Semuy II

Among the victims of corruption in Guatemala are three women we had the honor of visiting in prison several months ago, Rosa Ich Xi, Olivia Mucú, Angelina Coy Choc. The women, without due process, were convicted of the murder of three soldiers in the community of Semuy II, Izabal in 2019. The Indigenous Q’eqchi’ women were sentenced to 75 years in prison.Our team in Guatemala coordinated with El Observador to write an article on the prospects for justice in the case as the women’s appeal hearing approaches. You will find the full article in Spanish here. A much-abridged summary, with additions for clarity and context, follows. The Effect of the Murders on the Community Until September 2019, when the armed attack occurred, Semuy II was the meeting and decision-making center of the Q’eqchi’ resistance in the south of Lake Izabal. Its location as a strategic meeting point owed to its proximity to the African palm plantations of the NaturAceites  corporation and to the area of advancing mining operations. The community was the meeting place for more than a dozen communities active in the anti-mining protests of 2017 and 2019 in El Estor. The meeting samong the communities were successfully ended in the aftermath of the murders, when the administration of Jimmy Morales imposed a 30-day state of siege, which was later extended. It covered 22 municipalities and purportedly was decreed as a result of the murders. The state of siege shut down the right to protest and the right to free speech and free assembly. Two months before the attack on Semuy II, in July 2019, the Constitutional Court had suspended the license for the Fénix mining project, owned since 2011 by the Swiss transnational Solway Investment Group Limited. The ruling reduced the area of the mining concession granted in 2004 from 247.9 to 6 square kilometers and ordered a consultation to obtain the consent of the Q’eqchi’ communities, which represent the majority in 90 percent in the area in question. The state of siege made preparations for the consultation impossible. The Upcoming Appeal Rosa, Odilia, and Angelina, along with four other Q’eqchi’ individuals, have left behind families, as well as a wounded community, as they serve their prison sentences. The women were sentenced in March 2022. Angelina, who was shot during the military attack, has not had access to the medical attention she needs. She requires surgery to have the bullet removed. The women’s appeal hearing, scheduled to take place on August 21, is a reason for hope but also for concern: Judge Luis Mauricio Corado Campos, who will rule on the appeal, has been linked to corruption. Corado Campos was among the 13 magistrates whose judicial immunity the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity (FECI), led by Juan Francisco Sandoval, requested to be lifted in July 2020 so that they could face prosecution. The magistrates were accused of influence trafficking, violating the Constitution of the Republic, and illicit association for maintaining communications with Gustavo Alejo Cámbara, accused of leading a parallel structure to maliciously influence the election of Supreme Court and Court of Appeals judges in 2019 in the case known as Parallel Commissions 2020. The Shoddy Prosecution On September 3, 2019, soldiers from a Navy patrol entered through Pataxté beach and crossed Semuy II with their faces covered. The children who were at school, frightened, took refuge on a hill. The women who were attending a medical session, left the consultations to ask the soldiers why they had come. The men, who had not yet finished painting the church, saw the soldiers and had the same question. Then the gunfire started. Two members of the community were injured, Enrique Cuc Tiul and Angelina Coy Choc, and three soldiers were killed. The Public Ministry took more than 24 hours to reach the community and collect the bodies of the soldiers. The community was besieged for five days until a delegation from the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office arrived. Soldiers raided several houses, interrogated several residents as suspects, and conducted searches in nearby areas.The house of Joel Juc Xol was surrounded, and his personal identification document was taken away; Agustín Chub, a member of the community, was found hanging from a low beam on the outside of a house, an apparent but suspicious suicide. The names of Jux Xol, whose ID had been stolen, and of Agustín Chub—before his apparent suicide—had appeared in a publication by the Foundation Against Terrorism, an ultra-conservative group linked to former military officials and corrupt actors within the Public Ministry and other spheres. The Foundation Against Terrorism, according to Guatemala’s National Civil Police, reportedly received the men’s names through a leak from the database of the Ministry of the Interior. How did the shooting start? Who opened fire? Whose weapons were they? These were questions that the court did not bother to clarify. The court’s ruling was based on the statements of a “protected witness,” who testified with a balaclava to hide their identity. The prosecution also did not identify exactly what role the convicted women had allegedly played in the soldiers’ deaths. Some of the Forces at Play in the Region Multiple economic forces have particular interests in the region, and many benefited from the narratives circulated after the killings and from the state of siege. One of the most important entities in Guatemala, Cementos Progreso (CEMPRO), whose partner families, the Maegli Novella, have strong economic interests south of Lake Izabal, is said to be one of funders of the Foundation Against Terrorism, which contributed to the narrative that the community of Semuy II was engaged in drug trafficking. The rationale the soldiers gave for entering the community of Semuy II is that they were searching for a plane they had been tracking as a suspected drug transportation craft. Various economic associations benefitted from the state of siege. The Guild of Palm Producers and Exporters (GREPALMA), the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN)-PRONICO, and the Association for the Defense of Private Property (ACDERPO) publicly requested the extension of the state of siege, as well as an active eviction policy in the area. Families in the community do not believe the community members imprisoned for the murders are guilty. Read more about Semuy II in our prior publications and be on lookout for news and ways to support justice as the women’s appeal hearing approaches.