“THE MASSACRE OF RÍO NEGRO”
One of the greatest atrocities ever committed against residents evicted by the construction of a dam was the massacre of 450 people living on the Río Negro. The Chixoy Dam was built on the lands of Guatemala’s indigenous Maya Achí people in the midst of the country’s brutal civil war. Faced with the population’s refusal to abandon their lands, the authorities began a campaign of terror that ended with their death and torture. The survivors now live in new relocated communities that lack adequate livelihoods.
Over the past decade, the communities have struggled to recover the bodies of their loved ones and to pressure the Guatemalan government and the dam’s funders to provide reparations for the damages they have suffered.
