In 1978, in the face of civil war, the Guatemalan government proceeded with its economic development program, including the construction of the Chixoy hydroelectric dam. Financed in large part by the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, the Chixoy Dam was built in Rabinal, a region of the department of Baja Verapaz historically populated by the Maya Achi. To complete construction, the government completed voluntary and forcible relocations of dam-affected communities from the fertile agricultural valleys to the much harsher surrounding highlands. When hundreds of residents refused to relocate, or returned after finding the conditions of resettlement villages were not what the government had promised, these men, women, and children were kidnapped, raped, and massacred by paramilitary and military officials. More than 440 Maya Achi were killed in the village of Río Negro alone, and the string of extrajudicial killings that claimed up to 5,000 lives between 1980 and 1982 became known as the Río Negro massacres. The government officially declared the acts to be counterinsurgency activities - although local church workers, journalists and the survivors of Rio Negro deny that the town ever saw any organized guerrilla activity.Environment News Service via NISGUAInternational Rivers Network/Witness for Peace, press release, Thursday 9 May 1996 Reports agree that 177 people -70 women and 107 children -, defenceless civilian population of the community of Río Negro, were killed in this action. The diligence of exhumation of corpses, practised 12 years later, established the existence, in three graves, skeletons of 143, 85 of which belonged to children, and the rest to women.
In 1978, in the face of civil war, the Guatemalan government proceeded with its economic development program, including the construction of the Chixoy hydroelectric dam. Financed in large part by the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, the Chixoy Dam was built in Rabinal, a region of the department of Baja Verapaz historically populated by the Maya Achi. To complete construction, the government completed voluntary and forcible relocations of dam-affected communities from the fertile agricultural valleys to the much harsher surrounding highlands. When hundreds of residents refused to relocate, or returned after finding the conditions of resettlement villages were not what the government had promised, these men, women, and children were kidnapped, raped, and massacred by paramilitary and military officials. More than 440 Maya Achi were killed in the village of Río Negro alone, and the string of extrajudicial killings that claimed up to 5,000 lives between 1980 and 1982 became known as the Río Negro massacres. The government officially declared the acts to be counterinsurgency activities – although local church workers, journalists and the survivors of Rio Negro deny that the town ever saw any organized guerrilla activity.Environment News Service via NISGUAInternational Rivers Network/Witness for Peace, press release, Thursday 9 May 1996 Reports agree that 177 people – 70 women and 107 children – were killed in this action. The diligence of exhumation of corpses, practised 12 years later, established the existence, in three graves, skeletons of 143, 85 of which belonged to children, and the rest to women.
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-70
– 70
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-, defenceless civilian population of the community of Río Negro,
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