Thirty -nine indigenous organizations of Guatemala question the Act of the Public Ministry (MP) before the capture of the former leaders of the 48 cantons of Totonicapán, Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán, who were prosecuted for the crimes of terrorism and obstacle to criminal action.
Pacheco, in addition, is Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines of the Government of Bernardo Arévalo, who came to power in the midst of judicial proceedings that led the streets to indigenous organizations that demanded respect for democracy. Now, indigenous organizations speak of a new coup attempt.
The arrest of both is considered by indigenous organizations as “criminalization and judicial terrorism”, so in assembly they decided to defend the “indigenous institutionality of the Mayan and Xinka people.”
This Friday, April 25, a criminal judge sent Pacheco and Chaclán to preventive detention, whose arrest unleashed criticism of the UN, the OAS and international organizations, the Prosecutor’s Office reported.
The investigating entity indicated that Judge Patricia Flores gave value to the indications against the detainees and decided to dictate preventive detention in the prison of the Mariscal Zavala barracks, in the capital.
The arrest caused a wave of criticism, including that of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk; as well as that of President Arévalo, the general secretary of the OAS, Luis Almagro, and 16 international organizations.
In a joint statement, indigenous organizations set their position at seven points:
- The indigenous and ancestral authorities, in the assembly of peoples, have decided to defend the indigenous institutionality of the Mayan and Xinka peoplein the face of spurious and arbitrary criminalization led by the Public Ministry against our indigenous brothers and sisters, who have served our peoples as legitimate authorities and have fulfilled the mandate entrusted from their community assemblies, among which is to defend the rights of our peoples, our ancestral territory, ensure the common good, and maintain peace and harmony.
- From the above, as indigenous and ancestral authorities of our peoples, We condemn and reject Roundly criminalization and judicial terrorism, as well as the arbitrary use of the criminal law of the enemy against indigenous peoples and their authorities, who freed the struggle for the defense of democracy and demanded the preservation of the precarious rule of law in our country.
- We condemn the actions of the Public Ministry and the Corrupt Pact, which, using and applying the criminal law of the enemy and the criminal justice applied by corrupt judges, are being averaged against authorities that served and acted to avoid the coup d’etat of the year 2023, organized by the Coast of Corruptos headed by Alejandro Giammattei, Miguel Martínez, Consuelo Porras and a hub Congress, Courts and State institutions themselves, as well as part of the private sector.
- We categorically reject the imputation of the crimes made by the Public Ministry, based on irrational indications that, sadly, Mrs. Judge accepts, when they are obviously insufficient to link them to process for serious crimes. We hope that the investigative judge in the case of Mr. Edgar Tuy will be more objective and does not incur flagrant violations of rights, as in the case of the members of the Board of Directors of the 48 cantons of the year 2023, to whom neither the Public Ministry nor the judge who heard the first statement guaranteed the principle of objectivity, legality, due process and effective judicial protection. We are ashamed of the justice system because, when the law applies to the natives, it is like the snake that only bite the poor and barefoot.
- In the first statement of Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán there were no sufficient rational indications to link them to the process, but it is outraged that the defense of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, which is not ours, is considered a crime for the corrupt.
- Given this onslaught of the Public Ministry, as indigenous authorities we alert our peoples and the people of Guatemala that we are faced with a new coup attempt. This Assembly of Indigenous Peoples we have met to defend indigenous institutionality, which is at risk at the moment, for the attack that the Public Ministry is developing against our right to self -determination.
- We demand from the Public Ministry, to the Justice sector and the indigenous institutionality created in these institutions, cease the criminalization of legitimate indigenous authorities. In the event that they do not seem to live with indigenous peoples and their authorities, that the Public Ministry and the Corrupt Pact organize their status in the territories of their ancestors to do what seems to them, and that they leave us in the territories that our ancestors inherited to continue our life.
“We will not allow the undercutting of the ancestral institutionality of our peoples and we will not rest until we see the Attorney General of the Public Ministry, María Consuelo Porras Argueta, behind the bars, ”concludes the joint statement of indigenous organizations.
The MP was consulted if they had any position about it, but they still do not respond.
With EFE information