rights provides Trópico Verde with the necessary funding to maintain its office in the Petén to monitor the situation and work more closely with local partners. In response to the recent violent attack, the Fund worked with another Guatemala funder, the Moriah Fund, to provide Carlos and Piedad with security protection, help report the attack to Guatemalan and international authorities, and enable them to leave the country until their safety can be assured. These kinds of attacks are intended to intimidate human rights activists and deter them from exposing rights violations. This latest incident, however, will not slow Carlos and Piedad down.  While outside of Guatemala, they will raise with the international community concerns about the rights of indigenous and rural people in Guatemala and press for international action to defend the rights of poor communities in the rainforest. As soon as they feel it is safe to do so, Carlos and Piedad plan to return to Guatemala to resume this fight.