The Assertion of Rights: Guatemala's Marlin Mine Conflict, 2005-2011

Anabella Sibrián, International Platform Against Impunity, and Chris Van der Borgh, Utrecht University, have published La Criminalidad de los Derechos: La Resistencia a la Mina Marlin (The Criminality of Rights: The Resistance to the Marlin Mine) at 4 Oñati Socio-Legal Series 63 (2014). Here are two abstracts, one in Spanish and one in English. The article is in Spanish.

Este ensayo desarrolla diferentes estadios de resistencia y criminalización de grupos comunitarios opuestos a la Mina Marlin en Guatemala, entre 2005 y 2011. Éste es uno de los primeros conflictos relacionados con la defensa de territorios indígenas frente a intereses empresariales que tiene lugar después de la firma de los Acuerdos de Paz de 1996; acto simbólico que cerraba un periodo de tres décadas de terror y crímenes de lesa humanidad. El argumento central es que este conflicto puede ser visto como un jardín experimental, tanto desde la perspectiva de los pueblos indígenas como desde aquélla de los actores que han buscado neutralizar o hasta quebrar la resistencia, en un contexto de presencia selectiva del Estado.

This essay develops different stages of resistance and criminalization of communities and their members acting in opposition to the Marlin Mine in Guatemala between 2005 and 2011. This has been one of the first conflicts related to the defence of indigenous territories facing business interests, after signing the Peace Agreements of 1996; symbolic act that closed a period of three decades of terror and crimes against humanity. The central argument is that this conflict can be seen as an experimental garden from both, indigenous people perspective and the perspective of actors seeking neutralize or break the resistance, in a context of selective presence of the State.

Download the article from SSRN at the link. See also other articles of interest in this issue, including Fabien Le Bonniec, Las Cárceles de la Etnicidad: Experiencias y Prácticas de Resistencia de los Mapuche Sometidos a la Violencia Política en la Era del Multiculturalismo (2000-2010) (Prisons of ethnicity: Experiences and Practices of the Mapuche Resistance Subjected to ...).