We are grateful to the Latin America Bureau of London for their permission to include the following article by Leonie Malin Höher in our monthly additions to The Violence of Development website.

By Leonie Malin Höher

May 6, 2025, Latin America Bureau

In the latest of ongoing violent attacks against the rural community of Lajeb Kej, private security forces destroy the resident families’ homes and force them off their land located in Alta Verapaz, a department in the mountainous northern and central highland regions of Guatemala, infamous for land disputes and forced displacement.

On 22 January 2025, a community of families living near Tucurú, Alta Verapaz, was forcibly displaced from the land they had been inhabiting. Denominated unofficially as Lajeb Kej, this Maya Q’eqchi community has had to vacate their home after years of legal and social struggle to defend their rights to land, housing, and health.

After concerted community efforts to resolve the legal battle regarding the land in question and to halt violent intimidations of the families, private security forces finally decided to destroy the families’ houses, forcing them to flee.

Sandra Calel, coordinator of Ixoq Mayaj, a women’s association focused on supporting young people and Maya women in rural areas, and expert on the Lajeb Kej case, has made a statement referring to the displacement on social media: ‘The families’ crops and houses were destroyed. Supposedly, this was a peaceful displacement. They say it is peaceful, but it is violent. They are destroying the people’s cultural identity, which affects the communities’ human rights’.

Calel collaborates with members of a network of farming communities supported by the umbrella organization Unión Verapacense de Organizaciones Campesinas (UVOC). Before meeting with government officials about land conflict, Calel stated, ‘We know that defending a right means risking your life and losing your territory. That’s why we are here [at the National Palace], looking at how the government can help resolve land issues’.

In her role as a member of UVOC, Calel participates in regular dialogues with the current administration under Bernardo Arévalo to address land conflict in Q’eqchi’ territories, but institutional support for vulnerable rural communities has been difficult to establish under a municipal political structure that regularly prioritizes private companies’ and landowners’ interests over community wellbeing.

Notably, just 5 km from Lajeb Kej, the hydroelectric company Santa Teresa began installing a dam in 2006 to extract resources from the Polochic River. It has been documented that community members have been offered money in exchange for their land under the guise of advancing hydroelectric works.

The ¡No más desalojos en Guatemala! [no more displacement in Guatemala] campaign (a collaboration between Land Rights Now, International Land Coalition de América Latina y el Caribe, Plataforma por la Defensa de la Tierra y el Territorio, and Coalición Nacional por la Tierra Guatemala) represents a collective effort to highlight patterns of displacement and community experiences that are ignored and repressed. The campaign confirms that private motivations to enrich extractive companies continue to put local communities at risk.

The corrupting power of private land ownership 

The case of the Lajeb Kej community’s struggle to defend their right to land, water, and health is not unique to the area. Alta Verapaz, a department located in the mountainous northern and central highland regions of Guatemala, is well-known for land disputes, forced displacement, and socio-economic vulnerability in Indigenous communities.

The territory upon which the modern map of Alta Verapaz was drawn pertains to Indigenous peoples of Maya Q’eqchi’, Achi, and Poqomchi’ heritage. Having inhabited the area and cultivated the land for centuries, these communities persist in the defence of their cultural and communal claims to live safely within the territory.

Q’eqchis, Achis, and Poqomchis have experienced a long history of land dispossession, from initial Spanish colonization of their lands 500 years ago to the local and multinational exploitation of their lands today. At the crux of the matter is conflict between individualistic and communitarian approaches to land.

In the late 19^th century, after the Guatemalan Liberal Revolution of 1871, the idea and practices of private property took hold more strongly in the country and greatly changed Mayan communities’ experiences of life and land. Within the Mayan cosmovision, land was never something to be bought, sold, or owned by an individual. According to many Indigenous philosophies and worldviews, land is conceptualized within a broader framework of territory that encompasses much more than the physical characteristics of a piece of land. It includes community-oriented visions of land and territory as material, spiritual, and life-giving; to be taken care of collectively.

Under today’s economic conditions in Guatemala, like in most parts of the globe, individualistic notions of land as private property dominate. According to the International Land Coalition, the long-standing agrarian conflict in the country seriously affects Indigenous and peasant communities, exacerbating violence and inequality in rural areas.

The families of Lajeb Kej, who survived through subsistence agriculture in the small land area they lived on before their forced displacement, were exposed directly to the imposition of private property.

The families of Lajeb Kej have a photocopy of an 1894 land title stating the community as owners of their territory. But this document, which has been passed down from generation to generation, is no longer recognized by the authorities.

The area that the families of Lajeb Kej inhabited was designated by the Registro de Informacion Catastral (RIC) as terreno baldío. In Guatemala, terreno baldío refers to land that does not have an owner. Despite this official designation, the people of Lajeb Kej were not safe from displacement. Throughout several years, a private landowner, armed with private security forces and supported by an institutional narrative painting subsistence farmers and local Indigenous communities as dangerous “usurpers” of private property, laid claim to land that technically pertains to the state.

These private security forces carried out systemic attacks against the community In January, the private imposition upon the terreno baldío culminated in the forced displacement of 186 people.

Long time, no solution

Since 2021, UVOC has been accompanying the Lajeb Kej community, lending support on legal and logistical matters in their fight to recuperate their rights. This comes after multiple attacks – including the destruction of their homes by chainsaw and fire in 2010, the beating of a local leader in 2023 and his son’s ear being cut off by attackers, as well as regular disturbance from drones and gunshots fired into the air.

After many years of advocacy, members of UVOC were hopeful about making progress with land dispute cases when Bernardo Arévalo took office in January of 2024. ‘[We had] so many years of suffering, without being able to express the needs of the communities. We believed that with this new government, there would be an opportunity’, UVOC’s general director Carlos Morales stated in an interview in February 2025.

In a positive political turn, the current administration did not take long after Arévalo’s inauguration to prioritize land issues and to sign the Acuerdo Agrario, committing to direct collaboration with community organizations to advance on conflicts related to land distribution and ownership.

However, the institutional barriers to change have proven to be significant, with over 1,000 land conflicts continuing actively in the country. Guatemalan media outlet Factor 4 has called out how little national and international attention is given to these conflicts, especially to the “silent crisis” of forced internal displacement. Often, public rhetoric follows a narrative blaming vulnerable populations for their circumstances, describing community members as “invaders” and “property usurpers”.

This narrative serves to protect private interests over collective welfare. In the case of Lajeb Kej, it is important to remember the link between private land ownership and extractive industries, such as hydroelectricity.

For the members of UVOC, the current administration has provided a window of opportunity to advance on solutions Q’eqchi’ community leaders have been advocating for since the early 2000s. For example, a robust government mechanism of attention to crisis, a stop to forced displacement, the provision of alternative housing in cases of legal displacement, reform of land policy, recognition of community-held and ancestral land rights, to name a few.

The recent displacement of the families of Lajeb Kej is just one piece of a larger puzzle of the structural violence underpinning land disputes in the country. Land disputes that are rooted in decades, if not centuries, of inequalities and unjust land management practices.

However, as the second year of Arévalo’s administration begins and violent displacements continue, it is clear that these solutions are still far from being actualized. The recent displacement of the families of Lajeb Kej is just one piece of a larger puzzle of the structural violence underpinning land disputes in the country. Land disputes that are rooted in decades, if not centuries, of inequalities and unjust land management practices.

UVOC’s Morales verbalizes the communities’ desires to best make progress: ‘we want to make structural changes. People with lots of power have been criminalizing the Indigenous and farming sectors. […] If we can improve the mechanism of attention to crisis, I believe things will get better. Things must change’. What the communities UVOC accompanies require is actually quite simple, even though the historical and political context have made them almost unattainable: peace and land access, to allow for small-scale subsistence farming and rural community development.

As long as socio-political divisions remain stark, whether rural-urban, public-private, or Indigenous-ladino, progress will remain slow. To ensure forced internal displacements finally come to an end, to attend to the varied land crises in Indigenous territories, and to support communities in their rights to land and life, structural change is non-negotiable.

Leonie Malin Höher is a University of St Andrews (International Relations and Sustainable Development) and Oxford (Latin American Studies) graduate who specializes in research, writing, and advocacy around a variety of social justice-focused topics. She is especially interested in adaptation responses to the climate crisis (e.g. migration), social movements led by environmental defenders, state-society interactions regarding the regulation of corporate interests, and female leadership of justice movements.

Header image: composite of author’s photo of the mountains surrounding Lajeb Kej and still from the documentary ‘Lajeb Kej, la resistencia del valle Polochic – Todas Somos Defensoras’.

Edited and Published by: Rebecca Wilson

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This article was originally published by Latin America Bureau here https://lab.org.uk/maya-qeqchi-community-forcibly-displaced-by-the-power-of-private-interests/   Sign up to Latin America Bureau’s newsletter for similar stories.’

We are grateful to the Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC, USA) for their regular updates on developments in Guatemala. Here we reproduce part of their September 2025 update.

www.ghrc-usa.org

In Guatemala high-profile Indigenous and campesino leaders have come under sustained attack in recent months. The arrest of Esteban Toc Tzay, an Indigenous Authority from Sololá who helped to lead the 2023 protests that prevented a coup d’etat and allowed President Bernardo Arévalo to take office, and the arrest of Leocadio Juracán, leader of the Campesino Committee of the Highlands, are the latest stark examples of the targeted repression being carried out by a co-opted Public Ministry whose leader, Attorney General Consuelo Porras, is facing her last months in office. The selection of a new attorney general will take place next spring. In the time remaining, struggle for power is escalating between the corrupt forces that favour impunity and the defenders of justice, democracy, and human rights.

Human Rights Violations

UDEFEGUA Reports 400 Percent Increase in Assassinations

In its annual report released in July, Human Rights Defenders Protection Unit of Guatemala found an overall significant decrease in human rights violations in 2024 compared to the previous year but a startling increase in assassinations. With the exception of 2017, when 41 girls at the Hogar Seguro were killed, more people defending human rights were targeted and assassinated in 2024 than in any year since the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996. In fact, the number of assassinations more than quadrupled. UDEFEGUA documented 28 assassinations in 2024, compared to 6 in 2023. As UDEFEGUA explains, “Previously, patterns of aggression within the justice system—such as unfounded complaints, protracted legal proceedings, or the spurious use of preventive detention—were used as a means of attrition. Although these continue to be widely used, during 2024 there was a worrying trend towards more direct and irreversible attacks, such as murders. What was previously achieved through criminalization processes that can be costly and time-consuming is now being shortened with more direct and lethal attacks.” Corruption within the justice system, according to UDEFEGUA, and the assurance that murders will go unpunished has led to this increase. The vast majority of those assassinated were defending Indigenous rights and land and environmental rights. 

Esteban Toc Tzay, Indigenous Leader from Sololá, Arrested

Esteban Toc Tzay, former deputy mayor of the Indigenous Municipality of Sololá from 2022 to 2023, was arrested on August 28, as he was driving on the Inter-American Highway after a dialysis treatment. The 61-year-old leader was involved in organizing the protests to protect democracy in 2023, protests which were pivotal in assuring the transition of power, as corrupt forces linked to the Public Ministry attempted to prevent President Arévalo from taking office. The Public Ministry, headed by Consuelo Porras, has remained silent about the reasons for his arrest, but Indigenous Authorities believe it is related to a complaint several Indigenous Authorities who led the protests filed demanding the resignation of Porras, together with the head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity, Rafael Curruchiche, and Judge Fredy Orellana, and demanding that the results of the presidential election be respected. Toc Tzay is accused of sedition, terrorism, obstruction of criminal proceedings, unlawful association, and obstruction of justice. was supposed to have a hearing before a judge on September 3, but one of the plaintiffs, Ricardo Méndez Ruiz, failed to attend and so the hearing was postponed until September 5. Méndez Ruiz, head of the Foundation Against Terrorism, was sanctioned by the European Union in June 2025 for “actions that undermine the rule of law in Guatemala, consisting in persecution and intimidation of representatives of the media, and of lawyers, judges and prosecutors.” The charges against Toc Tzay are believed to be linked to those against Héctor Cháclan and Luis Pacheco, Indigenous Authorities with the 48 Cantones of Totonicapán, who were arrested in April and remain in pretrial detention.

Campesino Leader Leocadio Juracán Arrested

On August 13, in an apparent act of criminalization against those who defend the land and territory, Leocadio Juracán, leader of the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA), was arrested at the airport in Guatemala City as he attempted to fly to South Africa to speak at a conference. According to Breaking the Silence, he was accused of aggravated trespassing [usurpación], damage to national heritage, illegal selling of natural resources, and attempted arson of forestal areas in the Izabal region of Guatemala. The CCDA believes the accusations are related to the March 5 eviction of 35 Q’eqchi’ families from their homes in the community of Río Tebernal, in Livingston, Izabal.

At a hearing in Puerto Barrios, Izabal, on August 18, a judge dismissed three out of the four charges against Juracán, leaving aggravated trespassing as the only charge, and he was released on bail. He is not able to leave the country and is not allowed to enter the department of Izabal. His trial has been set to begin on February 5, 2026. Juracán is a former member of the Guatemalan Congress; he was elected in 2015 to represent the Convergencia party and in 2019 was elected to represent the Winaq party.

The criminalization of Indigenous leaders and others is intensifying, as the preliminary findings of Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, confirm. During her May visit to Guatemala, she found a “consistent and alarming picture of criminalization” and said the “instrumental use of criminal law by the Prosecutor General’s Office appears to amount to a systematic pattern of intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights, targeted at specific groups. This persecution appears to be intensifying, as those who have sought to end impunity and corruption, defend human rights, or speak out against abuses of power increasingly face digital harassment, threats, and criminal charges.”

Three Killed in Violent Eviction in Río Hondo, Zacapa

On July 29, days after UN Special Rapporteur Balakrishnan Rajagopal published a report calling for an immediate moratorium on evictions, two campesinos and a police officer died of gunshot wounds during an attempt to evict campesinos from land allegedly owned by a hydroelectric company. Prensa Libre reported that rescue teams “transported a civilian and a PNC officer to the emergency room of the Zacapa Regional Hospital, both with gunshot wounds.” The police officer died in the emergency room, while two community members died at the scene.

Since last June, according to a report by the Guatemalan news outlet Cronica, a group of campesinos had been camped on land belonging to the Guatemalan-owned Pasabién Hydroelectric Plant, demanding that it cease operations because of their ancestral rights to the land, going back two centuries. In a shootout, two residents of the village of Santa Rosalía de Mármol died at the scene, while officer Erick Sacul died upon arrival at the state hospital in the department of Zacapa, according to police.

According to the PNC, the eviction was ordered by a court, at the request of the Public Ministry. The PNC lamented the deaths of a special forces officer and two members of the community. The PNC said the operation in Río Hondo was planned “with the aim of allowing entry to the properties of the entity Inversiones Pasabién, S.A. to carry out legally authorized repair work.” The statement goes on to report that “during the convoy’s journey, the police were met with violence, with shots being fired at the officers from elevated positions on the mountain.” The statement also reported the involvement of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office, and the department’s municipal firefighters.

The deadly confrontation took place in the context of a broader historical conflict between indigenous communities and the government over hydroelectric plants in their communities. In March, representatives of 24 indigenous communities in northern Guatemala called on the authorities to permanently cancel the Santa Rita plant, in Alta Verapaz, which was imposed without consent and led to various violent attacks, including the killing of three people in 2014 who were attempting to defend their rights to land.

Forty-Five Families in Plan Grande Could Be Evicted 

On July 19, the Constitutional Court eliminated the legal guarantees protecting 45 Q’eqchi’ families in Plan Grande, a community located in Sierra Santa Cruz, north of Lake Izabal. These Q’eqchi’ families have lived on these lands since at least the late 19th century and were displaced in 2015. Expert analysis reveals that fraudulent land records dated June 30, 2016, granted a company called CXI ownership of the family’s ancestral territory. As Peace Brigades International notes in its Monthly Information Bulletin, the Constitutional Court ruling authorizes the eviction of the community and the arrest of its leaders Abelino Chub, Martín Xi, Mateo Pop, and Héctor Che. Until the time of the ruling, the community had been protected by a 2019 ruling from High Risk Court A, which granted injunctive relief to community representatives, recognizing that CXI did not own the land.

The community has suffered harassment, arrests, and threats, such as those directed against leader Abelino Chub, who was criminally prosecuted but acquitted in 2019. The case is now before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which demanded that the State take measures by July 2025 to guarantee the fundamental rights of the community.

UN Special Rapporteur Calls for Halt to Evictions

On July 25, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, concluded a 12-day visit to Guatemala, which included the departments of Alta Verapaz, Izabal, and Zacapa. In his end-of-mission statement, he focused on forced evictions in Indigenous communities. He described the evictions as “inhumane and clearly contrary to international law.” He cited Guatemala’s colonial legacy as a factor laying the groundwork for evictions, along with inadequate legal systems that do not specifically protect Indigenous communities. In his words, “Due to a long and painful history of colonialism, extractive imperialism, armed conflict, and dispossession of Indigenous People, Guatemala is left with a legacy of land conflict, lack of legal certainty over tenure security, and excessive land concentration in the hands of a privileged few.” He mentioned that secure tenure is the most essential element of the right to adequate housing and called on Guatemala to pass or reform laws so that collective land titles of Indigenous and campesino communities would be recognized and the legal registration of these titles ensured. Without secure tenure, he said, “we see a large number of illegal evictions and violations of many human rights.” The rapporteur called for “a historical international reparations commission to adequately address the consequences of colonial rule and imperial take-over of land, which often continues to this day.”

He noted that evictions executed with a court order, and thus technically legal, often are carried out with extreme force: “Homes are often burned during evictions, along with private possession of very poor people which would amount to cruel and inhuman treatment and a grave violation of international law. Enormous shows of force by police forces which use military equipment and tactics, is a common occurrence in forced evictions. This excess use of force is plainly contrary to international human rights law: I call for an urgent stop to these tactics.”

In conclusion, he made an urgent appeal: “I urge Guatemala to urgently establish a moratorium on collective evictions and to pass a national law as soon as possible prohibiting illegal evictions, with strict guarantees of a much more humane approach to usurpacion [alleged trespassing] that respects international human rights law.”

The UN Special Rapporteur was invited by the Arévalo government, which has demonstrated its openness to international scrutiny. Since President Arévalo took office in 2024, the executive branch has shown a willingness to address the rights of Guatemala’s Indigenous, as illustrated by last year’s Agrarian Agreement. The Public Ministry, however, has not shown the same intentions. The Public Prosecutor’s Office, led by Consuelo Porras, who has been sanctioned internationally by the governments of the United States and the European Union, is responsible for many of the evictions of Indigenous communities. These communities, attempting to reclaim their ancestral lands, are accused of trespassing and other crimes and are then often evicted.
More than 1,000 people in the department of Alta Verapaz have arrest warrants for “trespassing.”

Communities Call for Closure of Cerro Blanco Mine

Residents and social organizations from Asunción Mita, Jutiapa, in a July press conference asked the Arévalo administration to revoke Cerro Blanco’s mining license for alleged irregularities and to close the mine for violating the rights of the community. The gold mine, owned by the Canadian company Bluestone, has been opposed by the affected communities because of significant environmental damage, including pollution with arsenic of a river that is in a protected area. They asked the authorities of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) and the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) to conduct an audit of all mining projects with anomalies in their files. They also announced the creation of a Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, where abuses against peoples and communities and human rights violations will be denounced. The press conference coincided with a visit by an  international observation mission composed of people from the Basque Country, Denmark, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

On a positive note, ten licenses were cancelled for mines in Izabel. On July 31, at a press conference held at the National Palace of Culture, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) officials announced the cancelation of environmental licenses for ten nickel exploration and exploitation projects in Sierra Santa Cruz, Livingston, Izabal. The licenses were granted in 2023, during the administration of former president Alejandro Giammattei, and were riddled with anomalies. Maya Q’eqchi’, Garifuna, and mestizo communities of Livingston and El Estor had been protesting for months, insisted on their cancellation, since mining would affect the water supply of at least 54 communities living in the Sierra Santa Cruz.

This is a slightly fuller text version of Box 9.2 (p. 173) in the book. In particular this website version provides more information about the sources that may be consulted for further information about the subject.

It was a murder that spawned a macabre YouTube sensation and threatened to topple Guatemala’s government. Hitmen shot dead Rodrigo Rosenberg, a lawyer, in Guatemala City soon after he recorded a sombre video blaming his imminent assassination on President Colom.

Rosenberg was thought to be in a suicidal state, following the assassination of his close friends Khalil Musa and his daughter Marjorie Musa, the recent death of his mother and separation from his wife and children. He had been investigating the deaths of the Musas and had been romantically involved with Marjorie Musa.

An investigation by the UN International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) involved 300 officials and analysed more than 100,000 telephone calls and many videos, CCTV recordings, photographs and documents. Rosenberg had contracted his cousins Francisco José Valdés Paíz and José Estuardo Valdés Paíz to hire a hitman to carry out the murder of a supposed extortionist who was blackmailing Rosenberg. The identity of the target was allegedly unknown to the Valdés Paíz brothers, but they are now seen as the masterminds of the murder and are currently avoiding arrest. The machinations involved in the scheme would be of great fascination to dramatists, conspiracy theorists and fantasists, but are far too complex to be detailed here.

Ultimately the hit was carried out by a group led by Willian Gilberto Santos Divas, a former member of the police. Rosenberg was shot three times in the head, once in the neck and once in the back. In September 2009, nine suspects, including members of the police and military, were arrested for the murder.

The CICIG investigation concluded that the lawyer, in a state of depression over personal problems and angry with the government, sacrificed his own life in an elaborate sting. Rosenberg made the video knowing that two days later assassins he had hired would ambush him near his home. He apparently hoped the video would render him a martyr.

The Head of CICIG, Carlos Castresana, said they had found no evidence to link the President to Rosenberg’s death.

Sources:
CICIG (2010) ‘Caso Rosenberg: Resultados de la Investigación’, Guatemala City, United Nations CICIG, 12 January 2010.
Rory Carroll (2009) ‘Lawyer in YouTube murder plot video hired his own assassins – UN’, The Guardian, London, 14 January 2010.
Danilo Valladares (2009) ‘Guatemala: Police, Military arrested for lawyer’s murder’, IPS, 14 September 2009.
Julie Chappell (UK Ambassador to Guatemala) (2010) ‘The Rosenberg Assassination and Justice in Guatemala’, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 13 January 2010.
Moon Travel Guide (2010) ‘Rosenberg planned his own execution, UN commission says’, 14 January 2010: www.moon.com/blogs/guatemala/ (accessed 24.01.10).
Gilberto López (2010) ‘La frase lapidaria, ……’, Semanario Universidad, www.semanario.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/mainmenu-mundo/ (accessed 10.01.10).
Martin Barillas (2010) ‘Guatemala: murdered lawyer planned his own death’, Spero News, 12 January 2010, www.speroforum.com/a/25412/ (accessed 24.01.10).
Central American Politics (2010) ‘Rosenberg orchestrated his own murder?’, 12 January 2010, http://centralamericanpolitics.blogspot.com/2010/01/ (accessed 24.01.10).