Exporting Dispossession?

On September 27, 2009, local Mayan community leader Adolfo Ich Chamán—an outspoken critic of mining impacts on his community—died during violent clashes near his home in El Estor, Guatemala. In a suit brought before the Ontario Superior Court, Ich’s widow alleges that he was snatched, beaten and ultimately shot by private security personnel employed by the nearby mine. The project in question, a nickel open-pit mine, had been acquired the year prior by Canadian company Hudbay through its purchase of yet another Canadian company, Skye Resources. The acquisition and the project were taking place within a politically charged context of land disputes with local communities and the broader historical context of violent dispossession of Mayan communities in this Central American country. In pressing her suit, Ich’s widow joined two other claims against Hudbay now in the Ontario courts, regarding the shooting of another local man that same day and the alleged gang rape of eleven...