Defense of Life and Territory
The signing of the Peace Accords in 1996 opened the door for transnational resource extraction companies to gain access to land for operations without community consent. In fact, many Guatemalan organizations point out that one of the primary goals of the genocide was to consolidate a neoliberal economic agenda based on a resource extraction model that depended on massive forced displacement and destruction of the social and cultural fabric of communities.
NISGUA works to support communities standing up in the peaceful defense of their lands and cultures, in opposition to North American mining companies. Many of these communities are being criminalized by these same companies, bent on silencing dissent.