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Article

25 Apr 2017

Author:
EFE, Al Día News

A Guatemalan indigenous land rights activist wins the Goldman Environmental Prize

…Indigenous leader Rodrigo Tot told EFE in an interview that "I feel happy as a leader of my community because I know that through our struggle we will achieve our goal," adding that despite the threats against his family, seemingly a permanent part of his life, he will never be intimidated…A man of few words but sharp and to the point in his speech, Tot, who never received a formal education and who learned to speak Spanish listening to others, recalled how government officials and executives of Hudbay Minerals, the company that operates the Fenix nickel mine, never spoke with the indigenous community.They came and got down to business. The Q'eqchi only found out about it when the miners came and went to work. The Indians saw the lands they lived off of threatened and were afraid…The Guatemalan Constitutional Court confirmed the people's right to collective ownership - between 1985-2002 they had paid 32,350 quetzals (some $4,000) for more than 1,300 hectares (3,200 acres) - and ordered the government to replace the "missing" pages in the property registry (they had been torn out) and to issue the corresponding property titles…Despite the court's decision, the government never enforced that ruling…