Diodora Hernandez, left, her daughter Maria and granddaughter, with Maria Cuc Choc, rear, in San Miguel Ixtahuacan, western Guatemala.
Eleanor Millard writes in the Yukon News, “At a gold mine site in San Miguel Ixtahuacan, an older Mayan woman reaches into the open window of our small bus and holds both my arms firmly. Thank you for coming, Diodora Hernandez says in Spanish. ‘Buena suerte’, good luck, is all I can think of saying to this tiny campesina grandmother. Her little farm has a few turkeys, one cow, and a small garden. It sits right beside the Canadian mining company Goldcorp’s warehouse. She refuses to sell her land to the mining giant although many have done so around her. On July 7, 2010, on the pretense of asking for coffee, two men tried to kill Hernandez. The bullet went through her right eye and came out by her ear. It is a miracle that she survived. After months in hospital, she is blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. No one has been charged with her attempted murder although the mine admits that two accused men worked at the mine. Still today she refuses to sell her small plot of land to the mine, resisting pressure from mine employees, the community she lives in, and even her family. …One documentary is presently being made about Hernandez, her attempted murder, and her ongoing struggle with Goldcorp, http://www.gprojectfilm.org/the-story/.”
Millard also notes, “In El Estor, German Chub Choc spoke to us about how he was left paralyzed and wheel-chair bound when on September 27, 2009, he was shot by security guards hired by the Guatemalan Nickel company (CGN), a subsidiary of HudBay Minerals. He was not protesting, but was simply watching a soccer game next to the mine. This young man was left for dead in the soccer field until friends rescued him by motorcycle. After two years of hospitalization and recovery therapy sponsored by the Transitions Foundation of Guatemala, he, his wife and his infant son live with his parents. Very poor to begin with, the family is now in dire poverty due to on-going health needs and the fact that Chub can no longer work as a subsistence farmer or day labourer.”
In September 2011, Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow visited Guatemala and met with both Diodora and German. Her blog can be read at http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10419.
To read Millard’s full article, please go to http://yukon-news.com/life/30494/.
