Thanks to Elaine Schele and Chris Shaw for the information. The Ixcan area is south of the Lacantun River, and part of the Usumacinta watershed. Full story if you click MORE.

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Ixcan Indigenous Referendum to Reject Oil Drilling and Hydroelectric Projects

Communities snub oil companies

Noticias Aliadas, CERIGUA. May 2, 2007

Residents choose the defense of their environment in referendum. Community members in the Guatemalan town of Ixcan, in the El Quiche department, overwhelmingly rejected a series of oil drilling and hydroelectric projects on their lands in a referendum April 20. A total of 19,911 residents participated in the vote, and nearly 94 percent voted against the activities, funded by private capital

The Q'eqchí' Environmental Roundtable, known by the Spanish acronym MAQ, which promoted the event that local authorities administered, demanded that the country's Constitutional Court respect and guarantee the vote, adhering to the International Labor Organization's Convention 169 on indigenous rights, the Constitution and the municipal code.

Several organizations such as the Ixcan's Social Pastoral, the Front against Dams, the Public Health Workers Union, the Academy of Mayan Languages of Alta Verapaz, ecological groups OilWatch and MadreSelva and the National Indigenous Campesina Coordinator are part the MAQ.

"The MAQ was created as a space [organization?] for opposition to the globalization policies that threaten the rights of the indigenous peoples, to provide information in Mayan languages to the population about the negative effects of those projects" such as oil drilling and exploration, hydroelectric projects and mining, and the Franja Transversal del Norte, or FTN highway project, said Herbert Caal of the Maya Ecological Roundtable organization. The region known as FTN cuts the country from west to east through the departments of Huehuetenango, El Quiche, Alta Verapaz, southern Peten and Izabal.

Decision making power for small community

If the Ixcan residents' decision is respected, the plans of the oil company Petrolina Corporation, a subsidiary of the English company Taghmen Energy, to continue operating the area will be halted, just as the company was considering expanding those plans. The MAQ is now urging other towns in the region to "hold this kind of vote, with the objective of making the law count."

Their calls are directed to one town in particular: Coban in Alta Verapaz. In November, representatives from the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Petrolina Corporation solicited permission to drill for oil on Coban's Municipal Farm Salinas de los Nueve Cerros. The company refused to back down from its plans, even though Coban authorities denied them permission.

Employees of the transnational company were constantly organizing sporting events between area schools and communities and cultural shows that promoted the supposed benefits the company's presence would bring to the community, says Arturo Chen, a MAQ member.

Petrolina identified the communities' social leaders and offered them well-paid positions, causing them to stop their activities against the drilling since they feared for their families' security or for losing the only source of income they had, says Leopoldo Marz, of the Maya Mestiza Association.

Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, whose area of 1,170 hectares (2,890 acres) ishome to the communities' important sources of economic, social and cultural development, such as the Chixoy River, five lagoons, 314 hectares (775 acres) of virgin forest and 360 hectares (890 acres) of sustainable use forest, Marz says. Officials at the Forensic Anthropological Foundation of Guatemala have registered 120 Mayan tombs at the site.