Rights Action
February 11, 2018
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Educational delegation to Guatemala, June 9-17, 2018 - “Real life super heroes and the quest for mining justice in Canada and Guatemala”
http://selkirk.ca/mir-centre-for-peace/events-workshops/central-america-human-rights-education
Please consider joining this trip being planned and hosted by Rights Action. The Mir Centre for Peace at Selkirk College has teamed up with Rights Action, a Canadian & American non-governmental organization (NGO) to promote this educational delegation. One aspect of Rights Action’s work is to raise awareness about and support people in countries of the global south (specifically Guatemala and Honduras) whose communities and environmental well-being are often desecrated by so-called “First World” economic development projects (backed with government and private sector repression).
(Mayan Q’eqchi’ community, environmental and rights defenders, two of who are plaintiffs in the precedent setting lawsuits in Canada against Hudbay Minerals for mining-repression in Guatemala.)
Thirteen Mayan Q'eqchi’ plaintiffs (from remote villages in eastern Guatemala) completed three weeks (November 6-25, 2017) of examinations for discovery (depositions) in Toronto, Canada, by Hudbay Mineral’s team of lawyers, as part of the precedent-setting Hudbay Minerals lawsuits. Twelve women and one man are suing Hudbay (and CGN, its former subsidiary company) for repression they suffered - the targeted killing of Adolfo Ich, the shooting-paralyzing of German Chub, the gang-rapes of 11 women villagers, caused indirectly and directly by Hudbay.
Though the lawsuits (filed in 2010) might take years more to complete, if Canadian courts finds Hudbay liable, it will be the first time a Canadian company will be held accountable under Canadian law for human rights violations and abuses committed in other countries. These lawsuits are already changing the law in Canada and are helping to slowly and but surely put an end to the impunity and corruption with which many Canadian companies operate in countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The courage of the Mayan Q’eqchi’ plaintiffs is manifest. They live in rural Guatemala in conditions of endemic poverty; eleven of them speak only their native Q’eqchi’ language; one of them is permanently confined to a wheel chair; they all have received threats for their work and struggle in defense of their communities and environment, and for justice. In spite of these barriers, they demonstrate the courage, capacity and resolve of so many grass roots activists fighting similar struggles in Guatemala and elsewhere in Latin America.
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During this 7-day trip in Guatemala, delegation members will have the opportunity to speak with, learn from, be inspired by and stand in solidarity with these people, and other community, environmental and human rights defenders involved in similar struggles. You will return home educated and empowered, inspired, possibly enraged, and will have a deeper understanding of how a better world is possible.
Dates: Saturday, June 9 - Sunday, June 17, 2018
Cost: $1150 CDN ($900 USD). This includes: Eight nights of lodging; Seven days of in-country travel (professional driver and van); two or three meals/day; trip coordination, guiding and translation; and honorariums for certain people who meet with your delegation. (Participants are responsible for their own travel to and from Guatemala.)
Trip leader: Grahame Russell is a non-practicing Canadian lawyer, author, adjunct professor at the University of Northern British Columbia and, since 1995, director of Rights Action www.rightsaction.org. Since the 1980s, Grahame has worked on Central American environmental, development, human rights and justice issues. Rights Action funds and supports community-controlled development, environmental justice and human rights projects in Guatemala and Honduras, as well as in southern Mexico and El Salvador; and carries out education and activism work in the US and Canada related to global human rights, enviro- and development issues.
Learn more & Register
Grahame Russell, Rights Action, info@rightsaction.org
Cara-Lee Malange, MIR Centre for Peace at Selkirk College, cmalange@selkirk.ca
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