Nearly 15,000 indigenous started a march this week to the country’s capital and blockaded roads to demand the suspension of a new Mining Law, as it is damaging to the rural communities.

The passing of the law would render the community consultations done in Guatemala, void. The population expressed their rejection to mining extraction projects in these consultations.

Besides, the community of San Juan Sacatepéquez, in Guatemala’s central department, is calling cement company Holcim-Cementos Progreso to leave their territories. This Suiss company aims to install a plant that would start operating in 2012 and would have an approximate cost of 600 million dollars.

Members of the organization Ceiba – Friends of the Earth Guatemala said the residents that would be affected by the project are mainly craftspeople and flower harvesters.

They claim that the cement company’s plans are purportedly to “mitigate” the environmental impacts including reforestation with eucalyptus, something that would have even more serious consequences on the water sources, the residents said.

Real World Radio interviewed Alfonso Morales, leader of the Maya Mam coordination of Huehuetenango department, in the norhtwest border with Mexico. There, the organizations are asking for the immediate suspension of mining licenses, and for the approval of the Integral Rural Development Law, which promotes the local and peasant economy.

“Thousands of indigenous have taken to the streets to defend the 25 mining consultations carried out in Huehuetenango”, said Morales. He warns about the criminalization process being suffered by social leaders in Guatemala.