The information gathered in this visit was submitted to the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Guatemala on Monday 20th, and also to different Embassies at the Central American country.

The Friends of the Earth International delegation was made up by 20 people from the Netherlands, England, US, Nigeria, Belgium, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Guatemala. On Saturday 18th, they travelled to the communities of San Juan Sacatepequez municipality.

“We gathered the testimonies of the population and found evidence of the social and environmental impacts in the area caused by the operations of these companies”, read a statement issued by Friends of the Earth International, the world´s largest environmentalist federation present in 77 countries.

The affected indigenous and peasant communities depend on small-scale agriculture, cultivation of flowers, and farming.

“In 2007, San Juan Sacatepequez municipality committed twice to carry out a consultation with the communities, but in both cases, the consultations were suspended and were never carried out”, states the communiqué.

The environmentalists also said that the communities organized a Community Consultation, a tradition among indigenous people, to know what people thought about this mining project and the building of a road to transport cement.

“Around 9000 inhabitants from the 12 communities that were consulted rejected the installation of this mining project”, they add.

ILO Convention 169 establishes it is mandatory to consult indigenous peoples and communities before the installation of projects that will affect their lifestyles and territories. In fact, the ILO stated that Holcim is violating the rights of the indigenous people.

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