"Where is the water, Florentino Pérez?"

San Pedro Carcha (Guatemala)"Look, the river runs through a pipe! It's crap! It's just stone, look! The water runs through the Florentino tunnels there," shouts indigenous leader Ana Rutilia Ical, tears running down her cheeks as she watches from behind the razor wire that prohibits access to the Cahabón River. A river that is no longer a river. At least in this stretch, where the water runs through cement channels that pierce the mountains of San Pedro Carchá, a municipality in central Guatemala. Here the turquoise colour that characterises the Cahabón does not exist. From a distance, only brown stones can be seen.

Ana Rutilia belongs to the Mayan Q'eqchi' ethnic group, one of the more than twenty ethnic groups that coexist in Guatemala, and that is why she carries her huipil, an elaborate dress with embroidery typical of Mayan culture, and a jet-black braid. For the Q'eqchi' people, the Cahabón is not just a river: it is a source of life and a ceremonial site. "Where is the water?" the Q'eqchi' leader shouts angrily from the window of the car in which she is travelling, as the vehicle passes right in front of one of the Renace hydroelectric plants. She would like to get out of the car to take a closer look at what they have done to her river, but she cannot, for security reasons.

In 2017, Ana Rutilia opened a legal process to dismantle Renace, a megaproject that affects the nearly 29,000 people who live near the Cahabón River. In addition, it is one of the largest hydroelectric plants in Guatemala and Central America. It was built by billionaire Florentino Pérez, president of the Spanish company Construction Activities and Services (ACS).

Death threats

Since then, the Q'eqchi' leader has received threats and has been the victim of delegitimization campaigns, all for defending the river of her ancestors. The Cahabón runs for 195 kilometers through Guatemalan territory. It encompasses the water of the Mayan Q'eqchi' communities that live isolated in the mountains of the municipality of San Pedro Carchá. For the Q'eqchi' people, the river has also historically been a spiritual place and being left without that space threatens "people's mental and physical health," says Ana Rutilia, who adds: "What is at stake here is life," while looking at the nonexistent flow. But who has kept the Cahabón River?

The owners of Renace, the Bosch-Gutiérrez and Gutiérrez-Mayorga families, two of the richest families in Guatemala, have the right to use the water from the Cahabón River to generate energy for 50 years. However, although Renace generates 16% of the electricity needed in the Central American country, the inhabitants of the rural area of San Pedro Carchá do not have electricity at home. To light their homes (made of wood and aluminum sheets) they must use solar panels, which they can afford, or candles.

The person in charge of building the tunnels that connect the four phases of Renace has been the president of Real Madrid. The hydroelectric plant works in a "cascade", that is, the water that enters Renace I passes through the different phases and returns to its natural flow after passing through the engine room of Renace IV. The water is transported by cement channels that run through the mountains both above and below ground, which were the work of the company Cobra Instalaciones Hidráulicas, part of the ACS group of Florentino Pérez, and operate along 30 kilometers above the river. And, as indicated by the only sign written in the language of the Mayan Q'eqchi' communities, that area is "a naajej ain wank aj echalre", which means private property.

Taking advantage of poverty

However, these lands have not always been the property of the hydroelectric plant. 83.1% of the population of the department of Alta Verapaz (where San Pedro Carchá is located) lives in poverty. This is the highest rate in the entire country. But what is worrying is that 53.6% of the population of this region lives in extreme poverty, more than double the national average. The most affected are the indigenous people, who represent 93% of the entire population of Alta Verapaz. In a context like this, where, in addition, illiteracy is at 63% and the average schooling is 4 years, companies like Renace can easily penetrate the social fabric by promising jobs, even if they are precarious, and supposed improvements in their living conditions. Renace has not only equipped medical consultations in the area, but has also built multipurpose spaces, municipal fountains that do not flow water or churches where assemblies are held, precisely, to organize resistance to the hydroelectric plant.

The Human Rights Ombudsman (PDH) is the state institution in charge of protecting human rights in Guatemala. The departmental delegate of this institution in Alta Verapaz, Carlos Alberto Guillermo, says that the conflicts between the Q'eqchi' population and the hydroelectric plant began when the company bought part of their land. "There was a deceptive manipulation, because they never said that they were buying the land to build a hydroelectric plant," says Guillermo. The company told them that they would use the land for what it has always been used for: to grow corn, coffee or cardamom. And, in addition, they quoted the land at prices much higher than its real value. Many people saw in the sale of the land an opportunity to escape poverty, but without knowing its consequences. "That is what I call taking advantage of poverty," says Guillermo.

The reality is that the living conditions of the communities of San Pedro Carchá have not improved since the arrival of Renace. Less than half of the population has access to water in their homes and in many cases there is not even a public water source where people can get their water. And although Alta Verapaz is the department with the most hydroelectric plants in Guatemala (there are 32), access to electricity is practically non-existent in rural areas, where 75% of the population of that region lives.

The hydroelectric plant's activity is also affecting the biodiversity of the Cahabón River, as they only allow 10% of the water to pass through the natural flow. All of this in exchange for precarious and temporary jobs that rotate among the 29 communities that exist in what the company calls its "zone of influence." Jobs such as giving directions with a banner on the dirt and stone roads of the communities of San Pedro Carchá in exchange for approximately 90 quezales a day (about 10 euros). The ARA has tried to contact Renace to get its version of the events, but there has been no response. However, the company claims on its website that it generates up to 15,000 jobs in the area and has the approval of all the communities.

The conflict is rooted in the fact that the Q'eqchi' population was not consulted on whether or not they wanted a hydroelectric plant in their communities. Convention 169 of the ILO (International Labour Organisation) establishes in its article 32 that states must consult indigenous peoples before approving any project that affects their territories, particularly if it has to do with the exploitation of natural resources. This convention, ratified by the Guatemalan state in 1996, was not complied with in the case of Renace. In 2017, Ana Rutilia filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) requesting the withdrawal of Renace for not having consulted the Q'eqchi' people. The SCJ ruled in her favour in July, but did not, however, stop the hydroelectric plant's activity.

Organizing the consultation

We accompanied Ana Rutilia to Pansamalá, the last of the communities of San Pedro Carchá, which is reached after more than four hours by car through the mountains. About 150 people from various communities are waiting for her in front of the school. Men in work clothes, women with babies in their arms, old people, boys and girls. They all wait impatiently for the good news from Ana Rutilia, who has come to explain the sentence of the CSJ, which obliges the Ministry of Energy and Mines to consult the communities that live near Renace.

But the lawyer and Q'eqchi leader is not entirely satisfied with the outcome of the legal action. "We asked for the hydroelectric projects to be suspended because the rights of the Q'eqchi' people had been violated," she stresses. As a result, Ana Rutilia filed an appeal before the Constitutional Court (CC), the highest court in the Guatemalan judiciary. In this appeal, they are asking not only for the consultation to be held, but also for Renace to stop operating. The first public hearing before the CC was held at the end of October. Ana Rutilia was accompanied by representatives of the various communities resisting the hydroelectric plant. "This is not a game," the lawyer reminds us.

Just like in Pansamalá, Ana Rutilia will hold meetings in the various communities of San Pedro Carchá during 2020. In her free time, she will visit the nearly 400 communities in the municipality to organize a consultation coordination council, with representatives from the various communities, with the aim of preventing the government and the company from organizing the consultation in their own way, as has happened on other occasions. "We will design it and decide who will sit at the table," says the Q'eqchi' leader.

In these meetings, Ana Rutilia takes time to answer all of the people's questions. The meetings are held in the Q'eqchi' language, but in all of them some words in Spanish can be distinguished, protection, supreme court, and Florentino Perez, who people from all these communities point to as the culprits of the construction of this hydroelectric plant. "What is at stake here is the life, not only of human beings, but of all the Q'eqchi' people," concludes the indigenous leader.

*This report is part of the project 'Water is life', by AlterNativa Exchange with Indigenous Peoples, and has received support from the DevReporter 2019 Grant, funded by the European Union's Frame, Voice, Report! project, Barcelona City Council and the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation.