The community consultations is a mechanism widely used in Guatemala, although grassroots organizations insist that the authorities need to guarantee their legally binding status so that the communities decisions actually stop open-pit metal mining.

In the case of Champerico, a region comprising 49 communities, 17,000 people participated in the consultation and the result was an overwhelming opposition to mining.

One of the organizations that promoted the successful consultation is the National Peasant and Indigenous Coordination (CONIC), a member of La Via Campesina. They based the consultation on the need to implement the Municipal Code and ILO’s Convention 169 on indigenous rights.

In a report for ALER news agency, the promoters of the consultation said the results will be now taken to the Ministry of Energy and Mining and to the President of the Republic, Otto Gomez.

The anti-mining mobilization in Champerico began after Alvaro Colom’s administration granted four licenses for the exploitation of metal mines in that Pacific region, all of them subsidaries of transnational corporations.

Photo: http://www.s21.com.gt/